Soweto is huge and has everything from Shantytowns to very nice homes, lots of history of the fight to end apartheid. We went to a Shantytown, and Elias told us that guides used to just drive through the towns talking to their guests as they went. But then some of the people of the community started insisting that they wanted to be the ones to lead the tours (seems like great self-empowerment to me). So we were met at the outskirts by a young man names Cat, who lead us down the dirt road while telling us about life there. The people have all come from other parts of the country seeking a better life. And of course it's not better. They live in tiny shacks with no running water, sanitation or electricity. There are spigots at intervals throughout the area with potable water, and the government built outhouses with underground tanks, but then didn't come to pump them out. So those people who have jobs pay to have them pumped when they can. All the children go to school. Soweto seems filled with schools of one kind and another, and Cat reported and our guide affirmed that education is viewed as the way out.
I was having powerful flashbacks to time spent in Soacha, one of the shantytowns of Bogota, Colombia. Same story, same reality, although we weren't told of the kind of organized violence in Soweto that was so great a force in Soacha. I was very conscious of how different it was to visit this place as just a regular tourist. Not part of an organized delegation, not visiting a paartner NGO or church organization. And these folks were not very organized --- just commuity people doing the start of community organizing. I found myself encouraging Cat to continue to take power of his life and help his people claim power over their own lives. They need to get organized. My sense was that he had not heard that message from visitors before. He also claimed that there were not NGO's or church groups working is his area. The woman whose house we visited, when I asked what I should tell my friends, family and church, couldn't think of anything. This is a big contrast to the organized advocacy I've experienced before.
And this is the real world. They made it plain that no money was required, but that they would accept any free offerings. Of course we each contributed something. It was about consciousness raising, but on some level was really about the money. And that seemed OK to me. They need it, I have it and we made a trade.
We also went to "the Top of Africa", which is the tallest building on the continent at 50 stories tall. While riding up in the elevator, I was able to hear simultanous conversations in Polish and Zulu --- not something that happens every day!
Thursday morning I boarded plane for Ndola, Zambia and arrived at dusty little airport to find that my ride hadn't arrived. A very nice man in the airport office let me use his cell phone to call the school Principal, who I reached to find that he was running late. He told me to wait in the little restaurant, which I did. What a remarkable variety of people coming through this place. It was an upgraded quonset hut and I had a cup pf tea while I waited. (I wasn't hungry because, unlike the US, we were served as very nice lunch on the plane. This seems to be true everywhere but the US. Indian airlines did the same thing.)
So, I was picked up by Musonda Bwalya, who is the(very impressive) principal of the College, got Kwachas from the ATM, arrived at the United Church of Zambia Theological College safe and sound. And so far am getting settled in a very different environment than I am used to. But more about that later.
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