On our full day in Johannesburg, we embarked in a tour mostly consistent of apartheid significant sights.
It was nice not to have one of those ultra early wake up calls, partly because we needed a little extra time to maneuver around our hotel rooms quirkiness. It was one of those hotels with the bathroom sink and glass shower in the bedroom. They did provide a partial curtain divider, but it was still awkward and limiting when two people who are not in a naked relationship start trying to get ready in the morning.
A drive through Soweto would lead us to visit the houses of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who lived a short distance from each other in Soweto, although not at the same time. The Tutu house is still occupied so we only stopped outside for a brief history of when he lived there, and then proceeded to the Mandela house, which is now a museum.
Soweto was created in the 1930s when the White government started separating Blacks from Whites. In 1959 there was to give a collective name to townships dotted around the of Johannesburg. The City Council settled
for the acronym SOWETO (South West Townships). The name Soweto was first used in 1963 and within a short period of time, following the 1976 uprising of students in the township, the name became internationally known. Soweto became the largest Black city in South Africa, its population serving as a workforce for Johannesburg.
Unfortunately, most of the photos of Soweto were taken from our vehicle, and the glare in the windows shows on some of the photos, but I have included some of them because I thought they were relevant.
Our second stop was the Memorial of Hector Pieterson. On June 16, 1976 students from various schools in Soweto started a march to protest the implementation of Afrikaans as the official language in the classrooms. They were met by a police force that first set trained dogs on them and, when the students killed the dogs, started shooting directly at the children. Although 23 people died that first day, one of the first victims was 12 year old Hector Pieterson, and the photograph of him being carried away by a good Samaritan, with his 16 year old sister Antoinette running at his side is credited with being the
Antoinette met our group for a first witness narration of the events that day. She knew in advance about the protest, unlike many of the students who only found out when they got to school that morning, but her brother was definitely too young, and not supposed to be there. It is estimated that 20,000 students ended up participating in the protests, that turned into riots, with 176 students dying.
Our last stop was the Apartheid Museum, which was a profound experience. Brutality begets savagery was the prominent thought I was left with, and it was sad to see the innocent victims from both sides that ended up paying with their lives for the anger and hate that existed during those years.
No photographs are allowed inside the Museum, which could well take a whole day to get through. We only had a couple of hours, so I decided to bypass the Nelson Mandela section and concentrate on the remainder of the exhibits, only reading the main headlines and the descriptions on some of the pictures that caught my attention. The live
Fortunately, we got back to our hotel and its convenient location early enough to allow us time to explore the trendy pedestrian mall next to it, and ended up at another wine bar named Cuisine. Since it was still the middle of the afternoon, we were able to occupy a table outside thanks to the heat lamps spread out around the tables, and enjoy a bottle of excellent Pinotage wine while watching the passing crowd. Once again, we encountered smiling, friendly service in our young water who was studying forensic law. He told us his earnest wish to move to Canada because, he said, to get a job requires bribery or knowing people. Sigh.
