Into Africa

After what seems like days of travel, we arrived in Johannesburg and were transferred to our Guest House lodgings.  It was dark and disorienting, but we awoke to find very plesasant gardens and friendly hosts.

We know we are going to see plenty of the African bush and wild animals, so we wanted to make this day in Joburg about the people side of Africa.  We want to check out the neighborhood, mingle with the people.  

Our host suggested we shouldn't wander too far beyond the heavily fortified confines of the Guest House property, so we opted instead for a guided tour of some of the city highlights, such as the black township of Soweto, Nelson Mandela's house, city center and the Apartheid Museum

Soweto the South West Township or black homeland, was one of many segregated black lands the white separatist government moved colored and black citizens to create all white neighborhoods and suburbs.  Today Soweto is home to over 5 million people, with furious home building and infrastructure projects launched since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Soweto still reflects a mix of rural and high density housing.

 

Father Danny tells Susan about the police tactics, used to break up black gatherings, including gunfire in the  church; the only place blacks were allowed to gather in groups numbering more than two persons.

 

Our tour guide Ishmael.

Mandela's Soweto home from the early 1960s.

Interior of Madela's house.

Portrait of Nelson Mandela.

Joburg is an contrast in the old and new.  Urban and rural.  Above the Futbol stadium from the 2006 World Cup, below the hollowed out courthouse in city center.

 

All around Joburg are signs of its mining history.  The discovery of gold in 1886 attracted hundreds of thousands of men from all over Africa and the indian subcontinent to work the mines, triggering a century of ever more repressive laws/controls on where workers/non-whites could live and who they could associagte with.

Entrance to Aparteid Museum. The compartments to the left are to symbolie the ore brought above ground by generations of miners, the pictures of travelers mounting the ramp symbolize the many faces and ethnicity ofpersons climbing to equality.  The museum was a tour de force explaining the conflicts from pre-history to the end of apartheid between all men, of all cultures to peaceably settle Africa.  It deserves more narrative, but our flight departs soon and I must put this to bed.    

Simulation of Nelson Mandela's cell on Robbins Island.

Johannesburg a city both modern, and striving to be modern; growing and struggling to accommodate that growth.  A fantastic start to this trip.