Sheer Cheer

It’s been a year to the day since I returned from my trip to Africa. It’s crazy to think I shot about 4,000 pictures had 0 printed and had posted only one on my blog. So, i dedicate today to revisiting my time in the motherland. A beautiful country. Beautiful in people and in landscape. It’s a complicated place with many paradoxes. rich poor. black white. clean dirty. opened closed. hard easy.

A huge thanks to Michael (pictured below in front of brick house) who made my day when we went to Soweto. We picked him up at a gas station , where he graciously rode around with us and pointed us in the right direction. He even took us into his home in Zondi (a different sector of Soweto) where we met Foxy his dog and his kid friends playing in the street. His “friends” are the photos I’m sure most of you have seen as they are my favorites. It is the one photo I posted when I returned. (In my archives). Michael likes to listen to Phil Collins and Michael Bolton. He has no job and hasn’t for years. We paid him probably more money than he has made in weeks or months. He had a smile that will last a lifetime in my memory.

It was the townships and the people I was drawn to the most in Africa. It has come a long way in such a short time. There is a hope in the people that I haven’t witnessed anywhere else. I didn’t meet one person in Soweto who felt sorry for himself. I suppose they are driven by poverty and hard times. My photos speak volumes above my rambling. So take a look and enjoy. Rock out to Phil Collins while you do and think of a far away smile and Michael my buddy.