I want to visit Soweto. There is such rich history in the townships. But I don’t want to be a voyeur or an unwanted interloper. At first I decide not to go, but the pull is too strong. We decide to seek out a local guide and join a small guided tour. In this way, we can support local businesses and any money we spend will go right back into the community.

Any misgivings I have are immediately put to rest the minute we meet Wisdom. He is a delightful young man. Born and raised in Orlando, he is a wealth of information and does credit to his name. He explains that parents in his community name children for what they hope they become. It must work. He is wise beyond his years and very personable. We are immediately at ease and welcomed into Soweto. He is proud of his community and determined to show us his world.

As we drive past the soccer stadium shaped like a calabash (bowl), he reminds us that Soweto stands for the southwest townships. It was actually made up of multiple townships including east and west Orlando, Jabavu, and Moroka. The area formed in the 1930’s when laws were passed to force the black population out of Johannesburg into a separate area. Apartheid laws became ever more oppressive, restricting movement and creating conditions of great poverty. He is thrilled with the world class soccer stadium and joyful that residents of Johannesburg now have to come to Soweto if they want to attend a game.

Wisdom may be only twenty, but he talks matter of factly and with authority about how political decisions affected his home. He speaks seven languages fluently. Because the creation of black townships forced a diverse peoples together, today we may hear Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, or Tsonga. Township kids are fluent in any number of African languages as well as French, Portuguese, Afrikaans and English.

As we stand under massive industrial towers, once abandoned and now turned into to a bungee experience, he tells us how creative and resourceful the people of Soweto are. There is pride in his voice as he talks about community activism and innovation. He is matter of fact when he says that crime is met with swift community vigilante justice. The community takes care of its own. You take care of your community or it will take care of you.

Like any town, there are variations of housing. Tidy multi-room structures of the professional class give way to smaller single room houses. With pride, he tells us that Mandela made sure every family was given a concrete house that will be their property for generations. He points across the road to a shanty town where houses are made of scrap. Those, he explains are the houses of immigrants. They are waiting for more permanent houses. In rarer instances, some families may choose to live there and rent out their proper house for extra income. The informal economy is a way to ensure that everyone eats.

We drive by the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, which Wisdom tells us is the largest hospital in Africa with 3,400 beds. 2,000 people check in daily. It is a major training facility for medical students. Unfortunately, once trained most move on.

Eventually we find ourselves standing in the epicenter of the Soweto children’s uprising. Here at the corner, sits the Hector Pieterson museum. I am well aware of the story of the 12 year old standing on the corner waiting to escort his sister home from school.

Children in Soweto were protesting a 1976 law that required instruction to take place in Afrikaans and not in their native language (actually 50/50 split in upper school). Students wanted to learn and were demanding that school be conducted in languages they could understand 100% of the time. The students got loud, chanting and singing. Rocks were thrown.

Hector was in the wrong place at the wrong time but couldn’t leave without his sister. When the police fired shots into the crowd of children, Hector was shot and killed. Photos of his body being carried down the street were shared across the world. I watched on the evening news. I was just about the same age as Hector, and remember being horrified to learn of apartheid as an eleven year old. How could anyone not want children to learn?

Today, in the cold rain, the streets are quiet. They don’t look anything like the crowded riot filled streets from my memory of news clips. Walter Kronkite is in my head as I listen to Wisdom and his colleagues tell me about how education is so important in Soweto.

As I hear these eloquent and smart young black men, I think once again how ignorant people must be to want to silence another because of the color of their skin or the origin of their birth. Our brightest and best come from all walks of life. I think Dr. King is right. Let us judge men by the content of their character. No child should be killed for wanting to learn. No human should be locked up for wanting a better life. No person should be assaulted for standing up for human dignity.

The humid air sits heavy in my lungs as I stare at the tree where Hector died. I guess Wisdom can tell that my thoughts are heavy. He invites me to follow him across the street to meet a few people from the neighborhood selling hand made jewelry. They are about my age. I wonder if they were in the crowd the day Hector was killed. I wonder how many of the people I shake hands with marched in the years of unrest that followed.

