Soweto and greater Johannesburg

Today we traveled first to Soweto.  Soweto is an acronym for Southwestern Township.  The townships differ from the cities because under apartheid the cities were inhabited by whites only and the townships by blacks.  Soweto has become the most visited tourist location in South Africa.  It is most notably known because two Nobel Laureates, Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, lived on the same street - Vilakazi St.- and both were active in the anti-apartheid movement.  Soweto is still a generally poorer area, but the people are very proud of their heritage and as Joe, our driver, said, "It's in our blood.  We were born here and we will die here."  

We started our visit in Soweto by traveling to the Hector Pieterson Museum.  This museum is dedicated to the peaceful movement of the youth in 1976 who were protesting against their substandard segregated educational system and the mandate of teaching in Afrikaans, the language they associate with white supremacy.  The peaceful protest turned into violence on the side of the police.  The museum was absolutely touching, and it was an amazing remembrance and honor of the youth that died that day but also all those who continued to struggle and protest against the government for what was rightfully theirs.  For example, in 1975, the South African government spent about 644 Rand per white student but only 42 Rand per black.  Also, white students were given their textbooks for free, but black students had to buy theirs - and even after requesting, they may never have received them.  Mandela mandated June 16 as Youth Day, a national holiday.  Our driver had been a student leader in the protest.  He said he taught his followers to do three things - "Be assertive, be self-confident, and be proud of who you are."  We got to see Mandela and Tutu's houses.  

After Soweto, we went to the apartheid museum.  Wow!  I cannot even begin to put into words the touching place this is.  As the brochure reads, "Now apartheid is where it belongs - in a museum."  The videos, the photos, the documentation of the apartheid was hard to see and fathom that this system existed less than twenty years ago.  As you leave the museum, you gather a stone from a pile (a stone from a concentration camp) and place it in another pile if you believe you were touched by the message of the museum.  The exhibits start out very dark, and the last exhibits are full of windows and light to symbolize the new age for the "Rainbow Nation."  The new South African flag is white for peace, yellow for gold, blue for skies and seas, green for vegetation and farming, and red for the blood that was shed for unity.  They converge together in the middle to show the unity and diversity of the races.  

Lastly, we went to Gold Reef City.  Johannesburg began as a mining town when gold was discovered in 1886 at a farm here.   A reef is a stretch of rock below the earth which contains the metals such as gold.  The reef here in South Africa has produced 35% of the gold ever mined in the world.  We went down into the mine.  We only went down 226 meters, which is level 2 of a 57 level mine (the lowest level being over 10,000 feet below the surface!).  They still have the elevators that have been in use for over 100 years.  It was not a place for the claustrophobic, that's for sure.  It definitely gave us a better appreciation for miners.   

It was surely a day neither of us will forget for a long time to come.  Not to mention meeting our drivers Joe and Ben.  Joe has driven Forrest Whitaker around, and just yesterday he had the current President of Liberia on tour with him.  Ben was excited when we told him we were from Illinois because he was Barack Obama's guide during his 2006 visit.  Both of them, residents of Soweto, had lived through the protest movements and could tell us firsthand stories of apartheid, Mandela, and what the democracy means to them.  

Well, that's it for now.  We leave tomorrow for KwaZulu-Natal for our safari!!  

Peace out!