Soweto Township

Power Plant in Soweto
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Our day began with a visit to the Apartied Museum.  After catching a taxi there with Brenda and Pascal from Australia, we entered into a powerful portrait of the black struggle, civil rights movement, and all the horror and violence that came with it.  The museum is an important one to see, and also served as our introduction into the Soweto township for which we would be doing a tour of following the museum.  The museum helped to explain why Soweto was so important and had a temporary exhibit of the Soweto Uprising that consisted of amazing photography that captured the violence of that day in 1976.  While unsettling, it showed how Soweto, and more importantly, Soweto's youth, played a key role in the fight against the Apartied.

Wendy and Tovah with Grandma Elizabeth in her home in Soweto
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Our tour guide, Max, picked the four of us up and took us to the township where we could see how far Soweto has come and how massive the area is that it covers.  There are now big houses which we were told football players live, right next to areas consisting of shacks (i.e. mud walls with tin roofs and no electricity).  From the second we entered into Soweto we stuck out!  Even driving by in a car, the residents would stop what they were doing to stare at us.  This was most apparent when we were walking through 'markets' where the locals would sell fruit, ect. as we were not only the only white people, but clearly tourists with our backpacks and other such red flags.  The kids there were very friendly and would wave to us as we passed by in the car (some even running after the car waving).

Wendy, Pascal and Brenda having a drink at the local Shabeen
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We were taken to 'Grandma Elizabeth's' shack which was barely big enough to fit the four of us in, yet we were welcomed anyway.  Grandma Elizabeth was a very sweet woman who shares her shack and one bed with two grandchildren who were not there as they went to her sister's house for the weekend (her sister has electricity and therefore they can watch TV).  She claims to be an uneducated woman but proved to be very wise and open-minded.

Our next stop was the Hector Peterson Museum.  Hector was the first child to be killed in the Soweto Uprising.  The museum paid tribute to Hector and all those whose lives were taken tragically.

Our last stop was at a local shebeen (like an outside bar) where we had a few drinks before heading back.

When we got back we saw the Baz Bus was parked outside.  The Baz Bus is a system of transportation that takes you from your hostel in one part of South Africa to the hostel you are staying at in the next part of South Africa you are visiting.  Its the hop on hop off system that will eventually bring us to Capetown.  Unfortunately, the bus that we were meant to 'hop on' the next morning had broken down outside of our hostel, and would therefore call upon the necessary "backpacker patience" as we would have to wait until a new bus was driven to Johannesburg to to take us to our next stop....the Kingdom of Swaziland.