Postcards from South Africa: 02.05.11 & 02.06.11

More specifically, Postcards from Johannesburg. Drew and I rented our host's car for the weekend of his birthday to drive to Johannesburg and its nearby township, Soweto. We visited the Apartheid Museum, which took about 3-4 hours to tour, and we felt so honored to have the experience to absorb this country's history in that intimate and artistic environment. After that, we drove to the township (Soweto) where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu lived (Tutu still calls that same house home when in Joburg). Believe it or not, they lived just a few houses apart--on the same street. I'm pretty sure that this is the only place in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners lived on the same street! We ate at a very famous black African restaurant in the township (a "shebeen") named Wandie's, and then ventured over to tour Mandela's former house and to walk by the high school where many say that the anti-Apartheid movement really began: Orlando West High School. It was here that students began protesting being educated in Afrikaans, as it was such a road block to their learning (learning to read in a foreign language you do not yet speak? no thank you!!). We ended the day by driving through Johannesburg, right into the downtown area.

Our experience was so very rich, I feel it would sound trite to try to explain much here. I've had a fascination with South Africa's history since 1999, when I wrote my first college paper on Apartheid and Mandela, but I never dreamed I would actually have the chance to see the sites I had studied first hand.

We are very, very, very very blessed to be doing this and this weekend we were moved to tears by what we learned about South Africa's history. What is most moving to us is how peaceful the transition was, and the how far the country has come in just a short time (Apartheid officially ended in 1994). There is much that we U.S. Americans can learn from South Africa.

Of course, we took a lot of photos this weekend and it is hard to choose just a few, so we are calling this "Apartheid Museum & Soweto Week" (plus perhaps a wee bit of Drew's birthday). Enjoy!

02.05.11 -- The entry to the Apartheid Museum. The tickets are randomly printed with white or blacks/coloreds, and you are required to enter through your respective category's door. I was black and Drew was white -- and as you might anticipate, we had very different experiences!


02.06.11 -- A rock carving by tribal Africans during the early days of colonialism. All of the art displayed depicted the early European settlers as gun-toting.