#Soweto

My first memory is of standing in the yard when I was about three years old, having my picture taken by my father. I spent hours in Dad’s basement darkroom, watching images come to life in trays of chemicals. We had slide shows in the living room every Sunday night.

Soweto, the largest township in South Africa, is a country unto itself. About a million people live there – the same population as Swaziland. It’s a cultural and economic hub for black South Africans, and legendary for the historic events that happened there in the decades leading up to the end of apartheid.

Yesterday I visited Johannesburg’s two poles.

Unemployment is about 30% in South Africa and new numbers this week indicate it’s on the rise. Joe is working on some stories related to that. We left mid-morning and stopped to photograph two men pushing a cart of recyclable trash up a steep hill. These men scratch out a living sifting through garbage (or rubbish, as it’s called here) for plastic, glass, and metal that they exchange for money.