A worthwhile look into Soweto's past and present
Mrcio_S, Mar 2022
Soweto Walking Tour with Lunch
You can also enjoy – or endure – the world's highest SCAD freefall, which takes place inside the Western Cooling Tower.
Knowledgeable about Sowetan history, Sibusiso, our polyglot local guide, gave us an informative and captivating walking tour in Orlando West and East. Having booked a quiet mid-week February morning, we were lucky enough to have him only for ourselves. He was always ready to answer our questions, even those only tangentially connected with Soweto.
During the tour, we got to taste kota, a hollowed-out loaf-like bread filled with stuffing of your choice. (As vegans, we asked for our kota to be stuffed with fries only.) The bread works as a pocket holding the filling; for the novices, such as we, just holding it is already fun. Tasting the Soweto Gold beer, named after the 1886 gold rush, was another perk, even if the brewery is now part of the Heineken company and has been moved away from Soweto.
For the adrenaline-boost seekers, the Soweto Towers – the famous decommissioned cooling towers that are the tallest structures in all of Soweto –, provide an opportunity for bungee-jumping from a suspended bridge between the two towers. You can also enjoy – or endure – the world's highest SCAD freefall, which takes place inside the Western Cooling Tower. This freefall entails being dropped facing up and “lying” in a horizontal position, plummeting with no attachments as your surroundings vertiginously flit by and finally landing in a net. Both the bungee and the freefall are recommended – and there's a discount if you book both.
There is also, however, a heavier, graver side to the tour. Walking around both Orlandos for a few hours gave us a sense of how people live here, of how Soweto looks, smells and feels like. Soweto is at once thriving and decadent. Indeed, it is expanding, the population is growing and the 2010 World Cup cashflow led to the birth of small businesses. Moreover, the standard of life proves comfortable for the few who belong to the Sowetan middle and upper class, who seem to concentrate in the vicinity of the famous, bustling Vilakazi Street, once home to two Nobel Peace Prizes and now – or at least prior to the pandemic – a tourist hotspot. Yet, "living" conditions are degrading for the poor surviving in the precarious shacks popping up like mushrooms in less glamourous areas.
Soweto remains, to this very day, an all-black area. The only palefaces you'll see here belong to tourists or passersby. Ironically, although Soweto itself is a testament to the continuing separation and segregation of races in South Africa, its historical significance in the struggle against Apartheid is undeniable.
Ample demonstration of that is given by landmarks such as Nelson Mandela's red-brick house, located in Vilakazi Street and converted into a museum in the late 90s. It was built in 1945, around the time squatter camps forced the municipalities to erect more housing for the blacks living in shanties, and Mandela moved into it in 1946. (After his release from his three-decade incarceration, he returned to this house for 11 days.) Shots were frequently fired as an intimidation tactic, given that the Mandela household was a meeting place for freedom fighters. Bullet holes can still be seen in the outside walls. This chapter of history is so recent that two people beside us were moved to tears listening to Winnie Mandela's voice on a speaker. The wounds have barely healed, if at all. Its sequels still aggrieve all South Africans.
Perhaps even more impressive is the Hector Pieterson Memorial, dedicated to the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Deaths from police brutality during the Uprising could be anywhere from just under 200 – the usually reported estimate – all the way to 700. The Uprising, which also sparked further riots elsewhere in country, was, up to that time, the most striking and incisive act of resistance against the regime, rocking its already shaky international reputation. The exhibit at the Memorial displays sometimes conflicting reports from both parties – on the one hand, the black students (some of whom also acted as looters alongside adult rioters) and, on the other, the white police officers –, letting you form a rather more nuanced understanding of the matter.
If you have a car, our suggestion would be for you to drive around on your own after your walking tour to get a glimpse of other, less touristic, townships in Soweto, such as Kliptown. These poorer areas will help you understand the utter poverty that thousands upon thousands of Sowetans, just like other Joburgers, endure to this day.
The struggle continues – and Soweto is a living and dying testament to that.
