Getting in with the locals....
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2003
1
16
76
Trip End
Jun 04, 2004
Soweto,
South Africa
Sunday, October 5, 2003
I guess I expected Soweto to be pretty run down and poverty stricken - certainly the TV images I remember seeing at the time of the end of apartheid painted a pretty grim picture. But when we entered through the upper class district, I was pretty surprised. Lots of suburban houses which wouldn't look at all out of place around an English village green (apart of course from the brick walls, razor wire, and armed guard signs, which you don't find in most rural villages....)
We drove on through rows of houses, until we got to a very bustling market near the hospital in Soweto - the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere
Welcomed as a regular
. The market was an education in itself!! We stopped at the stall of the medicine woman, with all sorts of roots and tree barks and all sorts of other things I didn't recognise. They persuaded us to try the aptly named "black mixture" - some black goo out of a plastic bottle, which seems to be a bit of a cure all... It tasted absolutely vile! When you first put it into your mouth, it was absolutely fine - didn't really taste of anything, but then you had to swallow. YUK! It was incredibly bitter, like the taste of tree bark... Not pleasant. I obviously made a face because the women around nearly fell over laughing!!Next stop was a shebeen, a kind of makeshift pub. We were welcomed in, and they insisted we had to try some of the local beer, even though it was only 10am! The beer is made from Sogum wheat, and tastes really quite odd... It's kind of like beer milkshake!! There's a definite beer taste, but the texture is quite milky, and it's quite sweet. Very odd. Couldn't have managed more than a mouthful, but they were more than happy to finish the rest of the litre we'd just bought! I was beginning to think we'd never escape because the people were so friendly, wanting to know where we were from, and telling us all sorts of things about Soweto now and in the past.
But we did eventually manage to get away, and headed off into the more middle class areas. Here, the houses are medium sized, with about 4-5 rooms, but the odd thing is the tin shacks in the yard - they rent out the space in their yards for about R60 a month. Other families then live in shacks in this space. This was nothing however compared with the lower class areas - where there was just row upon row of ramshackle corrugated iron shacks, grouped around a communal tap and portaloo. They have absolutely no electricity. It is such a contrast from so many of the houses I've seen throughout south africa - and even in Soweto. But it is heartening that there are some areas where conditions are so much better, so there are signs of change.
Next stop was the area of Soweto called Orlando West, where Nelson Mandela lived before his imprisonment. We turned down his street, which is also home to Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2 Nobel Peace Prize winners in the same street) and stopped at his house, which is now a museum. It was really interesting to go in, mainly because of the stories of the guide, and his perspective on the changes occuring in South Africa, and the progress being made.
The tour was a great way to round off this trip to South Africa - and left me with so many more places I want to visit next time I come back. For now though, it's off to Australia and the World Cup.....!!
