Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Our First Day...

Our trip was long. 30 hours in transit. We had a lovely send-off with devoted friends waking up early to see us off. Moms and grandmas made us lovely little packages of candy wrapped in purple and gold, and there were lots of hugs all the way around. The trip to JFK went smoothly, with only a bit of traffic on the George Washington Bridge. Our plane was delayed for two hours at JFK, and while we were waiting, we met a really nice Elmira College Alum who was taking the same plane we were to Johannesburg. Her name was Cheryl Chitting from the class of 1971, and at that moment, it sure did feel like the world was small!

When we got to the Johannesburg airport, after 18 hours on the plane, we walked out from customs into a loose scrum of people, many waiting with flowers (sadly no flowers for us!). There were a number of money exchange businesses, banks, and ATMs, so most of us easily changed some money right away. They were in the process of renovating and expanding the airport, so it felt a little strange, like a small European airport built in the 1970s (or maybe one of the older sections of Logan airport in Boston). I think most of us were just happy to have our feet on the ground after being in the air for so long.

After we arrived at the hotel last evening, we were pretty tired. Our hotel, the lovely Africa Centre Lodge, has a lighted pool, a lounge, a courtyard, a dining room with TVs, an outdoor pool table, brightly colored walls, a trampoline, african art in every possible corner, and more animal heads on the wall than Kolker Hall! The hotel is surrounded by high cement walls topped with barbed wire, painted bright yellow and red, which seems a bit out of place given how calm and inviting this hotel is. It's quite a nice place for a large group of young people to stay, and last night held a lot of exploring and hanging out. Unfortunately, almost everyone was seriously jet-lagged and woke up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep. Today many of us are even more tired.

This morning we went to Soweto, the famous township symbolic of the historic struggle against Apartheid. There is only one main road into Soweto (a left-over from the Apartheid government's attempts to control the movement of people in and out of the township). The main road leading to Soweto is a divided highway, although traffic moved fairly slowly. There were walls around the entire perimeter of Soweto, which is pretty amazing given that Soweto is home to millions of people and is quite huge. We started driving the internal streets in an area that has a number of newer larger houses, most built after the end of Apartheid. They jokingly call the neighborhood the 'Hollywood' of Soweto, but the funny thing is that it actually reminded us of Southern California homes, built into the hillside, with a kind of Spanish stucco and red tile roof architecture. Every yard was fenced and the windows had decorative ironwork. Even these wealthy homes were on the small side and packed very close together.

We moved on to the Kliptown area, in central Soweto. There were a number of markets here, some permanent and some informal street markets. There were also stores that had been built during Apartheid, still owned by Indian families because Blacks couldn't own property even in Soweto. Railroad tracks run alongside of Kliptown, and along the tracks was a huge shanty-town (they call them 'informal settlements' now). The Kliptown Informal Settlement was huge and chaotic, with a hodge-podge of building materials making up the housing. It was packed with people. Apparently, as the South African ANC government has built more and more low cost housing, the families who originially built the shanty homes have moved out but continue to own the shanties, which they turn arounda and rent to even poorer people.

We also stopped at the Regina Mundi church, which was at the center of Apartheid resistance during the 1970's and 1980s. It was very powerful. This was the largest collective space in Soweto, and while it seats 2000, it regularly held up to 5000 people. Funerals for people killed during Apartheid protests were held here, and many Apartheid resistance fighters met here and gave speeches. The church was also regularly attacked by the Apartheid-era police, and bullet holes are still visible in some of the walls and the ceiling. During the Soweto Uprising in 1976, thousands of student protesters tried to take refuge there, and a number were killed in the church when the police attacked. After Apartheid was officially over, the church served as an important place of reconciliation. The church itself was large, fairly plain and simple, and it felt like we were in a very powerful place. It was definitely a wonderful thing to experience.

Up the other side of the ridge in Soweto were a number of what must have been middle class neighborhoods during Apartheid (although we would consider these houses to be quite small by American standards). It was in one of these neighborhoods that we saw Nelson Mandela's house (he bought it when he was a lawyer in the 1940s). We couldn't go inside, but we could see that it was quite a simple house. Of course, now, given that the house is an important stop for tourists coming to Soweto, the streets outside of the house are home to various market stalls, souvenir stands, and hawkers. It seemed a little contradictory. This same street is also where Archbishop Desmond Tutu lives, and we could also see his small house from the outside.

