The name means South-West Township and that’s its location from central Johannesburg. During apartheid, black people and immigrants were forcibly relocated here. Today over a million people live here on 210km², it’s the largest township in Africa. Parts look nice and suburban, but really are overcrowded with several families sharing a home. Others are just slums. Rich people don’t live here. I learned the term “economic diversity”.

Soweto is on the site of a former gold mining industry, which involves a lit of chemical processing. Soweto is on radioactive and poisoned ground, but unsurprisingly that was no problem for the apartheid regime. Also u surprisingly the regime put a massive coal-fired power plant here, polluting the air, until Mandela shut it down. Today the cooling towers covered in art – and ads.

Nelson Mandela’s old family home is here, and it’s a tourist attraction now. Down the road is Desmond Tutu’s old home, the other Nobel Peace Price winner from that time. Saw a group of locals in traditional costume who tried to get attention but if they weren’t getting it their chants fizzled like a record player losing power. I find this sort of tourist theater sad and a little demeaning.