Soweto

Daphney Makhubela had to wait over 20 years to bury her brother Schoeman Ramokgopa, who never said goodbye before leaving South Africa in the 1970s to train as a soldier in the anti-apartheid movement. Ramokgopa was killed in a 1983 battle with apartheid forces on the border with Botswana, where he was stationed as part of an exiled military force.

One of his friends may have died in front of his eyes but 19-year-old Leepile is in no mood to listen to pleas to stop ”train surfing” through South Africa’s sprawling Soweto township. ”We feel like we are in another world when doing it, in heaven or something. It’s like we are floating, and don’t fear anything,” says the teenager.

Expletives are scrawled across the classroom walls, the library ceiling has collapsed and up to 45 pupils cram into each filthy classroom — when the teachers turn up that is. But despite the shoddy state of her school, 14-year-old Constance Mpho has even bigger worries.

Scores of lesbians staged a colourful march through the streets of South Africa’s sprawling Soweto township on Saturday to declare their rights in a country where they are often victims of sexual violence. South Africa’s Constitution is the first in the world to recognise gay rights and it is poised to become the first African country to recognise homosexual marriage.

Three decades ago, these streets were ablaze as protesting youths pelted apartheid police with bricks and stones, angered by a government plan to force Afrikaans on them as a language of instruction. Scores died as police fired bullets into a crowd of thousands of young people, many still in school. Rarely can a language have evoked more bitterness.

The Soweto township is soon to open its first luxury hotel as tourists in increasing numbers stream to the suburb, which was once the focal point in the fight against apartheid. The upmarket hotel is to rise in the historic heart of Kliptown as Soweto experiences a growing economic boom since the advent of democracy in 1994.

Corrie Holloway is one of an increasingly maverick pack of women challenging racial and gender stereotypes by being the only white biker in a motorcycle club in Soweto. With her blond and dyed Afrikaner hair and green eyes and ”biking in the blood”, Holloway embodies the rainbow nation by being a member of The Eagles.

A 30-year-old father was arrested in Doornkop for allegedly raping his eight-month-old daughter, Soweto police said on Tuesday. Sergeant Richard Munyai said the baby girl’s mother noticed her daughter had allegedly been raped while she was bathing her and changing her nappy on Monday night.

Hundreds of thousands of grandmothers, some of them in their twilight years and struggling to make ends meet, are getting a second, often dismal turn at motherhood, raising Aids orphans in South Africa. About half of South Africa’s 1,1-million orphans are being raised by their grandparents.

The coming of winter has brought brisk business for coal merchants in the South African township of Soweto as many residents rush to buy the commodity to keep themselves warm in the biting cold. When winter sets in between May and August, Sowetans look for other means apart from electricity to keep their homes warm, as temperatures can drop to freezing point at night.

South Africa’s most famous township, Soweto, synonymous with the struggle against apartheid, kicked off centenary celebrations on Tuesday with a tree-planting ceremony symbolising a new era of freedom and growth. An African pine tree was planted as organisers geared up for weeks of celebrations to mark the founding of Soweto.