FEELING GO
(REMEMBER: IF YOU'RE MENTIONED BY NAME ITS COS I LOVE YOU DEARLY. IF YOU'RE NOT, ITS ONLY TO PROTECT MYSELF IN THE LIBEL COURT)
I left the wilderness behind for a short stay in Johannesburg. One of the spillovers of Jo'burg is Soweto. Soweto stands for South West Township. Its the birthplace of the uprisings that led to the abolishment of Apartheid. The image most folk get of it is a of a chaotic expanse of corrugated steel shack shanty towns patrolled by gangs of violent rioters, and since I didn't know any better, I took a trip there.
My guide, whose name sounded like "Neo" was a resident of Soweto. He took me and another couple of chaps to one of the biggest shake-ups to my preconceptions: the millionaire's area of Soweto. Compare and contrast that to the shanty town called "Mandelaville" we visited after.
The shanty town was a curious place. People were living and working in the rabbit warren of streets and lean-to shacks. I found it to be a surprisingly welcoming place and not as oppressive as I'd been led to believe.
A typical shanty town street
I was taken to the Shabeen, a kind of illegal-but-everybody-turns-a-blind-eye-to-it drinking den that brews its own beer, with thoughts of hygene and quality control about as far away as the John Smith's brewery in Tadcaster, Yorkshire. The beer has a strange milky-salmon colour, has the texture of diced coconut, tastes like slighty off cider and is called something like UnComboti (if you want to pronounce it properly, make a clicking where the 'C' is). But at R5 for a huge coffee jar full, you can't complain. I had two polite sips and passed it on to my young friend pictured below.
AT THE SHABEEN
LEFT: Brewing up UnComboti, using the patented oil drum and stick method.
RIGHT: "Grab yer coat love, yer've pulled".
We also called in to visit a group of ladies at #307. I was astounded to learn that six of people ate, washed and slept in the house, which was barely bigger than a bedroom in a typical semi-detatched back home. There was only one bed which the children used. The old women slept on the floor.
NUMBER 307
LEFT: Number 307. Eye-catching, eh?
RIGHT: The inhabitants of 307.
What's hardest to believe is that despite the obvious poverty of the shanty town, the millionaire's housing starts quite literally across the road.
Our next stop was to one of the most unique streets in the world. Its the only street in the world to have had two Nobel Peace Prize winners living on it at the same time: Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. The Mandela Home is now a museum, and by all accounts is quite a nice little earner for Winnie Mandela, who still lives just down the road. We even caught a glimpse of her having a coffee at the cafe across from the house. I didn't stare though.
THE MANDELA HOME
LEFT: Me outside the old Mandela home.
RIGHT: One of the bullet holes left from the various attempts on the Mandela family's lives.
My Soweto experience was one of the best of my whole time away. It was amazing just to talk to people and hear there views and experiences of the uprisings and life post-Apartheid. Quite inspiring really, it just goes to show you what people can do by getting together and making a stand.