On Your Bike

Well I decided to head out on a tour of the Soweto township on my morning off, it seems ridiculous to be in a country and be protected from what it might actually be like. Yes, yes, yes, I know it's 'in the interest of our safety' but a little bit of common sense and self-awareness surely (not two words I normally associate with myself).

We're picked up and taken out to backpackers, on the journey one of the party informs us he's not feeling well and could well have Malaria, he's concerned he hasn't taken his tablets for the last few days, he's a little prone to exaggeration so we ignore him.
The township covers an area of around 140km squared and has a population somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million people. It is hidden from view in Jo'burg by a range of massive man-made mountains, they are actually deposits from the gold mines apparently, and allegedly there are plans for them to be removed. FUN FACT: Jo'burg is the only major city in the world not to be on the coast or a river and was established because of the gold.
We choose our bikes and set off, apparently a lot of the money from the tour is fed back into the community, I only hope it is, at £60 for the day it's certainly not cheap and the first part of the community we visit certainly needs it.

There was much discussion as to whether a bunch of white tourists should be paraded through a very poor area of the city where people live in tiny and filthy living conditions - the waste and effluence on the ground was disgusting. I can see the argument but I believe if people don't see this for themselves they remain ignorant to the extremes of society. That said the people are infectiously happy and smiley and they just want to say hello and shake your hand the kids are particularly sweet.
It's a shameful legacy from apartheid that such a large community still live likes this, but we're informed by the tour guide that the rate in which conditions are improving are the greatest they have ever been, things like toilets and clean water supplies - the basic things we take for granted. We are invited to look around one of the homes, it's tiny, about the size of my kitchen and at one time as many as 5 people may have lived there. There's a thick stench of pot in the air so I decide not to stick around.

Later we are offered some local brews to taste - it's a large black bowl containing a local brew, we are informed it is incredibly rude to smell something before you are offered it - I'm handed the bowl and cautiously take a sip, it's much nicer than I expect, a bit like a watered down cider, we're then told it's very weak and that you'd probably have to drink 5 litres of the stuff for it to have any kind of affect. We're then offered some meat that has been prepared for us - I'm told it's 'head of cow, not the brains or eye or anything like that, it is the cheek', I haven't the stomach for this and decline, others are more bold.

After this the tour takes us into a more middle-class areas of the township, it's almost as if they want to shock us first, we visit Mandela's house, Winnie's (Mandela not Pooh) and finally Desmond TuTu's none of them are in, shame I bought muffins and quite fancied a cuppa. Finally we're taken to a local bar for late lunch, it's the most authentic place I've been since being here, locals are sat around and it's modest and unassuming. I wish we were able to take in more places like this whilst we are here, places that actually feel authentically African.

We return our bikes and sit in the sun listening to a band practicing for a gig while we wait for transport back, we're pretty sure we know the words to the song My Africa after the fourth time they've played it. After which they stop and the lead singer comes over and chats to us, I can barely resist the urge to ask him if he knows 'My Africa'.