Friday, June 22
For the first time we awake to clouds, wind, and cold. Yes, it's mid-winter here, but 46 degrees after our sunny skies seems a cruel joke for our last day in Africa. We don't fly out until 6 pm, so our day takes us on a tour of Soweto, Mandela's House, the Hector Pieterson Museum, and the Apartheid Museum. Initially I'm cranky and even strong coffee doesn't help my mood. At this point I just want to get on the plane. However the tours give us a glimpse into several essential aspects of South Africa and Johannesburg--the people, Apartheid, and the anti-Apartheid movement, and today's challenges.
Our tour guide for this part of the adventure is Queen, a woman who experienced June 16, 1976, in Soweto and all that transpired afterward. I have a list of subjects to investigate when I get home, but both Jane and I feel we are seeing yet again a history of race struggle, which unfortunately continues today. We see Freedom Square, more "traditionally built" women than ever before.
Left: Mandela's house in Soweto.
Soweto's Freedom Square where the new constitution is laid out in the round building below:
Above is the market in Soweto in Freedom Square
The Apartheid Museum. The rocks within the wire represent the lives lost while working in the gold mines in South Africa.
One rock, one life.
The ropes here are a symbol of the number who committed suicide while imprisoned for taking part in the apartheid struggle.
We have a great lunch at the Apartheid Museum where we're impressed by a great set of beaded pictures of six people important to South Africa: Brenda Fassie, Steven Biko, Barack Obama, Miriam Makeba, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Obamas's father had been from the Bantu Tribe and we've seen his photo displayed several times throughout the trip. They're obviously very proud of him and of Oprah Winfrey as well. Her girls' school is about 60 km from Joburg.
We arrive at the airport and are met one last time by tour guide James who takes us again through check-in, security and immigration--then a good-bye. I imagine he'll enjoy one huge beer after seeing us off.
Since our group of 16 will now split up and return to various points in the US, a group of us sets a time and place for a farewell cocktail, just one last aperitif together. With an hour and a half until then, we do the only logical thing--we shop. Jane hits the stores with wild abandoned and emerges at the bar laden with packages--she's even bought a rolling carry-on to accommodate her purchases. My kind of gal.
The chatter during our bitter-sweet gathering centers on reviewing and re-living some of our trip's highlights, and I realize I'm going to miss some of the humor and personalities around this table, yet I'm eager to get on my way home. We've had no national or world news and I've relished the cocoon of isolation I've spun for myself--it's been a magical self-imposed menagerie of adventures.
The boarding is more cumbersome than most--each of us goes through a pat-down, so two lines are formed. I'm delighted the women's line is much shorter than the men's. We remove shoes, take off jackets, pat-pat-pat, take our carry-ons and parcels to a table for a cursory search ("Finish the water in the bottle please"--I gulp it down), then stand in line and wait for boarding. We cram into our seats, which will be our home for the next 17.5 hours. We are used to the routine--we set the electronics to "airplane mode," check which movies are avaiable to watch and make ourselves as comfortable as possible. One thing we hadn't tried was the African liquor called "Amarula," which is a bit like Bailey's, so we order bottles of that as we take off.
Left: Mandela's house in Soweto.
 |
| "Traditionally-built women" (phrase thanks so Alexander McCall Smith) |
Notice the last line above.
Above is the market in Soweto in Freedom Square
One rock, one life.
We have a great lunch at the Apartheid Museum where we're impressed by a great set of beaded pictures of six people important to South Africa: Brenda Fassie, Steven Biko, Barack Obama, Miriam Makeba, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Obamas's father had been from the Bantu Tribe and we've seen his photo displayed several times throughout the trip. They're obviously very proud of him and of Oprah Winfrey as well. Her girls' school is about 60 km from Joburg.
We arrive at the airport and are met one last time by tour guide James who takes us again through check-in, security and immigration--then a good-bye. I imagine he'll enjoy one huge beer after seeing us off.
Since our group of 16 will now split up and return to various points in the US, a group of us sets a time and place for a farewell cocktail, just one last aperitif together. With an hour and a half until then, we do the only logical thing--we shop. Jane hits the stores with wild abandoned and emerges at the bar laden with packages--she's even bought a rolling carry-on to accommodate her purchases. My kind of gal.
The chatter during our bitter-sweet gathering centers on reviewing and re-living some of our trip's highlights, and I realize I'm going to miss some of the humor and personalities around this table, yet I'm eager to get on my way home. We've had no national or world news and I've relished the cocoon of isolation I've spun for myself--it's been a magical self-imposed menagerie of adventures.
The boarding is more cumbersome than most--each of us goes through a pat-down, so two lines are formed. I'm delighted the women's line is much shorter than the men's. We remove shoes, take off jackets, pat-pat-pat, take our carry-ons and parcels to a table for a cursory search ("Finish the water in the bottle please"--I gulp it down), then stand in line and wait for boarding. We cram into our seats, which will be our home for the next 17.5 hours. We are used to the routine--we set the electronics to "airplane mode," check which movies are avaiable to watch and make ourselves as comfortable as possible. One thing we hadn't tried was the African liquor called "Amarula," which is a bit like Bailey's, so we order bottles of that as we take off.