Soweto

On Monday we went to Soweto, the largest township in Johannesburg. We went first to a local Fish & Chips store where we bought "fat cake", or vet koek. A heavy, fried sphere of dough, it isn't as sweet as a doughnut and is more glutenous. From the texture, I reckon it has yeast in it, but not 100% positive. You can get it filled with a variety of savory minces, but we just had ours plain. We also got sweet tea with it, which is just black tea with condensed milk. We were the only white and Asian people we saw walking around. You don't go there without a South African, and thankfully Thabo is an excellent guide. It also doesn't hurt that he shares his name (which no white person has) with the president.

Next we continued our tour by visiting Nelson Mandela's house, which his wife Winnie looked after while he was a prisoner on Robben Island. Unfortunately, Mandela lived in the house only for 11 days after his release, and shortly thereafter divorced his wife. Here's a shot of me by Sugar Ray Lenoard's belt--Mandela boxed as a youngster, and knowing how big a boxing fan he was, Leonard gave him his belt. There is a shot of me actually wearing the belt, but I didn't feel like posting it...

For our next touristy attraction we headed to the Hector Pieterson Memorial. At only 13 years of age, Hector was the first casualty of the Soweto Uprisings in 1976. In this photo of Sam, the line in the ground leads to the spot where Hector was shot and killed. To learn more, please visit http://www.soweto.co.za/html/p_hector.htm.

These other shots are Sam and me enjoying our vet koeks and tea, derelict Orlando Power Station Cooling Towers (which ironically supplied power to white Joburg suburbs and NONE to Soweto), and our our vet koek ladies.

Cheers,
Q