Soweto!

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sawubona!!! (that'd be hello in zulu!)

2nd Feb, Soweto

Hello again!!! Where did i leave you guys? Oh yeah, hung-over! Or at least Becky was. That was how she spend most of the day, so we took it easy, kicking back in the gardens under the shade of a big old tree. I took my camera out to try and get some photographs of the birds, they are quick little buggers though! Managed to catch the sun a little more than i would have liked, forgot about the back of my neck when i was getting busy with the sun cream. As the sun set we headed out into Hyde Park for Chinese takeaway (some habits you just can’t kick!) it was awesome, and less than £2! I spent the evening reading a Danny Wallace book; ‘Journey to the Centre of the Universe’ which was brilliant. Some crazy major in Idaho decided that if scientists can’t prove where the centre of the ever expanding universe is, he would just say it was a manhole cover in his town and they couldn’t prove him wrong!
Monday we woke early and headed south out of Jo’B into the township of Soweto to set up camp in the backpackers lodge. This is way more like it, this is the Africa you see in the news, shanty towns with corrugated roofs as far as you can see. There’s 4 million people here, in what we could consider complete poverty, still blossoming from the end to apartheid.
The lodge is run by a young group of people who love their hip-hop and reggae. Perfect! The sofa’s have zebra and cheetah skin throws over them and there’s traditional instruments piled in the corner. I do love the marimba, i don’t know how I’d get one home, but I would love to! There’s a hammock too, and a help yourself bar!
I wandered out into the yard and found an old Rasta guy playing a guitar with three strings, he introduced me to the South African Handshake. You start as you would a normal handshake, then slide up and wrap your fingers around each other’s thumbs, then slide back off each other’s fingertips. Cool, huh? Anyways, I got chatting to this old guy who told me he had a guitar back at his place, if we went to get it we could jam. So off we went through the township. It’s such a beautiful place, though maybe not in an obvious way. Children run around the streets playing with tyres and sticks and old folks sit outside bars that are not a lot more than a shack, they call them shebeens. There are no shops as such, people just sell fruit from their gardens. Everyone seems so happy though, and everywhere is so colourful. Everyone says hello, shakes hands and comes along for a bit of the journey to talk to you. Everyone knows everyone, guys are brother s and women are sisters, people shout from every direction, thumping their hearts and raising their fists. Those who knew my new friend shouted ‘Rastafari!!’ and ‘Bless-sed!!’
We arrived at his home, where he lived with his aunt, nephew, neice and two children. The whole family made me welcome, sat me down and told tales of the town. The aunt was so old she had to crawl on her hands and knees and she spoke no English. Actually she was the first person i’ve come across who hasn’t. The way back was as friendly as the way there, but in the 2 or 3 miles we must have walked i was the only white person! No-one seemed to care though, again the reputation this place has is miles from the reality.
Back at the backpackers, me and the rasta (i never learnt his name) sat on the benches by the side of the road, playing each other songs and tapping out beats with stones on the benches. Within a couple of minutes we were surrounded by children clambering all over the bench (and us) to listen. They were fascinated by my tattoo, grabbing my arm and pulling my sleeve up. They were so confident and friendly, you couldn’t help but be a little bit in love with the whole moment. My guitar styling are a little more folk than reggae but a Bob Marley cover was a guaranteed winner and we all sang Redemption Song, even the folks who worked at the lodge came outside to sing along.
Look up the Lodge in the guides and it is listed for its food as well as its hospitality. Dinner was a beef stew, three bean salad, mashed butternut and fried cabbage. It was so good!!!! You’d have paid £40 for a meal that good back home! It cost us a little over £3!

In other news, checking my email in the last few days I’ve noticed the UK is having headlines like; ‘Britain Prepares for Arctic Storm’ and the like. Also the Radio here has mentioned the snow. All i have to say is HA! It’s so hot here, it’s beautiful! It’s warm and light late in to the evening. Can’t say I’m disappointed about missing the snow. Gareth, I’m guessing the picture message you sent me was of the snow? Thanks for the idea man, but roaming charges outside Europe are £6 per Megabyte. I didn’t fancy paying £20 to see it! Sorry bro! E-mail me! [e-mail]

