African Adventure - The FINAL Installment

Our last morning in South Africa began with Paul's allergic reaction and their decision to stay behind while Liz and I went ahead with the Soweto tour. Soweto (which stands for South West Township) is one of the sprawling townships associated with Johannesburg. You can read more about it here. It has been the site of decades of racial and social injustice, violent crime, dire poverty and also a birthplace for much of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Furthermore, Soweto has long been considered a dangerous place for whites, but in recent years an entire tourism industry has developed in Soweto that caterers to (mostly white, I imagine) tourists and others who wish to know more about apartheid.

We booked our tour with a man named Max who was a long-time Soweto resident and tour guide, and he picked us up at our Bed and Breakfast a few minutes early and hurried us onto the bus. He was a bit confused and dismayed that Paul and JoAnna were not with us, but we explained the situation and felt like he understood why they had to cancel. We took our seats on the bus along with a family from Australia, and got ready for our tour.

The drive to Soweto took less than a half an hour and we could see the sprawling township spreadout before us as we approached via the highway. Diving off the highway into the vastness of the township, we made our first stop at an open-air market of sorts, and got out of the bus to walk around a bit. There were many goods for sale, along with the ubiquitous roasting corn, but I was most interested in the butchery we saw. Rather than slicing off New York strips or filets, the butchers were working over cow heads - meticulously separating the eyeballs into a pile, so that they could carve off what meat remained on the head.













(Notice the eyeballs to the left.)

We were soon herded back onto the bus, and wound our way through the streets of Soweto as our guide told us that things were getting much better in the township. Roads were being paved, electricity and water were becoming increasingly available to the residents, and at last the people were allowed to own the property in which they lived. This final improvement had led to a rather interesting development. Many of those who owned their homes and small plots of property had chosen to actually erect shanties in their small yards, which they would then rent out to those that could not afford property. The result looked like a small suburb in which nicer homes, were surrounded by corrugated tin and clapboard shacks - with sometimes 3 or 4 being squeezed onto the property.














(Typical Soweto house, but without the shanties)




















(A small girl peers out at us from within a shanty)














(At least 2 shanties occupy this space)

After a few minutes of taking in the neighborhood, we stopped at a resident's home, and Max let us out to go visit. We were greeted by an elderly lady with a wide smile who welcomed us into her home.













Known as Magogo - a term of respect meaning "grandmother" - she spoke of her life as a servant in Johannesburg and proudly showed off her main source of decor - a wall of letters and pictures, mailed to her by tourists who had come to Soweto. She beamed with pride and instructed us to write down her address so we too could write to her and send her a picture for her wall. While we had been inside visiting, a small crowd of children had formed outside thinking that we might be a ready source of spare change or treats.















(Soweto neighborhood kids)

We made our way through the children and boarded the bus again and were guided next to the Sharpeville Massacre museum. You can read more about that here if you wish, but the event occured in 1960 when a group of White South African police opened fire on black Soweto residents resulting in 67 deaths. The museum was a stark, industrial space and the austerity helped one focus on the brutality and injustice of that historical day. The museum was situated a mere block from the point at which police opened fire on the protesters, and from its entrance we could look easily upon the site of the bloodshed.

After an hour or so in the museum we reboarded and next stopped at a catholic church that had been the site of organization for many of the anti-apartheid protests.







(A statue of Jesus with no hands. We were unsure whether the hands had been removed to make a symbolic statement.)










The tour concluded with a close-up look at two defunct nuclear cooling towers, which many Johannesburg residents view as an icon of Soweto. They were strangely daunting and simultaneously beautiful, and Liz and I were shocked as our tour guide told us of the plans to turn the old nuclear plant into a shopping mall, complete with a swimming beach on the large pond that sits at the base of the plant!



(The lake is difficult to see, but is in the foreground.)








We dropped off the Australians at their hotel and then settled in for the ride back to ours, our final adventure concluded. Max was hinting about money for most of the way back to our bed and breakfast, and there were a few words exchanged regarding the cancellation as I paid him the agreed upon fee. Luckily words were the extent of our altercation, and we went our separate ways - Liz and I to find Paul and JoAnna and hear of their wild day, Max off in his van to presumably guide another group of tourists the next day.

We spent the next couple of hours packing our bags with no mean level of creativity. We had three bottles of wine to bring back, and we had to make sure they wouldn't break. Plus, we had several wood carvings to protect. The biggest challenge, however, was figuring out a way to pack our 3 jamboks so that we could carry the bag on the plane. What problem might a jambok pose, you ask?

Well, what the Basotho call a jambok, we call a pony whip, and the Basotho make them out of melting down old plastic shopping bags. The result is a five foot, tapered whip of plastic, that they paint in spiralling colors. They make your pony go faster, and in the event that you don't have a pony, they make excellent wall art. Some day when we have a house, please come visit and we'll show them to you!

We'll leave you with our "picture of the trip" - that is, one of our favorite portraits of someone we met along the way. The photo below happens to be a young girl in Soweto who insisted with a giant smile "picture me! picture me!" and as soon as we agreed, she instantly dropped her grin for a serious look - refusing to smile for us again.




















We still have tons of photos and stories to share, so when you're in the mood for a vicarious adventure, let us know!