My First Trip to Soweto

Soweto stands for South Western Townships. People refer to it as a suburb of Johannesburg, but in reality, it is it's own thriving city of 4 million people. During Apartheid, it was the segregated area where blacks were forced to live. It was also where the earliest uprisinigs against the Apartheid regime took place. The home where Nelson Mandela was arrested and dragged off to jail simply for speaking the truth still stands, and now serves as a museum. The only white people I saw all day were in line at the Mandela museum.

Although still quite poor, it's a vibrant community, rich with the entreprenurial spirit. While driving down the street, there are many private homes with a sign outside. Hairdressers, car repairs, any type of cottage industry is represented. The streets are lined with produce stands and all kinds of tiny stalls selling all manner of goods. There are also tons of cooked food stands. This week is the equivalent of spring break (although it's almost winter here), so there were tons of children playing in the street (mostly soccer). It really is the quintessential democratic game, and I'm not surprised that it's the world's most popular. For the price of one ball, an entire neighborhood of children are kept entertained and active for as long as it takes to wear through the leather.

I mentioned earlier that the neighborhood where I am staying reminds me of Southern California. If that is true, then Soweto is like Mexico. There are parts that are beautiful, parts that are more affluent than others, but rows of tin shacks serving as homes are also quite common. For every late-model Honda, there are 20 cars so rusted it's difficult to tell who the manufacturer was, and a couple of donkey-drawn carts. For every bright and shiny gas station, there are 12 roadside stands where the owner is barely ekeing out a living. I, of course, fell in love instantly, and I can't wait to go back when I have time to explore all of what the area has to offer, and do a little shopping.

We stopped by a rather sorry looking building made of concrete blocks with a very wornout playground outside. Imagine my surprise that the inside contained a sophisticated computer lab where during the day, they have classes for adults (for 100R per month, about $15) and after school, they have programs for children so they can learn computer literacy from a young age. My "tour guide" tells me that all of the equipment was provided by the US Government. It's a nice thing to think about when you're overwhelmed by news of some of our government's ... um... less popular expenditures of late.

After this brief field trip, it was on to the real business of the day, selling condoms. My tour guide is actually an SFH sales rep. We stopped by his house to pick up the stock and then we were off to visit about a dozen retailers. Our target for the day were "non-traditional" outlets, meaning, the small locally owned businesses. We stopped by a couple of foodstands and small markets and chatted with the owner about stocking our products. We were selling two different brands of condoms, one a subsidized brand that we sell at a loss (the balance made up by donor funding). The other is a premium brand that we sell at a tiny profit to help pay overhead expenses. In either case, the shop owner sells them at a standard retail profit which encourages them to keep stock on the shelves and keep their customers well supplied. I had to be back in the office for some afternoon meetings, but even in my short time out there, our sales rep Sean convinced three new retailers to carry our condoms, not bad considering that we only had time to visit 5 shops.

I'm (tentatively) scheduled to go out with our mobile HIV Counseling and Testing team tomorrow. My primary work here will be with our Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) team, and I'm excited to see them in action. With Mobile VCT, we bring the testing to the people, with tents set up for private counseling sessions, and a vehicle outfitted to serve as our lab (think blood mobile). We use rapid test kits which means no needles, and no going back a week later to pick up your results. A finger prick provides all the blood needed, and it takes just 15 minutes for the results to be ready. Tomorrow's field trip is supposed to be to the downtown train station where hundreds of thousands of people arrive in Jo-berg for work each day. If all goes according to plan, I should have a full report for you next week.

Susan