Johannesburg march 16-21

We were all looking forward to visiting jo'burg not just because it was another chance to see more of SA and also a very historic place. we stayed at Koinonia seminary under the auspices of nuns. it was a good time at the place. it was quite relaxing with enough space to hang out. seminaries also tend to be one of the safest places. haha this place is also near the Ellis Park stadium which will be used for the world cup. jo'burg is about a 7 hour drive from the dirty durbs so we hung out when we arrived and went to a nearby mall in the evening just to check out the scene. East gate was a nice mall with nice shops and posh eateries. I also noticed there was so many more asians in jo'burg compared to durban. asians probably constituted 15% of the people in the mall. it was a nice mall and we could immediately see the difference between Jo'burg and Durban.

Jo'burg is a much more industrial city and was just different to what I was used to in Durban. its a wealthier, trendier city. well it is the capital after all. the layout included a lot of old brick buildings and more factories and apartment buildings. on the first day there wasn't really much to Jo'burg.

We visited the Apartheid museum on Saturday. I really liked it and I thought that the whole layout and display was really clever. we had studied about a lot of topics around apartheid but this was where it was all put together from the first hunter-gatherers in Africa until democracy in 1994. the had it all and it was a well put together museum. it only should be since it represents such an important part of SA history. I enjoyed myself going through a specifically laid out route organized chronologically.

after the museum we had lunch at a nearby casino. Gold Reef city was the name of the whole area which also had a theme park. I learned that Gold Reef funded the whole Apartheid museum project to develop a good relationship with the local government. I say good business on their part. but anyway, the restaurant inside the casino, it was a little weird because this casino was tasteless and too elaborate. kind of trying too hard. we all just thought "where the hell are we". I think that we have seen so much of the real SA and really have not done such touristy things that we react in certain ways, which I like very much. we go for the real thing and not the most advertised. after lunch we visited the area of Sandton city to see some of the wealthier areas of Jo'burg and really see the polarization of SA. If I am not mistaken, the most unequal place in the world is in Jo'burg.

that night we saw a modern dance performance. I thought they were good dancers but modern dance is not my most favored genre. I got a little bored to be honest.

On Sunday we visited Soweto (South Western Township) another legacy of Apartheid with a lot of history. many protests and killings happened here. most famous was the 1976 school children protest when they protested against using Afrikaans as the medium of teaching in school. SA police and military then open fired on the students and these protests led to numerous other uprisings in SA at that time.

first stop was soccer city, still uncompleted stadium for the WC. The final will be held there. and then we visited the township to see township life. through the years many people have been able to prosper so just like any other place in SA. the wealthy and poor live so close to each other.

we then went to the Orlando area where Mandela's house is (not his current one but during the struggle). however, we did not go inside. we walked through the two schools that were most involved during the 1976 protest and made our way to the Hector Pietersen museum. Hector Pieterson was a young boy and he is famous for being one of the first killed in the protest with a very famous photograph. outside the museum there is a line of grass and trees that lead all the way to where it was said that he was shot and now lies a memorial. it was another good museum but this time very centered on the student protests.

on Monday we saw the constitutional court. one of three courts in the world that serve for trials against human rights violations. the court is located in an old prison that was converted. the prisons now serve tours, etc. the court was a pretty cool place architecturally. there was a lot of SA art outside the actual court inside the building. and the place was full of African symbolisms. one such example is that when one enters, there are diagonal pillars and leave/branch shaped things hanging from the ceiling. it represents trees and how Africans used to resolve their conflicts centuries ago, under trees. we went around the Number Four prison which housed many political prisoners. it was a notorious prison and showed prison life. torture, solitary confinement, inhumane conditions, etc. the whole place was pretty cool.

we left on Tuesday and made our way to Durban via the Drakensburg mountains. that was pretty cool and such nice landscape. it is the venue for Splashy Fen music festival that we are attending over Easter. the had lunch at a really nice backpackers. it was such a nice place with hammocks, lots of space in the mountains. it looked like a resthouse for the rich that you usually see on TV. but still had that backpacker feel to it. they also had a very pretty St Bernard named Bella. such a nice dog. and then back to Durban for the last few days with our homestead families. It was pretty sad and I should talk more about it on my next blog.