KEY POINTS:
We were parked beside a tin-roofed nursery school, in the shade of a flowering tree, while Bongani talked to the principal of the school. Across the road a young African boy unlocked a dirty portaloo teetering on the side of the sloping dirt road, and disappeared.
A knock distracted us and we turned to see the friendly face of the principal at the window. She was a wide African woman, with great big hands, a great big smile and large apron.
"Sawubona," we said. She greeted us back in Zulu and offered her apologies, the children were not prepared for our visit and were not able to perform for us. But it didn't put Bongani off and he set off back into the heart of Soweto to find a choir of children that could.
I felt a bit uncomfortable, it was like the old days where black people were expected to do anything white South Africans demanded. Of course Bongani, who was our guide, just wanted to make sure we would leave with the right impression and the best photos from our tour of South Africa's most infamous township, Soweto.
Soweto, the black South Western Township (So We To) bordering Johannesburg in South Africa, the home of past president Nelson Mandela for most of his free and adult life, the place of the Soweto riots, of brutal racism, abject poverty and injustice ... but also of community spirit, known as ubuntu.
I first went to Soweto when I was 11 and living in Johannesburg. There were hardly any trees then nor gardens like we had in the suburbs. On every corner was a festering mound of rubbish, and children played in the dusty streets near the open sewers. It seemed lively but dismally poor.
At that time, I would have been one of the few white South Africans to ever set foot in Soweto. Now, Bongani reminded me that I would still be one of the few "locals" - though I now live on Waiheke Island - to visit Soweto.
Townships such as this were areas of poor land, where the former apartheid government assigned black people to live during the apartheid system of black and white segregation. Guide Bongani was keen to show us the new version of Soweto in a new South Africa.
We entered Soweto almost without warning - I had half-expected barriers, or a fence - but suddenly we were on a dirt road, surrounded by makeshift homes with outside toilets, broken down cars, street-side vendors but also neat tended gardens, washing lines and brightly coloured letter boxes.
There was noise, toxic fumes, blaring radios, chatting Mamas, hooting taxis and milling people. Stallholders sold glycerine with combs used to straighten tight black curls, hair elastics, black shoe polish, camphor cream, Vaseline and traditional African herbal remedies.
There seemed no order, and any bit of dirt was for anyone's taking, including perched on the corner under the bridge, a barber, who was cleaning his clippers for the first customer. Driving on to another neighbourhood, we passed a shantytown called Chicken Farm Informal Settlement. Bongani explained that informal settlements were now officially recognised by the government, so people living in them were allowed to use these often-squalid pieces of land until the government relocated them to proper housing.
Sprouted in and among the weeds and muddy streams, the houses were built of leftover materials, bricks, tin, cardboard and clay. While Bongani knowledgeably weaved his way through the network, we gathered a troupe of children, pushing bicycle tyres and skipping through ropes, behind us.
In the heart of Mshenguville Informal Settlement we came to a barrage of signs, posters and advertisements, laced through and stuck to poles, gates and trees. This was the informal Mokubung post office of the informal settlement, where locals could get their post delivered, buy cellphone credit, and send post.
Across the tar-sealed road was a contrast of ordered houses with square gardens and white painted walls. We visited one of these homes, which had a kitchen, lounge, and two bedrooms, an outside toilet and wash room. Bongani was welcomed by his friend, whose hand we shook gently, aware of his arthritis. His daughter washed the floors while her daughter gurgled from a basket above the fridge.
Lunch was at Wandi's, one of Soweto's more famous restaurants.
The buffet was local food, mielie-pap, lamb stew, samp and beans, steamed dumplings and lots of salads and sauces, washed down with cool, locally brewed Castle beer.
The walls were covered in signatures of visitors and celebrities, and the tourists around us were German, Canadians, British and Spanish.
Just around the corner from Wandi was Botle Guest House, with the garage converted into a dining room to cater for the guests of the three self-catering rooms.
The charming but direct owner/operator Ellen Mabiletsa was to me an example of the many success stories of tourism in the "new" South Africa.
As well as dust and shanties Soweto has havens of green. Large parklands give breathing space to the condensed housing. In one such area is Soweto's beautiful Regina Mundi (Queen of the World) Church.
Although now peaceful, it was once the scene for illegal gatherings in some of Soweto's darkest political days more than 20 years ago. The stained glass windows are shattered and the ceiling pockmarked with bullets holes fired from the then-notorious South African police, who regularly broke up these gatherings.
Unscathed, a painting of the Madonna and Child with black skin still hangs on the side of the altar.
History continued to work its way to the darkest day of Soweto's history, the 1976 uprising, where disaffected black high school students planned to protest against the inferior education forced on them. What was to be a peaceful march became one of South Africa's most shameful events in which 23 students died by police fire. The first death, that of 13-year-old Hector Pietersen, was captured in a black and white photo of his body being carried away by his sister and a friend.
The Hector Pietersen Modern Museum was built in 2002 to commemorate this event.
By a strange twist of fate and ideal for tours, the scene is not far from the former home of Nelson Mandela, now the Mandela Family Museum. This is where he lived with former wife Winnie before his incarceration on Robben Island, the prison off the coast of Cape Town.
Mandela lived in a tiny house with four rooms. You can walk through quickly, taking about 20 minutes to see in a snapshot the life of this great man. Doctorates are on display on the kitchen wall, as well as photos of famous people, newspaper clippings and even a boxing belt - for Mandela was a keen boxer - from Sugar Ray Leonard.
On the way out of Soweto, Bongani took us to Millionaire's Row, where the brick four-bedroom houses had electric fencing, polished sedans in garages and ensuite bathrooms. I wasn't sure if the name Millionaire's Row was ironic, as the houses were probably the equivalent of a middle-class house in a white suburb of Johannesburg. Across the road were still tin shacks and overflowing rubbish bins.
Twenty years ago, most Sowetans could not have imagined being "millionaires". Now Sowetans and black South Africans have a shot at real affluence and are free to come and go as they please, no longer restricted to segregated areas.
However they stay in Soweto, for even though there are still informal shantytowns, shared portaloos and toxic fumes from taxis, it is their home.
It is the home of Nelson Mandela, of their heroes and parents, of the struggle for freedom, of history, and of ubuntu.
If anything, I felt fortunate to be invited into their home, their part of the world, where now a child's education is not interrupted at the whim of the white man, where the people are proud and where there is so much promise.
* If you are interested in taking a tour of Soweto when you are in South Africa, see website link below or contact your travel agent.
