Soweto 2010

“Are you happy sir?” … I heard in what seemed to be a far off voice.  I said, “What do you mean?”.  I’m walking through the slums of Soweto with my tour guide Life and this seems like a random question.  He says, “Are you happy with South Africa so far?”.  In a nano-second with thoughts that included lucky, blessed, fulfilled, and content, I answered, “Yes, I’m very happy right now”.

On what turned out to be a free afternoon in Johannesburg, I had the opportunity for either a wild animal park visit or to spend some time both in Soweto and visiting some important apartheid sites that featured Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Hector Pieterson museum.  Of course, I chose the latter having spent enough time previously on safari.  What I did not expect was to be moved so much not by Soweto itself, but by the entire movement which happened not so long ago.

When I asked the tour guide his name and he said Life, I had to ask him to spell it for me.  After I told him it was a lovely name, he kindly explained for about the thousandth time that his mother worked for a white English woman and when he was born the employer named him.  I thought it was fitting to be shown the sites by Life.

He went through the history of South Africa from the British and Dutch colonialists through the Boer Wars and how they came to be segregated, not just by black (including Indians) and white, but also by tribal backgrounds.  The seminal point in history came on June 16, 1976 when local police fired on protesting students who did not want to be only taught in Afrikaans, they wanted to be learned in English.  This made no sense to me initially until he explained that this was a way for the white government to keep the people from being global and able to move about the rest of the country and the world.

The museum which is on the place of the murders is one of those locations that gives you goosebumps with anger.  For me, the co-location of local blacks and tourists in the same place was a bit of deja vu.  As humans, we try to connect the dots to previous experiences.  I flashed back to the day I saw the Enola Gay exhibit in the Smithsonian surrounded by Japanese and Americans, or the Holocaust Museum with Germans and Jews, or the Anne Frank House, or being in Tianneman Square, all the same but different.

It would be 14 years before Mandela would be released from prison by F.W de Klerck and the ANC would be recognized.

And another 20 years after this before tourists walking through Soweto could see the new World Cup Stadium rising up just on the outskirts of the township where in June this year a new football champion will be crowned.

As I saw women and children playing in the streets, doing their laundry, laughing, running and enjoying life mostly without the benefit of electricity or plumbing, I thought about what Life said to me as we were driving:

“After Mandela, we could live where we want to live.”

And so it goes … as I tried to be in the moment and not think about work pressures or the week ahead, I just had to remind myself that being free to choose is the greatest gift of all.  Choose Life.  Choose Happiness. Be Thankful.