Train Surfing in Soweto, Rio

COLOPHON: Brief fling with the pretty but shallow new theme is over. Have reconciled with the not so attractive but reliable Cutline theme. Note to self: need to stop being such a sucker for a pretty face.

Screenshot from “Soweto Surfing” photo essay on Jamie-James Medina’s web site

Jamie-James Medina: SOWETO SURFING

Soweto is South Africa’s largest ghetto, a sprawling stretch of townships on the outskirts of Johannesburg. With an estimated population of one million, this former centre of the anti-apartheid struggle faces chronic problems of poverty and overcrowding, and remains a notoriously dangerous place to live and visit.

It is here where you’ll find Train Surfing, the semi-suicidal act of climbing on top and sometimes underneath a moving train. Born in the early Nineties out of a restless desire to embrace life (and death) after years of oppression, Train Surfing has evolved into something of an underground sport not unlike skateboarding in the 1970’s. There are similar elements of fringe outsider behavior, danger and adulation of male, and most importantly, female onlookers.

The internets informed me that train surfers are found wherever there are young men and trains, and that it was in an old issue of Colors where I had possibly seen images of train surfing youth in Rio de Janeiro a while ago (see below).

Surfistas de Trem (Train Surfers), 1995 by Rogerio Reis