South West Township. Mishack was to be our guide, but he hadn't lived there his whole life. He came home from school one day, and there was a soldier to gather up himself and his siblings, and take them to where mommy and daddy were. In the back of an army truck they cried where is mommy, where is daddy. The truck pulled away from their home as a bulldozer pulled in. Out into the fields they bounded along high in
the back of that army truck, till they came to a big open field on the side of a hill. There was nothing there but people. The soldiers dumped them there, this place where mommy and daddy were now supposed to be. The soldier said "this is your home now."

Orlando. It could well be Disneyworld. Disneyworld if Disney was a leper. Orlando was the newest, most open, freshest part of this place. This place called the South West Township. Everybody calls it Soweto.... I knew that I had to go here, some way, some how. Ever since I moved to Washington I've been dealing with the dormant issues of race that were ignored in my upbringing because of subverted racism, ignorance, and living in the America's breadbasket. A breadbasket that only had white bread in it. And I had to go there to see poverty. I've never known it in my life. Only could I imagine it. Maybe, once or twice, I caught a whiff of it driving through a native reservation in Minnesota. I knew that it could be there, but I never really had to confront it, to see it, to smell it. That's what I remember most - the smell...

Mishack had worked for CBS during the troubles. He lived there, and worked there, with a camera or a microphone. In a way, those were good years for Mishack. News thrives on conflict. Conflict creates demand from viewers, and demand for viewers creates jobs for news people. Now that South Africa has found something close to peace, Mishack has trouble finding work. Many people in my line of work there have the same problem. All the big American networks have gone home. What is left to cover here in South Africa? What is there for them to cover anywhere in Africa? Is there conflict? Of course, but who cares if one black army is trying to overthrow
another black army that came to power because they overthrew a third black army. It's not our problem, it's not our issue.

It's our subverted racism. If there weren't any embassies there to bomb or attack and to have the Marines evacuate them, I chance that we would hear scant words from Africa....

Fox had hired Mishack as a production assistant for Joburg. Actually, Mike hired him for us. Mike was taking care of a lot of details for us in South Africa. We call people like Mike fixers. Mike practically ran the CBS bureau in Joburg. Mike doesn't have
steady work either. Anne-Marie, one of our shooters, wanted the same experience with Soweto as me. Mike recommended Mishack as a good guide. And we
would need a guide. White people don't go into Soweto alone, or if
they do the do it armed. We preferred Mike's idea.

Mishack met us at our hotel, one of the newest and best in Joburg. He picked us up in his "limo," a subcompact Renault. We would first go to Alexandra Township, which was close by. I had wondered what this place would be like, a most of the help at the wharehouse lived there.

I don't think I was ready for what was there. In my mind, poverty was people living in mud huts with nothing to eat. My mind pictured the huts spread out, maybe with little yards between them. Mud must be hard to come by in the townships. The huts were pieced together from corrugated sheeting and craps of wood. Better structures incorporated brick or cinderblock. There were no yards, no space between them. Side to side, front to back, the yard is the street. So is the sewer and trash bin. For me, I
quickly found that the smell of poverty was more difficult than the sight of it. I've spent some time of farms, and known the rich aroma of compost and manure. But here, the farm smells are mixed with the rotting trash, fires burning, and the knowledge that most
of the manure doesn't come from animals. But there is a system here, as I think there must be everywhere.

People have little stands, selling produce and services like haircuts and shoe repair. People fix cars and mini-busses on almost every corner. But the grassroots entrepenuerism only goes so far. Scores of people sit idle on the curbs, watching everybody warily, wearily. Especially us.

Mishack makes a wrong turn, and we double back with a u-turn in
front of a schoolyard. The children are at recess. It is an elementary school, and the children rush to the fence waving and saying something to us in their tongue. We ask Mishack what they are saying. "Hello, white person."

We shortly make another turn onto a broad street with concrete barriers down the middle. To our left are the endless shanties, trash heaps, a dog poking through them for his lunch. To the right, a barbed wire fence and beyond a green grassy field, rolling off to the horizon. This was the border. This was the line that could not be crossed, by black or white. Six years ago there were armed soldiers and armored cars blocking the view of the fields. They are gone, but opportunity still blocks the people. Hope stagnates like the trash on the corner.

A small creek runs through Alexandra. Another line is formed. We cross the bridge, the sick shacks down below us right up to the water. On the other side ahead of us, an African Levittown. Hundreds of single family homes, with yards, spread out in front of
us. Some even have satellite dishes and new cars. It is hard to believe that we are still in one of the infamous townships. Construction of these homes began before Apartheid was dead.

Haves and have-nots are not limited by race. Just as the black world was
cordoned off by the whites, so became the poor blacks from the rich. Oppression among the oppressed?

We drive south now, on the expressway through the Witwatersrand,
Alexandra behind us. Suddenly we are back in a place that could be Cleveland or Pittsburgh. A familiar world where a concrete curtain keeps the bad sights from being seen. Where happy billboards proclaim all is well in the world, celebrate with a Coke.