Friday 4^th July, 2014….What a difference a day can make!!  Our driver yesterday from Sun City to Joberg was white SA and very racist and to be honest we were quite nervous about security etc here in Joberg after the stories he told us….However we did feel safe walking to the local mall yesterday…And today we have had a local native as our guide to Soweto….we have been blown away, firstly by Soweto and secondly by our guide who spoke good English, his knowledge was incredible and he wasn’t bitter regardless of the struggle they have had to get to where they are today…first he took us driving through the rich areas of Joberg and oh the houses, some with incredible security and others not and then through the middle class areas and so to Soweto…en route we passed a hospital that the British built during the 2^nd world war with 300 beds….the hospital is still the same size today and has 3,000 beds!! Soweto is truly upmarket houses and then pockets of where the locals live…our guide called them informal settlements….he said the government is all the time building houses for these people but they don’t want to move as they would have to pay rent when they move into these new houses!!  Our guide dropped us off at one of these local settlement areas and another guide took us walking through the area…they are allotted a certain area of dirt and thus build their shack but those that came later have to build a one room shack on the same allotment and pay rent to the land lord who lives in the original shack on the allotment and these allotments are only about 150 sq metres thus you could have 20 people or more on one allotment and there is one outside long drop toilet on each allotment which the municipality provides for them and once a week the sewerage truck comes and drains all the long drops and we were there as that was happening today….there is one tap in the middle of the street so everyone has to come to the one tap for their water…about 25,000 live in this particular informal settlement….but our guide said a lot of people have illegally got water to their shacks as they have done with the power….there is no street lighting as the wiring kept getting pinched so they cut the power to the street lights off….then we went into a kindergarten run totally by donations from we tourists but the kids were well dressed and some of them real cuties! They had the menu for each meal written on the wall and it seemed very good too and we went to the school area which also seemed to have what you would find in our kindergartens…all from donations we were told….Soweto amazing to think millionaires live there and then the local settlement areas…the guide said the millionaires don’t leave as they pay a flat rate of 100 Rand for water and power each month! En route we passed lots of areas where the mining tailings are still so visible…Joberg came about from the discovery of gold here in 1886…and you won’t believe it but the Chinese are buying up these tailing areas and building big warehouses on the spot…we witnessed a couple of these warehouses already built and they are enormous….we went by the soccer stadium that was used in 2010 world cup where they had the opening and closing ceremonies….we went by Winnie Mandela’s house and what a fortress…she certainly has herself locked away!!  And Soweto has the only street in the world where 2 Nobel Peace Prize Winner’s live…Nelson Mandela’s house is now a museum, which we went by but didn’t go inside and of course Desmond Tutu still lives in his house so we took a pic of the plaque on the gate….And we went to the Hector Pieterson Museum…..he was a 13 year old boy who was among the first students to die from the police shooting in the Soweto uprising of 16^th June, 1976….we could have spent hours here with all the information and photos…very sobering…all in all we have been pleasantly surprised by Joberg, good motorways, all the big hotels are here, lots of nice buildings and interesting architecture and relatively clean streets….tomorrow 6.30 am we are back on the road on safari….M & F

As per the sign....

As per the sign on the fenece....

Informal settlements....

The other die of the road in Soweto that look down on those informal settlements....

New government 2 bedroom housing in front of informal settlement....

Again on the other side of the street....

Wash day...Soweto

The informal settlement we walked through....

The green sewerage truck at the end of the street ....

Shack on left the landlord and the tenants in the shacks on the right....

The kindergarten....

As above....

Towers from disused coal power station with bungy jump now....

The power coal station falling down...4 killed recently stealing from site....

Another informal settlement....note the long drops in the fore ground....

Mandela's and Tutu's street...now a bit of a tourist area....

Tutu's house....

Hector Peterson memorial.....

Another informal settlement....

Middle class Soweto with concrete houses  with round concrete roof....

Soccer stadium...