Soweto

If I offended anyone in the last entry, all apologies. Warning in advance: paragraphs 9-11 discuss FIFA's promotion of condom use. If you want to avoid said discussion, please skip paragraphs 9-11.

Moving on, on Sunday I went to Soweto, or South West Township as it is less commonly knowned as. And I was disappointed. Not in Soweto, no. But Soweto is such a cool name and to think it's just a contraction of South West Township was a huge letdown.

We went to the Hector Pieterson museum, which was surrounded by a decent-sized outdoor market with people selling “home-made” African craftwork and artwork that for the most part were probably just mass-produced for $0.10 a piece considering no one had any idea of what type of wood they used to make the little people. Nonetheless, the things were pretty cool, so I decided to splurge and spent 20 rand and bought an ice cream.

Back to the museum. Hector Pieterson was one of the thousands of school children who took park in the Soweto student strike in 1976. The ruling government mandated that all students in Soweto must study both English and Afrikaans on a 50/50 basis, as opposed to just English, since 50 percent of the taxpaying whites spoke Afrikaans. Despite protests from school principals and parents, as well as the fact that most of the teachers in the schools barely knew Afrikaans anyway, the government went ahead with the policy, and that May the students decided to stop going to class.

On 16-June, thousands of students planned to march through Soweto to gather and write a proposal to remove Afrikaans from their schools. While on their way, the police opened fire on the students, killing hundreds of young boys and girls, including Hector Pieterson. The image of one of his friends carrying his bloodied body out of the chaos was shown across the world and became quite possibly the most iconic and lasting image of Apartheid. Economic sanctions followed from many of the west's powers as well as the east, and the beginning of the collapse of the Apartheid government was underway.

The museum itself was extremely well put together. There was background information on the formation of Apartheid and organized protest movements, as well as an in-depth look into the history of student activity. While it was a lot of reading, it was well worth it. I made it most of the way through the museum when I got to the funeral room, where there were pictures of body bags and poems and sermons. At this point, I completely lost it and couldn't go on. I went out and bought another iced cream. Knowing just how awful everything was in the United States, to think that it was even possible for things to be worse, let alone as unthinkable as they were under Apartheid is really just too much to handle.

After that, we went through Soweto. We walked past Nelson Mandela's house, but it would have cost 80 rand to go in, and I was not paying 80 rand to go into the house of a former convicted criminal. His house was on the same street as Desmond Tutu, making it the only street in the history of mankind to have two non-related Nobel Prize winners living on it at the same time. Sorry Pennsylvania Avenue.

Afterwards, we found ourselves in the back of a police car getting an escort to the mall. People were staring at us as the officers let us out of the car at the front entrance. Wiley asked if he could handcuff us before he let us out, but they said no. Oh well.

WARNING: This is paragraph number nine. That night, I went to the Didier Drogba dive-fest, which has also been called the Brazil-Cote d'Ivoire match. I don't really remember much about the match not because I was drunk but because the play was so mediocre that I've blocked it out of my mind, but I do remember the huge box of free condoms in the men's bathroom.

Now, I understand that FIFA has teamed with the RSA government in the campaign against HIV/AIDS in Africa, but are really that many people having sex in the men's bathroom of World Cup matches that a box of free condoms is a good use of funds? Considering the vast majority of the AIDS victims are in the poorer sections of the country, AKA the people who can't afford to go to games, exactly what does FIFA think it is accomplishing? Couldn't the money its using to put huge boxes of free condoms in world cup bathrooms be better used putting huge boxes of free condoms in grocery stores? But I digress.

Moving on, you may remember that I said at the beginning to skip paragraphs 9-11 if you have a problem with the discussion, and if you listened to me, you'd be skipping this paragraph. Since I have nothing more to say about FIFA condom use but I still have a paragraph to spare, I'll use this paragraph to tell you where you can find the pictures I've been promising for some time. If you go to worldcupwinter.blogspot.com click “sign in” at the top, crack my password, log into my account, threaten to delete all my blogs if I don't post pictures, and sing the official 1986 FIFA World Cup song in correct pitch with matching harmony from a world reknown recording artist that rhymes with Tilly Pole, and then I'll upload the pictures.

Tomorrow, I return to Pretoria for the day to watch the United States beat Algeria to qualify for the Round of 16, where we could go against any of four undereachieving teams.

Until then, be safe.

Your's truly,
The Ambassador