Lebos Tours
I have just returned from my first visit to Africa: South Africa, a journey that began primarily as a professional one. I traveled there to meet and work alongside fellow chiropractors, but I also felt a strong pull to explore and better understand the country itself.
Before arriving, my knowledge of South Africa was quite limited. Like many, what I knew centered mostly around Nelson Mandela. It wasn’t so much misinformation as it was a lack of information, a narrow lens through which to view a nation with extraordinary depth, complexity, and history.
The highlight of my personal exploration was Soweto. Even something as simple, and profound, as learning that Soweto is not a single town, but a collection of communities known as the South West Townships, shifted my understanding immediately. These are living, breathing neighborhoods with stories layered through generations.
Our experience there was shaped by a visionary local leader who founded Lebo’s Soweto Tours. His mission was not just to bring tourists into the area, but to do so with respect, context, and truth, to educate visitors, create opportunity, and ensure that the stories of Soweto were told by those who live them.
Through this lens, Soweto became far more than a historical reference; it became a place of resilience, culture, and pride. That day in Soweto reminded me how much there is to learn when we step outside our familiar circles and how travel, when done thoughtfully, can expand not only our knowledge, but our perspective and our heart.
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Tutu House
During our tour of Soweto, we stopped outside the home of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Although we unable to go inside, we took time to reflect on the remarkable life and legacy of this extraordinary man. The blue plaque on the house commemorates Tutu’s decades-long struggle for justice and human rights and notes that this had been […]
Orlando East and Orlando West
As we drove through Soweto, one mural caught my attention. Painted on the wall at 7336 Moema Street, it is part of the Art Rising project, a community initiative that uses public art to preserve the stories of Soweto’s past. Rather than standing in a museum, the mural is woven into the neighborhood itself, reminding […]
Lilian Ngoyi
On our teaching trip to South Africa, we took a tour of Soweto and stopped outside a modest home that holds extraordinary history: the house of Lilian Masediba Matabane Ngoyi. Lilian Ngoyi was one of the most prominent women in the anti-apartheid movement. A trade unionist and political leader, she became the first woman elected to […]
