Free Are We There Yet? by David Smiedt

township like an emaciated ghost. Detractors believe he was simply prolonging the lifespan and yield of his workers.
    Still, at scores of depots and railway stations, ticket windows were besieged daily by throngs of hungry Africans with just enough cash for a one-way fare to Egoli, the City of Gold.
    As far as concepts go, Soweto seemed like a corker. Corral the black population in a location close to the city, but out of sight, where they could be monitored and utilised as workers for the mining and manufacturing concerns that transformed Johannesburg into the country’s commercial capital. While our white homes were situated in suburbs dripping with elegant Anglo nomenclature, such as Sandhurst and Hyde Park, this Brobdingnagian experiment was merely lumped with a contraction of its geographical location: South Western Townships became Soweto.
    Very soon Soweto spilled over its boundaries like a fearsome gut running roughshod over an elasticised waistband. The last time such matters were calculated, the city squatted over a sixty-five-square-kilometre collage of tin shacks, litter-strewn wasteland and bungalows designed by architects who would have done a far better job if there was the remotest possibility that they would ever have to live in these brick boxes. Three million call the place home.
    And it’s not all poverty and despair. In a city of this size in a country where race is no longer an impediment to prosperity, there are always going to be some haves and plenty of have-nots. By Oupa’s reckoning, at least half-a-dozen millionaires have resisted packing up and heading to suburbs that were once reserved for whites only. The luxury end of Soweto is Diepkloof Extension where a handful of mock Tuscan villas look across rolling lawns to Tudor piles next door. These are few and far between and the wealth in Soweto is made all the more conspicuous by its surroundings.
    Referred to as “informal housing settlements”, patches of urban wasteland have been swallowed by clutters of shacks that ripple off in every direction like a corrugated-iron ocean. Stones hold their roofs in place and plastic sheeting prevents the rain turning the floor to mud.
    Oupa had arranged for me to view one of these dwellings but I was rather uncomfortable with the prospect of taking an up-close gawk at a stranger’s poverty. “It’s okay,” he reassured me as we parked the car and made our way along a dirt road towards an elderly woman who waved us in her direction. “This is the way Maria makes her living. And besides, Wallpaper were here last week.”
    â€œThe decor magazine?” I asked, having trouble blending the world of ergonomically designed toilet seats and thousand-dollar scatter cushions with the lean-to Maria inhabited.
    â€œThe one and only,” beamed Oupa, taking obvious delight in my discombobulation. “She made enough money out of the shoot to cover almost six months living expenses.”
    On stepping into the single room that Maria shared with her two grandchildren, I could immediately understand why some art director had swooned in her Pradas. Depressed at the prospect of being surrounded by rusting iron, Maria had decided to add some colour to her home. She carefully peeled the labels from cans of pilchards – a township staple on account of its affordability and nutritious value – and began creating a mosaic. Three years later, every wall was covered in thousands of fish dancing against a background of fire-engine red and sunflower yellow. Had Maria done the same thing in a gallery, she would have undoubtedly been hailed as a tongue-in-chic installation artist. It was mesmerisingly vibrant and Maria was justifiably proud.
    Up until a few years ago Maria had been a domestic worker. That all changed when her former employers decamped to Toronto after a smash-and-grab attack in which a spark plug was hurled through their car window and a handbag plus all sense of