How many of the hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded children did they know? I don’t ask. I don’t want to be rude. Instead I buy a bracelet and smile in farewell. I visit a small shop and buy a Christmas ornament. In another a coffee. Every person waiting on me probably was here on that fateful day. Every person here lived through the worst of apartheid and still smile and welcome me to their neighborhood. South Africans are welcoming and joyful with ready smiles and much laughter. How is that possible? It is sobering and yet hopeful.

Across the township, we stop at Vilakazi Street. On this small street, two Nobel Prize winners lived within sight of each other. Today, market stalls line the street and tuk tuks dart back and forth. Everyone wants to see the home of Mandela and the house of Desmond Tutu.

This humble house is where Mandela lived with Winnie during his early work with the ANC. This is where he lived from 1946 until his arrest in 1962. The exterior brick walls still show the bullet holes and scorch marks from police raids and petrol-bomb attacks. It is preserved in the simplicity in which he lived.

It is a simple house by today’s standards (certainly compared to his Houghton estate), but it also reflects his status as an attorney and part of the African aristocracy of the time who were living in Soweto. Just across the street, behind an ugly concrete wall is the home of archbishop Desmond Tutu. Tutu moved here in 1975 and did not meet Mandela as a neighbor. Mandela was already in the Robben Island prison for many years before Tutu came to Vilakazi. But the neighborhood shaped them both.

As I stand and ponder the men who changed a nation, the vendors are getting impatient. Due to the rain there isn’t much business. They don’t live in the past. They live in today’s moment. If I won’t come to them, they will come to me.

Hats are shoved in my face. Someone grabs my arm to get me to look at the wood carvings. Jewelry jangles near my ear. I hear a constant “mother look hear. Mother see my animals made of wood. Mother I have a hat for you.”

It is all a bit overwhelming. I buy a beaded zebra and a beaded coaster just to satisfy the need of vendors to sell something. They seem to accept that even if they didn’t make any money from me, at least someone did. Wisdom stands at a respectable distance ready to come to my rescue should I need him. But I hold my own, with smiles and waves goodbye.

Our van winds down neighborhood streets as the rain intensifies. Wisdom smiles and says that since it is raining and we can’t have a proper walking tour he knows just where we should go. He looks mischievous and rubs his hands in anticipation.

To make small talk, he asks if I know Mr. Trevor Noah. I say, “I know of him, although I don’t know him. I would love to know him. Are you related, because you are both so very smart?” Wisdom replies, “We are both South African so we are kin. But I also know of him, but don’t know him.” His pearly white teeth are visible in the widest smile. I laugh out loud and so does he. He tells me that if I should ever meet Trevor Noah to say hello for him.

Wisdom then announces that we are visiting a neighborhood shibeen. I look up slightly startled. We spend a lot of time in Ireland and I recognize the Irish term for illegal drinking establishments that sold homebrew. Wisdom explains that during the apartheid era, shebeens (often run by women known as shebeen queens) became vital community hubs. This is where underground political meetings were held. They are also centers for the local music culture. While many operated illegally due to strict racial and liquor laws under apartheid, most have transitioned into legal, local taverns.

The exterior of the shebeen and the convenience store next door are bright red. The interior is small and dark. There are blue plastic chairs and an ancient pool table. Old men are huddled together in dark corners solving the problems of the world, one stout at a time. This really is like Ireland. Friendly faces, a pint, and a little music to send us on our way.

As Wisdom drops us off near Gold Reef City at the end of our Soweto tour, I thank him. I was reluctant to visit a place I associate with pain and hardship and poverty. I didn’t want to be a voyeur. But Soweto is a place that has been important in my own formation. As a teenager on the opposite side of the world, I watched and prayed for the people of South Africa. (Perhaps it was easier than confronting the racism in my own city where I naively believed the civil rights movement had fixed the issue. Teenage idealism can only take you so far.)

Wisdom has welcomed us to his home today. While he did not shy away from the struggles, he showed us a place that is so much more than the ugly headlines of apartheid protests. Soweto is rich and vibrant. It is community of innovation and action; and more importantly a place bound by Ubuntu. If a person is a person through another person, then Wisdom and the people of Soweto have helped me become more of a person today. Soweto will ever be in my heart.