Hey Everyone,
Well, I did not jump off any bridges or climb any mountains
this past week. I did visit Johannesburg
though. A couple weeks ago I was talking
with a roommate, and we decided that we have to see Joburg to truly have seen
the country. Many people recommended
going to the city, but I was never sure if I could fit it in to my weekends
which are numbered. After learning so
much about this country and living here for the past three months, I realized I
had to take the pilgrimage to “Gold City.”
There are some themes that come up when people speak of
Joburg. Among those themes are that it
is a tough and dangerous city. Those
reasons were initially the main reason for not planning on making it to the
city. It really is not a tourist city
either because of those reasons. The
city has such a strong history, and it has played such a huge role in the
development on the country. We got a
group together and went over our long weekend this past weekend. Last Friday, April 27th, was
Freedom Day which is the anniversary of the elections in 1994. This past Tuesday was international employee
appreciation day. America has a separate
labor day. That gave us the opportunity,
so we took it.
Johannesburg was built on the gold mines. Thousands of people would ride the train and
work in the mines to provide for their families. Part of the reasoning of Apartheid was to
keep a cheap labor force to work in the mines.
Many of the men in the family would take the train and live at the mines
on contract for about six months at a time.
We decided to take the train, because it was cheap and symbolic. I had never ridden a train before, and why
not in Africa. The train from PE to
Joburg is an 18 hour trip, so long. It
was cramped, hot, loud, and difficult to sleep.
I had a good time though. Our
group took up the time by reading and playing games with each other, but that
is not what the other travelers did.
Many times, there would be spontaneous gospel singing which was very
cool. Yes, there were some interesting
characters, and some heated situations amongst other riders which caused for
some worrisome situations. We made it fine;
the ride back was actually a full 24 hours because the train broke down, so we
were stuck in Bloemfontein for a few extra hours. That’s Africa for you.
The train we rode.
A good friend of ours, Anga, which we met on our second day here,
accompanied us on the trip. This proved
to be beneficial in countless ways. His
mother tongue is Xhosa, so he was able to do the talking and interpret for us
in sticky situations. He saved us peace
of mind and probably money many times.
We took a tour of Johannesburg and Soweto (South West
Township) one day. We were able to see
the whole area which has so much history and life to it. Soweto is the largest township in South
Africa, and because of this there have been many historical protests and events
that have taken place there. We got the
chance to see Nelson Mandela’s current house in a Suburb of Johannesburg along
with his past home in Soweto. His past
home is a small museum, situated on Vilakazi Street which is the only street in
the world that has had two Nobel Peace prize recipients live on the street. Archbishop Desmond Tutu who won the award in
1984 still lives about a block away from Mandela’s old home. The hospital in Soweto boasts that it is the
biggest in the Southern hemisphere. It holds
5,000 beds, so it is quite large. While
driving through Soweto we were able to see some of the barracks that use to
house miners. There was also some drag
racing that we got to see by chance.
There was just so much going on while we were driving through. Unlike in Soweto, we were able to walk around
a bit in downtown Johannesburg.
Soweto
We also toured Pretoria one day which is a short 40 minutes
from Johannesburg. Pretoria is an
interesting city because it is about 67% white where South Africa is only about
10% white. The Union building where the
executive offices are held was very cool to see. There have been some big speeches that have
taken place in front of the building, so finally seeing that was amazing.
Union Building
There were some hectic situations during our trip. One day we were in downtown, we were looking
to go back to our hostile. Our main
transportation here is by using the Kombi system that is used in South
Africa. We are almost always the only
white people that use them. We decided
to walk a couple blocks to the ‘rack’ where the kombis congregate. The kombis, which everyone call taxis, where
in a big parking ramp that smelled like urine.
A smell that is all too familiar to many areas in SA. This was probably the most on edge I was
during the trip because there was gambling, selling of things that were clearly
stolen and loud music blaring while people search for the taxi that will take
them the direction they want. The nine
of us stuck out as usual, but Anga was able to do the negotiating for us and we
were able to find a kombi that took us our way.
The train ride back also provided a tense situation. Late in the night there was an argument in
our cart. There was an extended family
in the cart with us, and particularly a young man that was intoxicated. There was lots of yelling in Afrikaans, so we
couldn’t understand what was being yelled.
Anga can understand Afrikaans a little, so he was able to get the main
subject of the fight. The main thing I got
was that the man was angry at his wife/girlfriend and tried taking his
son. He actually threw many of their
belongs out the window. The most tense
the fight got was when the man went out of the cart for a while. When he returned, he had a broken bottle in
his hand. He only got a couple rows in
when one of the mamas pushed and punched him to leave. He did and the situation cooled shortly
after. Don’t worry mom, our group was
ignored the entire time, and the fight never escalated to put us in danger.
One of the museums we visited was the Apartheid museum in
Johannesburg. It was truly one of the
best museums I have ever been to. We
ended up spending a few hours just looking through all that was there. Throughout our time here, I have learned so
much about Apartheid, but the vast compilations of artifacts and videos was
absolutely astounding. I was able to
gain an even greater amount of what went on during that time, and everyone was
shocked from the museum. One of the
nights we watched the movie District 9. If any of you have seen it before, you know
that it is set in Johannesburg. The
movie is a science-fiction movie where there are aliens that live in the townships
of Johannesburg. I had seen the movie
before, but watching I was shocked to see the similarities between the movie
and Apartheid. There are forced
removals, laws that segregate the aliens and humans, and township life. The director did a great job of emulating that
era of South Africa. It is a Hollywood production,
so there is an obvious cinematic touch to it.
I would recommend watching it because I think it gives the best look into
what it was like during Apartheid through a modern lens.
The trip was one of my favorite adventures I have had during
my time here. Thanks for reading. I appreciate all the support. I am on the home stretch as there are three
weeks left for me in South Africa. I
plan to make the best of them, and look forward to seeing you all when I return.
Cheers,
Bobby
No comments:
Post a Comment