Roofs are held down by rocks, tires, hubcaps, or even larger chunks of rusted sheet metal. Anything and everything is tossed on top of the roofs to hold them in place and keep out the rain. Thousands of these one or two-room homes are piled side by side and blanket the land as far as the eye can see. Seventy-five percent of the 500,000 people who live in this black township are unemployed. Undernourished dogs, caged chickens, noisy goats and small children litter the narrow dirt streets.
Garbage is everywhere.
The pungent smells of urine, rotted vegetables, and lost dreams fill the air. This is where humankind is going to bed hungry every night. Ten minutes out of Alexandra is the lavishly wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Sandton where the lush green roads are lined on either side with flowering trees and exotic, neatly trimmed gardens. If the social and economic gap can be filled, apartheid can really be called dead. The United States took years to recover from slavery and South Africa will take years to recover from the wounds of apartheid.