4th Feb, Soweto

Hey again, i realise you’re getting this all as one blog, but i wrote that last bit 2 days ago!
Yesterday we rented bicycles from the backpackers and got a guided tour of Soweto, learned of it’s history and how apartheid shaped its infrastructure and its people. I’ll not give you the history lesson, but google ‘soweto,’ it’s fascinating stuff. The tour took us into the shebeens to try the local beer, which was pretty horrendous, but is brewed and drank in the same day, it doesn’t keep so it is always fresh. They drink it in gallons too, rather than pints, we must have been served in 5 litre plastic pots! Again my tattoo got quite a bit of attention, one guy asked if i was born like this! The folks in the bar wanted to know what it meant, which i hadn’t thought about in a long time. The Buddha symbolises taking wisdom from earth, water, wind and fire, and the lotus flowers symbolise something beautiful growing in even the worst conditions. It seems a pretty good place to have remembered that.
The tour continued past Nelson Mandela’s first home, Bishop Desmont Tutu’s home and the home of the girl who originally sang that song from the lion king....’in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...’ as we rode along the local children finished school and would run along side us as we cycled by, they were a little amazed to see white people apparently. They touched our skin to make sure we were real.
The most interesting bit of the tour was the Hector Peiterson memorial park. The story goes that during apartheid the government decided all black people (who had to attend black schools) would sit exams in Afrikaans, rather than English. Students organised a peaceful protest, the plan being to meet at some place and head to the police station with a petition. The police got a tip-off and met the students. The police were outnumbered and eventually opened fire on the high school students. Hector Peiterson was 12 when he was shot by the police. The memorial symbolises the tears of the parents that lost children that day, the blood of the children symbolised by water running into the pool. Pretty touching stuff.
We were also introduced to Bunnychow, though that may not be how you spell it. Its basically a quarter loaf of bread the insides scooped out, filled with fries, meat, cheese and pickles, then the top put on. You eat it like a burger!

We arrived back at the backpackers to find the Rasta guy was back again, again with his guitar. We spent the night sat around the fire playing songs. There were 2 guitars, a djembe, marimba’s, maracas, a buffalo drum and all sorts of percussion bits. We passed them round, singing songs or just making them up. There were probably ten of us playing instruments. It was probably the highlight so far, to take a step back and enjoy the moment. We played late into the night, only stopping so the Belgians could go to sleep. Miserable sods!
Today (4th) we visited the Apartheid Museum, up towards Jo’B. Taxi’s are horrifically expensive but there are minibus taxi’s that cost next to nothing and are everywhere. There’s no formal system for them though, you don’t know where they are going and there are no stops. There are hand signals to stop one, but you have to know the difference between pointing up, down and forward, then how many fingers to use.....? You feel a bit like one of those daft guys behind the batter in baseball. Anyway, we negotiated the taxi’s there and back, though we weren’t exactly successful getting back. The driver got all the way to the end of his route and we were still sat there. We had missed the hostel by miles! He took us back, which was nice of him! Can’t imagine a bus driver doing that at home really!
The Museum itself was very interesting and a little sobering. There’s not a lot nice to say about apartheid, the more you learn the more horrendous it is. Strange that they don’t teach us this stuff in school. The footage of Nelson Mandela being released from prison was incredibly uplifting.
After the museum Rebecca went for a nap and i went for a wander with my camera, i wanted a fancy shot of the train, slow shutter speeds and all. I clambered up the bank and across the tracks, set up the camera, had the remote ready to get the pic. No trains. There’s only so long you can stand on train tracks before you start to look a little daft. I gave up. Then the trains came. Poo.
Wandering a little further all loads of children came out to see the camera. They shout ‘shoot, shoot’ so you take their picture. Then they took the camera off me and ran around shooting each other. At first it’s a little hard to relax when there’s fifteen kids fighting over £1000 of your camera equipment, but they were having so much fun! They brought out footballs and toys to show off. They all seem to love posing for the camera! I joined in for a few pics too, seemed silly not too!

5th Feb, Johannesburg.

Back up North in Jo’B again, little bit sad to have left Soweto. Had to head back up here to get picked up for the safari in Kruger. Becky has spent the afternoon in bed, i wandered a few miles down the main road into the city, to a place called Zoo Lake. It’s a lake opposite Jo’B Zoo, coincidentally. It’s a beautiful spot, almost unbelievable to find it in the city. I walked around the lake with my camera and met a local guy who told me what birds where what. I found a restaurant that gets really good reviews too, so i’ll have to drag Rebecca down there when we’re here again. I thought about checking out the zoo too since i was there but it seemed like cheating when we’re going on safari tomorrow!
Will catch you guys when we’re back in the city, should have some photographs to make you pretty jealous! Ha!

Loads of love
x

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Photos

Soweto!
the happiest place i know!

rasta man!
my new friend

hello from soweto
found these guys whilst out on the tour

some new friends
the friendly kids of soweto, they took my camera for about an hour!

a shebeen
shebeen! the pub! about a 6x4 tin box with no electric. you get your beer from a shed outside!

hector peiterson memorial, soweto
the memorial for hector peiterson, a 12 year old shot by the police during peacful protests.

street market
these are on every corner!

Comments

[sam (the cool one)]

woooooowh
wooooooooooooooooooooooowh Pete, how black do you look!! ahahawhaha xxxx