Illustration by Dulce Maria Pop-Bonini

The boy of Soweto!

He tells us that he calls himself that, and it seems true; passers-by on the street address greetings to him non-stop. "We are a very collective community, you know. Everything is tight-knit, and when you see people every day, you know them without having to them," they say. This is the first impression I get from the Soweto community, a large township in the South West of Johannesburg, as the name hints (SOuth WEst TOwnship = Soweto).

15 minutes earlier, we had just arrived at the meeting place of our tour guide. With baggy jorts, Adidas slippers, and a boxy fitted tee, he takes out his headphones to greet us. The ride in the tuktuk begins. I scoot in behind my mom and make myself familiar with the interior of the vehicle whose bright red exterior made me halt the Uber: "Right here, we have to go to the red tuktuk!"

We drive for around thirty seconds before the red vehicle with us inside comes to a screeching halt. "If you want to use the restroom, you can do so here. Or maybe get an espresso?"

My mom uses the restroom, and while I wait, the tour guide introduces himself as Mulalo. When my mother returns, we start the tour at the Hector Pieterson commemoration square. Hector Pieterson is the 12-year-old boy that was fatally shot in the 1976 Soweto Uprising, where students protested the oppression under apartheid and were met with police dogs, tear gas, and ammunition. “Hector Pieterson,” our guide tells us, “didn’t even take part in the uprising. He was simply searching for his sister, who had the shared key to their house, after finishing school. Despite being one of the hundreds of killed students during the apartheid rule, Hector became an important and heartbreaking symbol of resistance. He was the youngest victim, and Sam Nzima, a local independent journalist, took a picture of him in the arms of Mbuyisa Makhubo, who was carrying the wounded boy to the nearest clinic. Hector’s sister is running beside them. The picture visualized the harm that the government was causing, and the strength and resilience with which the local African community fought back.

It is a weird feeling, standing there on the square, less than 200 meters away from the place of the protests in 1976. My mind gets hooked on the thought of how the guide must be feeling telling us this snippet of their history. I am unsure, unable to identify whether he has become indifferent to it because of the amount of times he has told this story, whether he feels the pain of his parents and grandparents when he recalls the events, whether he feels that we, as visitors, could never comprehend their significance especially as (mostly) White visitors from Germany.

We get back on the tuktuk to continue the tour. We learn about the hierarchies in the township, its origin, the laws and rent clauses that exist to this day and make it hard for people to escape poverty. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu’s house on Vilakazi Street have become tourist attractions, with tours, performances and streetfood populating the road. The people of Soweto now earn money from the tourists that come to see their spectacles of resistance. Despite the achievement this precludes, is there not something sinister about this?

A young boy, maybe 5 or 6, offers me meat snacks through the window of the tuktuk. His eyelashes are curled and his eyes – honest, and although I cannot buy anything, because I do not eat pork, his face impresses me. I think about myself in the context of what I am seeing. Am I entertaining White saviorism? What speaks against it: I am not technically White, and it is better than to stay ignorant. A tricky situation, nevertheless. My mother, who has gone silent, I sense is tackling the same questions in her head.

The people in Soweto seem so kind. They smile and wave when we pass by, and I wonder about their lives. Then again, who am I to judge if they are happy? I simply passed by them in a bright red tuktuk… The history the guide tells us and the kitchens and houses that shelter two whole families give perspective to my own privilege.

Amongst the historical facts that Mulalo shares with us, what sticks out to me is the Women’s Only quarter of the area, a place where, not long ago, 12 women were housed in tiny accommodations. During the day, the place would be a ghost town, because the women worked domestic jobs and came home late at night, only to return to their employers early in the morning. They were also prohibited to have kids or partners, circumstances which often led to them having no descendants. This became problematic when the state created new housing for some of the women, now sharing bigger accommodations between two. These houses, however, could not be inherited by anyone after the women died, since they had never had any children. As a consequence, these houses are still empty today. The government had attempted to put them up for sale, but the community refused, arguing that they would rather keep it empty than have the government once again profit from their suffering. It is one of many signs of solidarity that at a time of a need for shelter these houses remain empty, commemorating the losses of the women.

Mulalo also shows us the part of the town that is most strongly affected by poverty. Here, the houses are merely tin huts, there is no road, sanitation, running water, or electricity. It starts raining while the tuktuk stumbles along the uneven path between the huts.The stories of oppression, exploitation, desperation, and resilience repeat, merely differentiated by the names of the victims.

We also drove past Lilian Ngoyi’s house. Here, she spent decades in confinement in her own home, as sentenced by the apartheid government. As a sign of resilience, nevertheless, she tailored for a living, supporting her family and two daughters. To commemorate her bravery, there is an iron sewing machine displayed in front of her house today, as well as a small plaquette in her honor. Our guide tells us that her daughter and grandchild still live in the house. He turns around and shouts to the kids that have gathered around the attraction that is our mode of transportation – the bright red tuktuk. "Where is Lilian Ngoyi’s granddaughter?" They reply that she is not here today. Their attention is diverted by the mechanics of this peculiar vehicle, and when we drive off, they attempt to jump on it and run after us, laughter and moxie in the air. Soon, they stop and wave.

What we saw in Soweto is similar to what documentaries and books tell us about far off places: the living conditions, the ongoing struggles, the resilience in spite of all hardships. Talking and interacting with the people, the sons and daughters of Soweto, becomes a dialogue. Rather than consuming, like we would as documentary-watchers, we can listen, ask, and discuss.

The dialogues however, will always be tricky and challenging. What I encountered in Soweto was eagerness to share their perception of the world, the suffering they are enduring, and the ambitions they foster.