Saturday, September 7, 2013

Soweto Adventure

Another highlight of this trip was a day spent in Soweto. Probably not the first place you would think of for a visit but again - a once in a lifetime opportunity which I wasn't prepared to miss.


 We saw 'as our guide said' - The Good (new affluent)
 The Bad - migrant hostels for single men workers
 And the downright ugly -
Soweto has the biggest hospital in the world - over 750 doctors. These were the water cooling towers for the now defunt power plant for the hospital. It is now a symbolically painted attraction. The cables between them are now a very popular bungy jumping attraction and plans for more extreme sport attractions are also underway. Scary yes?
We went to Nelson Mandela's house. It is where he lived before he was arrested and for 11 days after he was released. Obvioulsy a very popular attraction for school children too. They all were waiting until we had our tour.
  The street where it is also has the house where Desmond Tutu lived and is the only street in the world which has housed two Nobel Peace Prize winners. It is also the street where the Soweto Riots started so very very important to the history of South Africa.
We also went to the Apartheid Museum (where you couldn't take photos) but it was a very sobering and confronting collection.
I love street signs
All in all - an incredible experience

1 comment:

Susan Brubaker Knapp said...

You saw some things I did, and some things I didn't see! Thanks for this post. I loved seeing Soweto; I was impressed with how much pride people had in what they had helped to achieve.