south africa - johannesburg

Oh sweet Africa.

From our wonderful stay in Buenos Aires, we took a nine hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.  Although it is really hard to avoid culture shock when going somewhere completely new, I feel as though the transition here has been very easy for me, much easier than when we landed in Lima!  We went right to our hostel in Kensington, just east of downtown Johannesburg.  We slept for awhile, since neither of us got any sleep on our overnight plane ride, and we were already thrust five hours ahead of schedule.

The next day we ventured out from our lovely hostel complex by walking a couple of miles to downtown Johannesburg.  We went to the Carlton Tower (the tallest building in Africa at 50 stories) to see the "Top of Africa," a rather nice 360 degree view of the entire city of Johannesburg.  We also just kind of wandered around the city, just to take it all in, and ate at Nando's, a South African eatery with lots of delicious spicy chicken and Portugese flavor.

Saturday was our biggest day in Johannesburg.  We took a day long tour through our hostel, that was REALLY good.  And I can even say that even when I was sick all day!  We started by heading to the Apartheid Museum.  The country of South Africa has a history deeply entrenched in racism, much like that of the United States.  The system of apartheid was enforced for nearly 50 fifty years, with policies to keep races separate, favoring the white population (to put it gently).  Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years before being released, leading the country into a new post-apartheid era, and elected in the first democratic election as President. As much as I would love to go on and on about the history of the country and of Mandala, you can click on this link to read more if you'd like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid  The museum was very state of the art and provided excellent information.

From there we headed to the well-known area of Soweto.  Within Soweto there are about 30 townships, some fairly wealthy to extremely poor.  Our tour guide took us to both extremes.  During that time, we drove by Archbishop Desmond Tutu's former home, visited Nelson Mandela's former home, visited the Hector Pieterson Musuem, and made a stop at the Soweto Kliptown Youth Center (SKY).  This place was amazing.  We got an official "tour" from one of the children living there, who showed us where the other children live, eat, learn, and play.  The kids were so friendly and in really good spirits.  The center is located right in the Kliptown township, which is full of shacks and very poor.  We met the founder of SKY, Bob, who sat down to chat with us for awhile and tell us about the organization.  We found out that he was featured on CNN's "Heroes" http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/cnn.heroes/interactive/gallery.heroes/content.1.1f.html and its really no surprise why.  He was an orphaned child himself growing up in Kliptown, and he has spent the last few decades of his life dedicated to bettering the lives of Kliptown children.  He was incredibly wise and inspirational as he sat and shared his story with us, as well as his views on life, poverty and reconciliation.  He definitely has such a powerful positive message of hope, and tears came into my eyes as he talked. 

After recovering from a tough day and horrible night of sickness (with the scare of a fever), we laid low and I recouped before we went to stay with a couple through "couchsurfing" in downtown Johannesburg.  They were amazing, not only letting us stay with them in their home, but making us wonderful food, teaching us about the culture, and showing us around.  Tiffany is actually originally from Minneapolis, and she recently married a man from South Africa.  She showed us around downtown, including Farady Market, where you can purchase herbs, unidentified hooves, and other strange items.  We also walked by street markets selling beautiful African art, jewerly and crafts.  Our lovely hosts also made us "braai" which is the South African equivalent of BBQ, including boerewors, a spicy sausage.  They also introduced us to biltong (strips of dried meat similar to beef jerky) which is a national obsession.  While he grilled the food on their highrise rooftop, we enjoyed incredible views of the city.

Our final day in Johannesburg included visiting Museum Africa, sampling the typical food of meat pies from Woolworth's (wait, didn't my grandma shop there?) and going to dinner with Tiffany and Chris at an amazing Indian restaurant. 

I think that Johannesburg is an AMAZING city.  It is full of struggle and overcoming struggle.  The crime rate is very high (everything downtown closes at 5:00), the AIDS epidemic is very real here (South Africa has the highest number of people infected with HIV in the world), poverty is rampant, and though apartheid has ended, inequality is still very present.  At times I felt very down in Johannesburg, learning more and more about the horrible history and oppression.  But there are amazing people living here with incredible spirit and I find this city to be one of the most fascinating and inspirational places I have visited yet.