Free Are We There Yet? by David Smiedt Page A

security was extracted. Maria informed me that she now makes more money showing her home to tourists than she ever did “cooking for that bitch”.
    It was only when I was asked for an entrance fee that I was able to wrench my retinas from the wall. “It’s R20 or $2,” said Maria in a tone which suggested that some visitors actually tried to bargain her down. If it was a ploy it worked and I doubled her asking price.
    Maria’s spotless home was dominated by a Sony television set which her previous bosses “couldn’t be bothered schlepping”. An American soapie was on and I got the distinct impression that, before another troupe of tourists arrived to stare agog at the wall, Maria was anxious to catch up on whether Dakota would recover from her coma before Montana married Phoenix only to discover that Alabama was in fact her sister. I asked Maria how long she planned on staying. “It’s been almost four years now,” she sighed, “but any day now Nelson is going to give me a house.”
    How do you solve a problem like Maria’s? Her faith is founded on the fact that every working day since the democratically elected government took power in 1994, 500 homes have been built for South Africa’s poor. However, as yet the supply has barely dented demand. Clusters of these freshly built dwellings have sprung up on the road between Soweto and Johannesburg. Many have shiny cars in the driveways, a patch of lawn, satellite dishes and views of the shantyland their occupants may once have called home.
    Like any city of Soweto’s size, there are areas that are better off, those that are worse for wear and others where one might venture if euthanasia was unavailable in your home town.
    For the most part, the older bungalows I saw were not occupied by the same upwardly mobile middle class moving into the new developments. However, what they lacked in conspicuous indicators of financial liquidity, they more than made up for in house pride. Many streets seemed as though they were in the midst of an anal-retention pageant with house after pristine house set behind a modest yet lovingly tended sprinkling of flowering plants. Neighbours gossiped over fences and kids kicked footballs on the pavement. I was expecting a ghetto but instead encountered a neighbourhood which residents obviously and affectionately considered home.
    The northeastern skyline of Soweto is dominated by a pair of cooling towers which in recent years have been painted with psychedelic swirls and acid-trip lashes of tangerine and lime. Not that these ever provided juice for the city in which they stood. Instead they exclusively served the Johannesburg CBD and were a daily reminder to Sowetans of who possessed the power.
    Tours of the township have become big business, but only a small percentage of white South Africans have ever ventured into this particular conglomeration of thirty-nine suburbs. Soweto has a habit of slapping visitors around the head with their expectations and assumptions. First off, they are more likely to be greeted with smiles and waves than weapons and intimidating demands.
    â€œIt’s safer in Soweto than in Johannesburg city,” said Oupa in the fraying tone of a man who made his living shattering stereotypes about his home town. Enthusiasm began to percolate within him once again as he pointed out a squat cream building with a flat tin roof and a cramped gravel car park.
    â€œThat, my friend, is the Pelican Nightclub,” he grinned.
    We pulled over to the shoulder and he gazed at the faded signage with the almost imperceptible head shakes that come with reminiscing about wild nights long gone. “When I used to come here to listen to kwela [a raucous form of idiosyncratic South African jazz] in the 70s, I had beers with white boys from the suburbs like you. The bands that played there weren’t allowed to perform in Johannesburg, but they were the best in town. So the