Joburg

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Joburg and Soweto

At the backpackers in the Drakensburg we met, Chi, Paul and Nirali. Chi very kindly offered to put us up at his flat for a couple of days so that we could see the real Jo'Burg. His flat turned out to be a very cool, very large, loft style apartment with a sauna and plunge pool! He had decked the whole place out from scratch and it was very stylish. He is also a great cook and cooked us a fantastic meal for our arrival.

Went to the apartheid museum which is a really fasinating place. It charts South Africa's history for the gold rush to the present day and plays video clips for the time, lots of which are actually BBC broadcasts as the media was censored in South Africa. We ended up going to the museum twice because there is so much to see and we got kicked out the first time because it closed. It is very matter of fact in it's presentation and the whole philosophy is that South Africa should face its past in order to be able to move forward and build itself as the "Rainbow Nation". On thing that I found interesting was that after apartheid had ended there was a "Truth and Reconcilition Committee" where those that had been wronged and those that had done wrong could air their views. By coming to the committee, those that had done wrong were given amnesty. All of this was televised to show that the country was accepting its past and moving on.

To be honest we had been a bit aprehensive of Jo'Burg and had planned to visit the museum and then move on, not spending the night. Chi and Paul encouraged us to stay and we saw a very different side to the one that we expected. Jo,Burg is very green, lots of parks and open spaces. Yes, there are the electric fences and the high gates to the houses but we ate out at lovely restaurants and saw a city that didn't seem too different from London or New York.

Chi had to fly back to London and although we had been surprised by Jo'Burg we weren't confident enough to explore more deeply on our own so we booked on a city and Soweto tour. The tour of the city was interesting. We saw the notorious Hillbrow area (supposedly very dangerous and run down) and the new Constitution Hill which is built on the site of the old Fort prison where Nelson Mandela and Gandhi were both held. We also stopped at a traditional African pharmacy where they have all the "Muti". It smelled really bad as there were loads of dead animals in there!!

Soweto was not at all as we had expected. It is really lots of different townships that all join together such as Orlando West. Most of the housing is identical, smallish brick built, single storey buildings but there are also some very large houses and neighbourhoods that are quiet and very like ones in the UK. On the other side, there are informal settlements in the middle of all of these that spring up where people just try and put together a house out of what they can gather. These people seem to be accepted into the community and eventually the goverment come along and provide facilities and improve the buildings. I don't think that would happen in the UK!!

We visited Winnie Mandela's house, Desmond Tutu's house (they both still live in Soweto) and saw Nelson Mandela's old house. Our guide lived in the area so we got lots of information about what it was like to live there now and in the past when there was a lot of trouble. We were really pleased that we decided to visit.

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