Tour.

Today we visited our third township in less than two weeks. Jeanette, one of the teachers at LEAP 3, said, "Now you've been to South Africa."

Our wonderful foundation tour guides led us on three separate walking tours (we were broken into three groups) and I got to tour extension 1 and 2. The students explained that the zones are very different. Zone 1 is mostly shacks, and it has no electricity. Zone 2 has a fire station, library, community center, many paved roads and sidewalks, and far more established shops (even ones that sell televisions).

We passed by a couple shebeens, with loud music and people milling about or playing pool.

We stepped over many drains, and puddles of running water. A student asked me if I thought Diepsloot was disgusting, and I told her that I didn't. The students asked me if we had shacks in America, and I told her that we didn't.

Not all of Diepsloot is shacks. There are suburbs, too, and government housing that takes ages to acquire, and you have to live in a shack first. The students explained that it is difficult, mainly, because of how many people have to use only one toilet. And that toilet doesn't have running water, either. It's just a hole in the ground. "So it stinks," a student concluded.

The students at LEAP 4 come from all over Diepsloot.

We concluded our tour just as the sun was setting over a park in extension 2. The students made sandwiches for themselves, and gave us delicious chicken pies and soda. We ate quickly, to get home before dark. They reminded me of Team Alpha, my first class of 9th graders, because for now, these forty students are the entire school. These were the first students we got to really interact with, and it reminded all of us of how much we like young people and how excited we are to work with them.