Soweto (Hailey)

The Desmond Tutu church

A couple of weekends ago we went to a place called Soweto. Soweto is one of the largest townships in South Africa and is located on the outskirts of Johannesburg. A township is where anybody who wasn’t white was forced to live during Apartheid. Because of various different reason; poverty, culture, and oppression, many people still live in townships. Apartheid oppressed these people to the point that even today many of them go without plumbing and electricity. AIDS and crime are some other hardships that they must deal with. We, along with our Grandma Eilert, were able to experience some eye-opening things while in Soweto.
Since Soweto is such a large and dangerous place, we knew we would need someone to show us around. One of my dad’s colleagues offered to plan and take us there. Her name is Poppy. Her husband and two children also came with us. We decided to go on a Saturday.
Now to get to Soweto, you must drive through Johannesburg, which is one of South Africa’s largest cities. Skyscrapers, malls, and bridges were all we could see from the highway. On the highway, there were BMW’s and Mercedes. Clearly we were driving through a 1st world country. And then the scenery started changing. Once we exited off of the highway, there was such a difference between Johannesburg and Soweto. There was a little bit more trash on the streets, and especially more people. But the biggest difference was the housing. Everywhere around us there was some type of housing. Many areas were covered with Informal Settlements. That is the name for housing when people don’t own the land, but instead just set up their house. These houses aren’t really houses. They really are just five pieces of corrugated steel put together to make a home. There are also regular houses. Some of those houses sometimes have corrugated steel homes in their yards. They earn some extra money by renting out the land. Other than that, the traffic was very crazy. A lot of the people unfortunately were on their way to funerals. The AIDS epidemic takes so many lives every week that Saturdays are spent at funerals. It was like a whole new world.

There were paintings of Mandela all over Soweto

After driving for a while, we reached a church where we had planned on going. I don’t know the real name for the church. I just know that it was where Desmond Tutu preached, and peacefully fought apartheid. Next we visited an orphanage where Poppy used to work. It was a very nice orphanage. There was plenty of room and it was very clean. We got to go into where the youngest children lived and played. I became the new toy because I would lift the kids so that they could touch the ceiling. They loved it so much and I ended up doing that almost the whole time we were there. My mom always had a baby in her arms and I know that she would love to adopt while we are here. However my dad does not agree. After waving good –bye to all of the beautiful kids we left. The playground at the orphanage

A big marketplace was the next thing that we visited. It is named after Walter Sisulu was the It Vendors sell their goods and people do their shopping at this place. We got out and walked around. We even bought some naartjies, which are like oranges. It was such a colorful and eventful place. The Walter Sisulu Market

The big highlight of the trip was to see the famous Nelson Mandela home. It is located right near Orlando, Soweto. Mandela actually didn’t spend much time in his home, because he was in jail. Still it represents him and how much he has done for this country. My Grandma Eilert especially loved it. She has always been interested in South African politics and has always supported Nelson Mandela. I don’t think that she ever expected to come to Africa and see his home. Because we live here, we have given her an opportunity to come and see everything that she has heard about. I know that she loved her visit here so much. We were able to get a tour of the house and also see many awards and letter that were written to Nelson Mandela. His home has been turned into a museum. On the exact same street as Mandela’s house, Desmond Tuto’s home also resides. He actually still owns it and some of his family still lives there. That street is the only street in the whole world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners lived.

Everyone at the Nelson Mandela House

Right before lunch we stopped at a memorial to honor Hector Peterson. Hector Peterson was killed in movement against Afrikaans schooling. During apartheid, all of the school children in South Africa had to do school in Afrikaans. On June 16, 1976, many people held a protest against this. Police officers tried to stop this and while doing that, some people were killed. Hector Peterson was a young boy who was accidentally shot and killed. He was the first one to get killed and also to be photographed. The picture of him is very famous. Even today, June 16 is celebrated as youth day in honor of all the people who protested that day. The famous picture of Hector Peterson

Lunch was at a fantastic place in Johannesburg. It was called Moyo. It is a really good place to get a good African experience. The food was absolutely delicious and we have even gone there a second time we liked it so much. We got our faces painted like traditional Xhosa people. It was so much fun. The decorating of the restaurant was so artsy and African. We are hoping to design our new home using some ideas we gained from Moyo.
The last stop of the Soweto tour was the apartheid museum. It was also located in Johannesburg. The coolest experience ever happened right before we entered. A big group of school kids were entering at the same time as us. Apparently we still stand out as Americans because they immediately asked us if we were Americans. Once we replied, “Yes” they just started jumping up and down and shouting, “OBAMA, OBAMA, OBAMA!!” We love him so much too that we cheered along with them, and then proceeded to the museum. Everyone got a card that decided what color we were. I stayed white, but others in our group switched colors. Depending on our color, we all went into separate entrances and got to experience a little bit of how people felt just because of the color of their skin. Eventually we came together again and proceeded to tour the museum. It is so large that we actually only had time to see part of the Nelson Mandela exhibit, which is just a small portion of the museum.
Overall, we loved the day so much. We were able to learn so much history of this country and also get to spend time with Poppy and her family. Not only did we learn about the past, we also learned about the issues that still are in this country and where they came from. I really enjoyed the day and will never forget all the wonderful things that we were able to see. They will be in my memory forever.

These smokestacks are famous landmarks in Soweto