Soweto Township Tour

One of the best things we did while in Johannesburg was to go on a guided tour through Soweto Township. Having just experienced the Apartheid Museum it really gave a historical context to what we were seeing. Our guide was the amazing… a woman about our age who lived in Soweto until recently.

What to say about that tour? Well, as I’m writing this several days (and many towns later) I can say the poverty and housing situations are not limited to the bigger cities in the North East area of the country but they seem to have more of it. I also want to make it clear that I only photographed the novel/interesting stuff. The grocery stores, lower middle class looking neighborhoods (where Archbishop Desmond Tutu still lives omg) I didn't photograph. But there are there and in full use. Soweto was a crappy place to live, now tourism may be turning it around.

So let's see some touristy things....

The row houses you see in this picture are former miners houses from earlier in the 1900s.












Now you see the inspiration for the quilt to the right. : )

Men from neighboring countries would come in on the train and work the mines all over South Africa so you see these houses outside of many former mining towns. They aren’t too different from the houses near our house in Gaborone but, lined up as they are, it’s clear they were meant to be temporary dorms rather than neighborhoods. Since the 90s many of those houses have been turned over to the occupants after it was discovered that the cumulative rent paid is many more times what the land is worth now. So that's good.

And now KIDS!!! We went into the neighborhood you see in the pic above and visited an orphanage. They sang for us and smiled for our pictures
Orphanages and day care facilities are important in townships because honestly suffice to say, it sucks being a kid in Africa and these facilities keep them safe during the day. At night time they stay with people in the community who are paid to take care of them. We gave the women running it a few Rand and were again on our way.

**After re-reading our tour guide’s bio, I think her tours are a major source of funding for the facility. It was cheerful, the kids were runny nosed, inquisitive and adorable. There was at least one sneaky on though. According to one of the other tour members, one of them stole her water bottle out of her bag. Who knows. We were fine. Speaking of bags, I didn’t sneak any kids into my backpack though was mighty tempted. They were super cute.**

From there we drove by the water towers, one now painted to reflect the area's history. Rumor has it there is a company the offers bungee jumping in them now. The tv show, The Amazing Race set up a tightrope walk between them in a recent season. We did neither of these things because, theory or law, we respect gravity.

Next a look at one of one of the more run down neighborhoods.Notice the miner’s houses in the background beyond the field.

We went into this neighborhood and were led around by a 18ish y/o girl who lives there. I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures. I’m still not comfortable taking people’s pictures and was trying not to act the awkward tourist buy snapping photo’s of people’s homes. Maybe in a trip or two. Lance on the other hand...

So the girl took us to her home. Metal sheeting walls and a dirt floor but it was tidy. Her older sister and father were also there and we talked with him about sending the older sister to college and her hopes for the future. A few more Rand to our subcontracted tour guide and we were on the road again.

At this point, I’m realizing that our tour guide is really helping a lot of people back in Soweto. It was she who continually insisted that we not just take photo’s from afar but meet the people and get to know what their lives are like. "This is not a game drive" she would say. Of course the people we are visiting get donations for their time and openness so everyone wins.

Rather tough to visit was the Hector Pieterson Memorial and museum. It was here that our tour guide told us that she was a also student at the rally Hector was killed at and was friends with his sister. Giving these tours started out as sort of a therapy for her. She said in her job she meets people who were on all sides of apartheid's history and enjoys when she can help someone get a little more closure on the issue. She talked about a retired cop who came to her in tears and told here where he had buried the body of a child 20+ years ago so she could tell the family so a proper burial could be arranged. It was sobering to say the least.

So that was Soweto. Since then we have seen similar townships around many of the cities we have seen in South Africa. They seem to be the biggest in the northeast but that could just be due to more new immigrants settling there rather then continuing south. Lance is reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography and said when Nelson was young he moved to Johannesburg to make a living. Heck, the name translates to Place of Gold in many African languages. Who could resist?