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Nicole's
Travelogues and Budget Travel Tips..
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SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA
Chris resident walked us down the dirt road showing us various sites including a water faucet that served the entire block (about 30 families).
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A visit to Soweto (SOuth WEstern TOwnship) is the single most popular attraction in Johannesburg. The townships were established by the Apartheid government as a way of isolating and segregating the black population. Soweto is huge with estimates of its population ranging between three and four million. Soweto has the only street (Vilakazi St.) in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners once lived - Tutu and Mandela. It's the richest township in South Africa with neighborhoods of millionaire mansions but also has some of the poorest squatter camps. 
We booked a Soweto Tour through Rockey's of Fourways backpackers - which was combined with a tour of Johannesburg. Our guide, Wonderboy (yes that's his name) picked us up and took us through 
We got to the squatter camp and Wonderboy handed us off to a resident that lived there to take us through. Wonderboy, who usually talked in the 3rd person, said, "Don't worry! You will all be safe because you are with Wonderboy. Everyone knows Wonderboy!" Ha ha ha he was quite a character. Anyway, the resident, Chris, is pictured below. 
The squatter camp had no electricity and had only 400 outhouses to serve 12,000 people. He said that there has been some progress during the last 10 years of democracy - primarily that the size of the squatter camps continue to decrease while the working- and middle-class areas of Soweto increase. He was very hopeful that they would get electricity and more water soon. Everyone in the townships we talked to referred to 2010 - when South Africa will host the World Cup - as a deadline for the upcoming improvements. It'll be interesting to see what actually happens in the next 6 years.
The whole Township Tour thing felt as uncomfortable here as it did in Cape Town. It just felt like we were being sooo intrusive! The guides try to reassure you that the people welcome tourists and that the tours bring money into the area. But other than tours that specifically tell you a % of your fee goes to this school or that community center - the only money coming into the area was tips for the guides and money for street vendors (if you bought something). 
