Soweto is beautiful (South African Township)

I recently decided to visit Soweto in South Africa. The name Soweto comes from So (South) We (Western) To (Township).

This person makes a living by selling hand-crafted art pieces. Everyone in Soweto loves each other. He also taught me a nice handshake - the handshake means love, peace, and happiness. It is sad that people in Soweto have so little, but are so happy. People in the richest areas like Sandton and Northcliff are always grumpy and selfish.

My girlfriend and I visited the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum. It was a wonderful experience. I really enjoyed it. I live in South Africa but I realised how little I actually know about South Africa.

The memorial is situated in Orlando, Soweto. It commemorates the role of the country’s students in the struggle against apartheid and, in particular, the role played by the school children. These children took part in the Soweto protests of 1976, many of whom were shot by the apartheid police while protesting against the sub-standard education in black schools in South Africa.

The students protested against the use of Afrikaans in all the schools. It was a peaceful protest. But they got stopped by police on the way to Orlando stadium. Students started throwing stones at the police which resulted in the police starting to shoot at the school kids. One of the first to be killed by the police was 12-year-old Hector Pieterson.

Sad times we lived in, and I believe South Africa is a better place now.

Our next stop was the Orlando Towers.

Planning for the construction of Orlando started in 1935, as the electricity demand of Johannesburg was rising faster than what could be met with the existing City Generating Station - located in downtown Johannesburg. The location for the station was selected due to its proximity to water supplies for coolant, and railway lines for the delivery of coal. Construction started in 1939 with Merz & McLellan as consulting engineers, but completion was delayed due to the outbreak of the Second World War. The last phase of construction was completed in 1955. Until 1990 two Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST steam engines (Nos. 7805 Elizabeth and 7398 George) were used to move incoming coal trains through a wagon tipper at the power plant.

Above is a shot I took next to the towers which shows some pipeworks of the nuclear power station.

They turned the cooling towers into a bungee jump strip.

For R550 per person you can jump off the Orlando towers. I personally did not have it in me to do it. But I would love to try it in the future.