Zuma lays wreath and wows folk in Soweto

President Jacob Zuma laying a wreaths at June 16 victim Hector Pieterson Musium in Soweto.14/06/2013

President Jacob Zuma laying a wreaths at June 16 victim Hector Pieterson Musium in Soweto.14/06/2013

Published Jun 15, 2013

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 President Jacob Zuma laid a wreath at Hector Pieterson Memorial Square in Orlando West, Soweto, on Friday.

He was joined by ANC leaders in Gauteng.

Gauteng ANC Youth League leader Lebogang Maile and Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau also laid wreaths.

Pieterson was one of the first children shot by apartheid security forces during a protest in the area on June 16, 1976.

Afterwards, Zuma went on door-to-door visits in the area.

Children at the Thembeni Day Care Centre sang the national anthem for him.

Two groups of pupils on school trips to Soweto got an extra-special surprise yesterday - a look at Zuma.

Sixty Grade R to Grade 2 pupils from Mbulelo Primary School in Carletonville and a Grade 12 class from Redhill, a private co-education school in Morningside, north of Joburg, found themselves caught up in the president’s door-to-door campaign in Orlando West, Soweto. And both groups were left star-struck.

The Mbulelo pupils screamed and pushed and jostled as Zuma approached them to shake their hands outside the Mandela Restaurant at the corner of Vilakazi and Ngakane streets. “They are very excited. They’re so happy; they started singing Umshini Wam,” said Grade 1 teacher MA Thebe.

She said they had not been aware of Zuma’s visit when they planned the school trip to Mandela’s House, but decided to wait for the president when they found out about it.

Maxine Jordaan and Joel Hofstatter, both 18, from Redhill School were also excited to see Zuma speak outside the Hector Pieterson Memorial Square.

Jordaan said they were on a history and geography tour to Soweto when they came across Zuma addressing volunteers and supporters at the memorial. “He’s very different,” she said as some pupils danced to Zuma’s rendition of Umshini Wam.

Hofstatter said the president was a “good speaker” although he avoided controversial and difficult subjects.

Earlier, young and old had mobbed Zuma as he made his way down the historic Vilakazi Street, the only one in the world to have housed two Nobel Prize winners in Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

An ecstatic Thengiwe Nthite, 19, excitedly showed her friend Maina Malaiya, 20, the picture she had managed to snap of Zuma. “I shook his hand,” she said. The education student admitted coming all the way from Ivory Park to see Zuma and “tell him how much we love him”.

“We love him. I love what he’s doing with the whole country. I think he’s amazing,” echoed Malaiya, a University of Joburg student.

The outpouring of affection wasn’t limited to starry-eyed teenagers.

Anastacia Makgato, 67, said she was “happy” and that it had been “nice” to meet Zuma. She said she had asked Zuma to do something about crime which was “very bad”. - Pretoria News

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