Glimpses of Poor Africa

We traveled thousands of miles while in South Africa and saw very affluent areas and the poor of the poorest.  We spent a lot of time in Soweto where you will find both situations but more poor.  These are very common things we saw often:

You saw women carrying things on the heads all of the time - but this was a classic

Yes, people live there - can you see the little boys - they just had a bath.  The people manage to be clean and their washing is always very white

The sad thing is there are acres and acres of these kind of camps

Children don't have any grass to play on

This is very typical - a large or small truck with people packed in as tight as they can 

These large vans were the people's mode of transportation.  There are thousands of them everywhere and they pack passengers in as tight as they can.  You always give way to the taxi's - the drivers are very aggressive and you don't want to be in any kind of battle with them.  They don't follow any of the traffic rules.  You just stay out of their way!  

This is a newer model

This is also very common.  People carrying large bags of recycle material - plastic, cardboard, etc.  Every Friday when we would put out our garbage, someone would go through it.  First to see if their was anything useable.  Second to gather any thing to recycle.  They pulled these bags on carts everywhere.

The cages are filled with chickens.  Yes, if you want to kill, clean, and pluck your own chicken you certainly can.  It will surely be fresh chicken.  Some elders boast that they have done this.

A sample of an outdoor market.  However, this is way nicer and more organized than most.  But there are many, many of them everywhere

Zama Zama Supermarket is probably the biggest store most of these children have been in.  These markets are on every corner so they can walk to them to get what they need

Most of the little markets were called "Tuck" shops and we never did know what that meant

We took a couch and rug to this little girl's house.  She happened to have a comb and handed it to me to comb her hair.  She was adorable

We worked with another senior couple, the Meldrums and gave our old furniture and mattresses to needy members of the branch where they worked.  This cute girl was a member of that branch

Little children either rode on their mother's backs or walked with them.  Africans walked everywhere and were always on the streets.  Their homes were too small to spend much time in.

We gave many old mattresses away just by stopping by a camp.  These men chased us down and then fought over the mattresses.  There was nothing for us to do but just get the heck out of there!