Soweto, South Africa

Our second day we took a tour of Soweto (South West Township) just outside of Johannesburg. It's actually quite well-known place, home once of Nelson Mandela & Desmund Tutu [both men have been awarded the nobel peace price and they actually live on the same street].

Our tour guides Steve & Janet!

On our tour we were able to view neighborhoods that clearly depicted the separation of not only whites and blacks, but upper class blacks, lower class blacks, and mixed races. It was very interesting (for lack of a better word) and it was also crazy to see how the government has started working to cover up some of these places with two story colorful homes - just in time for the 2010 world cup of soccer that they are hosting.

This was a nicer house for sure - although this man apparently does do a lot to help out the community and give back by using landscaping to almost create parks.

Typical "matchbox" house a family can rent-to-own from the government, it only is two rooms!



Both of these pictures show how they are trying to hide some of the old housing.

We also stopped on the road to view one of the squatter's camps and although we did not go in (which I was actually glad - it was just too invasive) it is by far some of the poorest conditions I've ever seen people actually living in.


Debri on the roof helpf to keep it attached when strong winds come!

Our tour continued to a museum there depicting many events in the abolishment of aparteid, emphasizing mostly a protest march of students for the removal of the Africaans language (70% Dutch, 20% German, 10% mixed languages) in their classes. These originally peaceful march turned violent when police officers felt threatened and some even opened fire into the crowds. One boy who died that day named Hector Petersen is who the museum is named after and the weeks following this event were choatic and filled with many more deaths. This event actually recieved a lot of coverage worldwide and was an ignitor of the fight for equal rights among the black population in South Africa.
This event was captured by a photographer, Hector age 13 died that day - the boy who picked his body up to carry him home eventually ran away and was never seen again - and Hector's sister Annette lives in Soweto today and we actually met her at the museum while we were there, hard to remember that the history of this country is still so recent and most of the people that will be recorded for history are still alive today. Thanks to a lot of courage South Africa is working to really achieve it's potential!