As we've mentioned, Mandela and Desmond Tutu lived on the same street in the township of Soweto, just outside of Johannesburg and only a few houses away from the West Orlando High School, where many say that the anti-Apartheid movement was born. Although Tutu's house is still his residence, Mandela's was given to the public to serve as a museum by his ex-wife, Winnie Mandela (Mandela married the former first lady of Mozambique just prior to his inauguration, Graca Machel--the only woman to serve as the first lady of two different countries).
Drew and I went on a tour of the house--all three tiny rooms of it! It was powerful for us to be part of a group of people who truly love this man and appreciate all he's done for this country. Members of our small group came from Nigeria, Lesotho, South Africa and England. When we said we were from Chicago, everyone seemed to think that meant Canada... so we were the token "Canadians." This made it very interesting when the topic of the States came up--and George Bush refusing to apologize to Mandela, after his inauguration to the Presidency and the ban on Apartheid, for the U.S. C.I.A.'s revealing his hiding location to the Apartheid government, which then imprisoned him on Robin Island. As it turns out, the governor of Michigan at that time initiated a movement for all of the governors from each of the 50 states to sign an official apology, in spite of President Bush's refusal.
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