Page 4, Johannesburg and Soweto

After leaving Botswana, I flew back to Jo'burg and spent a day sightseeing.

I took a tour with Max Maximum Tours. Max is a long time Soweto (South Western Townships) resident. Soweto is a black township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. As you will see in the following photos, the standard of living ranges from upper middle class to shanty town poor.

This is a typical government built house in Soweto. It has electricity, running water, flush toilets and three or four rooms. With the end of apartheid the ownership of the homes was transferred to the occupants who had been paying rent for years and years to the government.

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This picture was taken in Diepkloof Township in Soweto. It is a shanty town with no running water, electricity or sewage systems.

My trip to Soweto was eye opening. It was everything and nothing like I expected. The people were gracious and friendly. The conditions both better and worse than I expected. As we walked through the shanty town I asked a teenager who was guiding us what he and others thought about us obviously foreign, comparatively rich and starkly white tourists with cameras walking through his neighborhood. He said that they want the world to see how they live and he was glad we were there.

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