Soweto

The last two days have been so full, it’s hard to believe that I’ve only been here for 48 hours. Most of our time has been spent in Soweto (South Western Townships). We drove through many of the townships, and I was struck by the differences within. There are some homes that are really nice, with big houses, fancy brick driveways, well maintained yards which were built to show the outside world that conditions in the townships were not terrible. In other places though, there are old, rundown buildings, and homes without running water or plumbing. The contrasts are evident in Soweto.

January 17, 2011
We visited Regina Mundi Catholic Church, which is the largest Catholic church in Soweto. During some of the uprisings in Soweto, Africans sought refuge in the church and were followed and attacked by police with tear gas and bullets. There are portions of the church where you can still see bullet holes, and other places that are destroyed from these actions.

During the afternoon we visited the Hector Peterson Museum and Nelson Mandela’s house in Soweto. The Hector Peterson Museum commemorates the 1976 student uprisings, when thousands of students in Soweto marched in protest of being forced to learn in Afrikaans. The protest turned violent though, and several students were killed and injured. Hector Peterson was the first casualty, and there is an iconic picture of him being carried away. His sister, who was also on the march and was next to Hector when he was killed spoke to us about her experiences during the uprisings. After looking around at the museum for about 1 ½ hours, we walked to Nelson Mandela’s house in Soweto, which has been turned into a national memorial. The house was really small, and had been turned back into the condition it was when he lived there. Both Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela had been under house arrest at different times while living there, and it was hard to imagine being confined to such small quarters for such a long amount of time. On our walk to the Mandela house a couple of young kids came over to our very conspicuous group (23 American students walking down the street tend to attract a lot of attention) and gave some people hugs, and sang a song, and it was kind of cool to get to interact with some people. But as we were turning the corner one of them started asking us for money. I’ve never really had that kind of experience before, with being directly asked for money, and it brought up lots of different thoughts and emotions.

The last stop of the day was to take pictures of the soccer stadium at Nasrec (part of Soweto). It’s the biggest soccer stadium in South Africa, and the 2010 World Cup finals were held there. It’s so big! The design is really cool, and I would post a picture if the internet was faster. Also, it poured all night, and there was thunder, and it’s been cooler than I thought it would be. Not cold by any means, but cool and windy.

January 18, 2011
Our day started with a visit to St. Martin’s semi-private school in Soweto. It has one of the highest matriculation rates in Soweto, and is semi-private because it is partially subsidized by the state, but run and partially funded by the Catholic church. We split into groups and were shown around by a few grade 12 students, who referred to themselves as “the geniuses.” It was kind of awkward to walk into these classrooms, interrupting their lessons, and then be told to introduce ourselves and answer any questions that the students had for us. It was a lot less awkward when we sat down with smaller groups of students to talk to them, but it was still just an unsettling experience to sit in each of these classrooms for 5 to 10 minutes, talking with about ten students at a time about life in America. I feel like I can now understand more being in this position, because in high school I was always on the flip side, being the one in class asking the questions. But it was still just unsettling to be in a class for a few minutes and then move on to the next class. The questions the students asked ranged from serious to entertaining. What celebrities do you know? How is America? (Because that question has such a simple answer) What is your career going to be? What should I study if I want to go to law school? What do you like about South Africa so far? What languages do you speak? Many of the students were especially interested in what languages I knew, probably because most of them are fluent in at least three languages (English, Zulu, Tutsi), and I was just struck again by how in the U.S. it is still pretty rare to find people who are fluent in even two languages, much less the five or six that one of my guides knew. The grade 9 students were very entertained by my attempts to teach them some basic Spanish. I was also struck by how much many of the students already knew what they wanted to study or do with their lives. It wasn’t just the superficial dreams of a little kid who wants to be a star athlete, they knew what they were going to study and what they are going to do with their lives, and again it almost made me feel inadequate, because I am a junior in college and I still don’t really know what I’m going to do in terms of a career, but these high school students had it all planned out. My group also sat in on a short geography class. Afterwards we talked to the teacher for a couple minutes, and found out that she teaches grade 10 geography, grade 12 geography, English, and religious education. This was a definite contrast to high schools in the U.S. where teachers, at most, teach two different subjects.

After visiting St. Martin’s we visited Kliptown and Freedom Square, where the Freedom Charter was adopted. During our short tour of Kliptown we learned more about anti-privatization groups and how they are fighting to end the commodification of basic services. Many of the homes we drove past only had pit toilets, and don’t have access to much water.

Other thoughts for the day:
• There is a 7 to 11 supermarket near the guesthouse where we are staying. It’s literally open from 7 am to 11 pm.
• There are abortion flyers on the telephone poles everywhere. They’re the flyers that have the tear-off phone number at the bottom, but are for abortions.
• I’ve discovered that I am continually comparing my experiences in South Africa so far with my experiences in Trinidad. It’s been a much easier transition to driving on the left side of the road. Coombies, our transportation here, are almost exactly like maxis. I’m always comparing the houses and the landscape and the way people talk, and noticing the places where there are differences but also the places where there are strong similarities. I’m also finding that traveling is a lot less stressful when you’ve done it before.
• We went for an after dinner walk tonight, and the sunset was so beautiful! My first African sunset.
• In the courtyard of the guesthouse we are staying at there are all these little snails that crawl around on the bricks. They are interesting little creatures!

It's been an eventful couple of days, and the rest of the week should be just as busy!