South Africa - Sweating to get to Soweto

December 18-20

Hello everyone!

I spent a while looking at options for Christmas 2021. Having spent last festive season in Malawi, I was looking to go somewhere else. Travelling somewhere else in Africa, returning to the UK, venturing somewhere truly crazy…

Artwork in Soweto

After a lot of research, mostly finding out that trips weren’t happening due to Covid, I found an amazing adventure in Botswana. The country I was originally going to explore in April 2020. 

Zambia sits between Botswana and Malawi

Then we all learnt a new letter of the Greek alphabet.

I'd never heard of that letter until a month ago

Omicron’s arrival meant things changed quickly. On December 6th, my trip was cancelled. Botswana was about to get a lot tricker to traverse. By this time other options were already limited, particularly as the variant supposedly originated in southern Africa. Countries across the world slapped travel bans on Botswana, South Africa…and, eventually, Malawi.

This happened when Malawi had daily
Covid number of less than 10

Bad email

Southern African countries weren’t happy about this. In my mind, that meant that they wouldn’t close their own borders. So I decided to go to South Africa anyway. This decision was vindicated in my eyes when my Botswana adventure was resurrected a couple of days later. 

Good email

Three days in Johannesburg followed. I’ve been to South Africa’s largest city once before, back in 2017. I spent time hiding until my PCR test was done (a world away from Malawi, someone drove to the AirBnB and administered it in the boot of the car!). 

Mask wearing is a strong part
of SA's Covid response

I spent the rest of that day doing things that I cannot do in Malawi: getting a Starbucks, going to the cinema, using unlimited internet. Fine for a day, but tedious after that. I wanted to see something new so decided to go to one place I didn’t get to on my previous visit: Soweto.

Sandton City Mall - my second home
during my time in Jozi

Soweto stands for SOuth WEst TOwnships. It’s a large area, far bigger than I expected. It is also densely populated, with over 3 million people residing in what is essentially a suburb of greater Johannesburg. 

Central Soweto is about 20km from central Joburg 

It was first called Soweto regularly in the 1960s

Soweto has had a bit of a reputation in years gone by. It was the most infamous settlement in South Africa during the apartheid regime, even though the first people were forcibly moved here - and away from the centre of Joburg - in 1904. 

The first settlement was due to an
outbreak of bubonic plague in a mine

Market stall in Kliptown

Some of Soweto is still desperately poor. The first place I visited was Kliptown, where most live in ramshackle and cramped structures. People stay there as they don’t have to pay rent, and many illegally syphon electricity. I was told that some in the area use the city’s recycling plan as a means of income…by stealing metal from structures such as train tracks and step rails to then ‘recycle’. It makes the Hotel Soweto seem even more out of place, although it inadvertently is providing power for some in the community.

Houses in Kliptown: ramshackle

Hotel Soweto was built for the 2010 World
Cup, and is now very rarely used

Kliptown has a square dedicated to Walter Sisulu, an anti-apartheid crusader who spent a lot of time on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and others. Many people met here in 1955 and created the Freedom Charter, a set of ideas and statements which wildly differed from the reality of the apartheid regime. The Charter is seen by some as the basis of South Africa’s current constitution.

Each statue represents one of the ideas

Ideas included governance by the people and
a sharing of the country's wealth

Soweto is internationally known due to an uprising which started here in June 1976. A gathering to express grievances about Afrikaans being introduced as the compulsory language for many school subjects. The memorial square below is where many met.

The memorial sqaure is in Orlando West 

The white police were there to meet them. A police dog was let out on the protestors. It ended up dead. Over 60 Soweto residents met the same fate.

Artwork at the Hector Pieterson Memorial

The memorial is named after Hector Pieterson, the youngest person to die on that day. The picture of his dead body being carried away was leaked to international media. Severe sanctions on the apartheid regime followed. 

This day, June 16, is now Youth Day

The racial separation policy’s most famous attacker, and now South Africa’s most famous person, lived here for a while, on Vilakazi Street. Nelson Mandela lived here from 1946 until he went underground in 1961 to source military support for his resistance plan. His destination soon after was Robben Island.

The house was set on fire twice

Bullet holes are visible on the outside of the house 

Mandela’s house is now a museum dedicated to his struggle, his achievements and his legacy. 

Mandela called himself David when trying to
escape South Africa in the early 1960s

A certificate from the State of Michigan

Vilakazi Street is apparently the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners have lived. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, currently 90 years young, moved here in the 1970s. His house is not a museum, as some of his relatives live there. My guide told me that he visits from time to time, and is a ‘very hilarious’ person.

NB This was written before he died but published after his death at the end of December 2021.

Vilakazi Street in Soweto

The plaque shows you the location of the house

My tour unfortunately didn’t go to the Orlando Towers, the cooling towers from a decommissioned power plant which host Africa’s largest mural and a bridge from which you can bungee jump. Not that I had any intention of jumping!

The plant was closed in 1998

A painting of the towers I found in a bathroom

Another massive structure in Soweto (it apparently is seen as the divide between Soweto and Joburg) is the FNB Stadium. Known locally as Soccer City, you may know it as the host stadium of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final. Holding a whopping 95,000 people, it is clearly visible from much of Soweto and a source of pride. It also hosts international concerts.

It was also the site of Mandela's first speech in
Joburg after his 1990 release from prison

The stadium is one example of how Soweto itself is becoming increasingly divided. Whilst there are poor and quite dangerous areas like Kliptown, there are also increasingly middle-class neighbourhoods which people feel comfortable and happy to live in and visit. 

A bit different to the houses seen in Kliptown!

People get money from recycling

Soweto’s history is inextricably linked to apartheid. It was an interesting reminder of South Africa’s brutal past, and worth a day of a visitor’s time. A very different, and far richer, cultural experience than watching Spiderman in the cinema after drinking a caramel waffle latte!

Love you all,

Matt