This middle class area in Soweto is where most of the schools are. And of course, the schools were at the center of the start of the Soweto Uprising in 1976. After the Aparheid goverment (to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Afrikaans language) mandated that all education in the Black townships had to be in the Afrikaans language, the students started to go on strike. The first day of the township-wide strike, thousands of students gathered in the neighborhood to march up to the stadium, where they planned to speak publically and present their petitions. But they didn't get that far. The Apartheid-era police broke up the march with tear gas and bullets, killing a number of students. That touched off months of nationwide protest, violence, and repression, where thousands died. One of the young students who died on the first day, Hector Pieterson, became a kind of symbol of the violent repression. Now there is a museum dedicated to the Soweto Uprising that bears his name. We had the chance to visit the museum and the memorial (which was built right on the spot where Hector was killed). For those of us who have studied the Soweto Uprising as such an important part of history, it was very amazing and powerful to be right where it all happened.

For lunch, we stopped at a 'Shebeen,' a kind of speak-easy bar/restaurant (they served as illegal nightclubs and lunch spots during Apartheid). The place we went to, Wandie's, is one of the most famous. It has no sign in front, no parking, nothing to distinguish it from the other houses on the block. Inside, you walk through what was once obviously a living and dining room (now filled with tables), through the kitchen itself, into the back rooms. Every possible space is filled with tables and chairs, and the food was served buffet style. There was so much food! Most every kind of meat was served, stew style, along with a kind of corn grits, mashed pumpkin, lentils and dried corn, potatoes, beans, and a spongy slightly sweet bread. It was all incredibly delicious, and it was great to be able to sample so many different dishes. The vegetarians were happy too. And there was homemade custard or ice cream for dessert, so that was the proverbial icing on the cake...

We drove back through downtown Johannesburg on our way back to the hotel. Central Johannesburg is famous for being unsafe to walk in (because of street crime). A number of the large businesses that headquartered there during Apartheid times have moved out of the city. We could see a number of large lovely older buildings that seemed closed down. The streets were alive with people, though, in a way belying the image of the city being deserted. There were shops and markets, street merchants, and people people people walking everywhere! Parts of it had a bit of a feel of San Francisco.

The whole Johannesburg area was built because of gold-mining. Before gold was discovered in the 1800s, there was no city here. There were only Dutch Boer family farmers and the indigenous people. After the discovery of gold, people flocked here from all over the world, and the British wanted to exert some control. Eventually that led to the Boer War, but what it has left the city with is a kind of Victorian/Industrial feel, with a number of depots, railroads, and old-style storage buildings. It's kind of grimy, too.

Outside the down town, the mining influence is clear. All along the highways, there are huge hills made out of mine dirt and debris, grown over with a tough-looking kind of grass. Apparently, this grass is the only thing that will grow on these hills, as the dirt is contaminated with cyanide from the gold extraction. We didn't fail to notice, by the way, that Soweto is surrounded on almost every side by huge mountains of mine remnants, and apparently, when the wind is strong the cyanide-contaminated dust blows down into the township. (Soweto was also home to a very large coal-burning power plant that produced most of the energy to power Johannesburg, although there was no electricity itself in Apartheid-era Soweto).

We have some free time now, and many of the students have pooled their money to take taxis to a nearby mall. Even some of the students who are really dragging from lack of sleep seem to have managed to drag themselves along to the mall. The lure of shopping must be strong!

It's Dylan's birthday today, and we are working on getting a cake for later tonight.

Oh, a couple of cook geek facts before I sign off: We noticed that last night, we could see the constellation of Orion. Except of course that instead of standing up, as Orion does in North America, Orion was lying down on his side. We also could easily find the Southern Cross constellation too. And this morning, we crossed the African continental divide, the point at which water on one side flows to the Atlantic Ocean, and on the other side it flows to the Indian Ocean. We are also noticing how quickly it gets dark at night (or light in the morning), which is a function of how far South we are. Along with the dark comes an instant temperature drop. During the day, when we stood still in the sun, it felt quite hot. But if we moved around, the air was actually very cool. It felt like we were hot and cold at the same time. Very interesting.

Tomorrow we are going to the Apartheid Museum and then to Lesedi Cultural Village, where we will get to experience traditional dancing and storytelling. We'll write more then.

2 comments:

Melanie said...

Sounds like the first day was packed! Enjoying all the info and pictures :)

Hope everyone recovers from jet lag speedily and has a great time.

Jan said...

Katy Jennings! I hope you are recalling Nadine Gordimer's story for Freshman Studies!!! Reading about the barbed wire around your hotel makes me think of the Once Upon a Time short story.

I am wondering if San Francisco got it's look after the Gold Rush there - maybe the connection is all about mining?

I will keep reading...