Soweto

The emotional highs' of the USA game and South Africa game were great but the moment we had in Soweto, South Africa was much more eye opening. Soweto, a township, is a very, very poor city in South Africa. In Joburg we saw homeless people and there were people begging for food and money but in Soweto it was unimaginable. Our driver pulled down one street and we stopped and looked at what were called apartments from a distance. These apartments were one room which had no electricity, no toilet, no running water and 6-8 people sometimes lived in that one room. It was pretty sad to hear this it really made you feel blessed to have these amenities. As we drove further along the scene didn't get much better. You saw people laying on the ground sleeping, children walking by themselves, and shanties and shacks for miles.

We stopped at one local village if you want to call it that. Here we were mobbed by 15-25 little kids who we distributed gifts too. Pins, flags, shirts, soccer gear they loved it all and almost took it out of our hands. It felt good to give back to these impoverish children but you always wish you could do more. But, these kids were actually really happy. They spoke really good English and everyone of them talked to us and asked us questions about or families, our jobs, and it was really cool to talk to them. One boy I met was 12 years old and he told me he was gonna be an Orlando Pirate, professional soccer team near Soweto. I hope the soccer ball I gave him will get him to that goal and hopefully out of poverty.

While in Soweto we were taken into one of the houses. I say house but it was only a 2 room shanty. The rooms were 5X10 maybe a little bigger but 6 people lived in it. I could not imagine that house in the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Very scary to think about.

The trip to Soweto was very eye opening and it shows how poor some parts of the world really are.