very much overdue WEEKEND IN JOBURG

So here’s my much-overdue post about Johannesburg:

I went to Joburg for a weekend with my CIEE seminar class. Over the course of 3 days we went to the Constitutional Court, Apartheid Museum, saw a musical and a soccer game (Orlando Pirates v. Bluphantane Celtics), did a biking tour of Soweto, went out one night to bars in Joburg and went to a religious service at a township mega-church. I stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in Soweto (South Western Townships) with 4 other students and one of our RAs. The B&B was great, it was actually really nice (I wasn’t sure what to expect in a township thank you naivity..) it was located a street away from Nelson Mandela’s house and Desmond Tutu’s house, so the neighborhood was beautiful. I slept in a queen sized bed on a real mattress and had two huge pillows to curl up with. And here’s the best part I HAD A SHOWER with hot water, yay!!! It was really nice, and the bathroom was really clean too (obviously). The women who ran our B&B was really sweet and she cooked us breakfast each morning, which was delicious. Here’s the reflection part:

Most of our weekend was spent in Soweto, besides going to the museums and spending a night in time, our group stayed in the townships, which was really cool. At first I was frustrated and watned to see a little more of Joburg because I had heard it was similar to NYC…and you can’t go to NY and stay in the suburbs without seeing the big apple right? But the more I learned about the city I came to realize the comparison between the two was strictly business-like, I’m sure there are parts of Joburg that are great for shopping or entertainment and culture, but the impression I gauged on my visit was that the city operates strictly for business and shuts down at night. Crime is also a HUGE problem in Joburg so it might not have been safe for a bunch of tourists to be wandering around even during the day. Still, it was nice to drive through the city and see a few skyscrapers but it’s nothing like Cape Town, which is much more beautiful.

The Constitutional Court was really interesting; historically it was used as a military base, and a prison, so doing a tour of the court was actually great. When it was a prison, it included a women’s quarter (one of the prisons in SA that had both sexes in one place) and then various other levels of confinement for male prisoners. There was a section in the prison dedicated to Gandhi, because he was imprisoned there in the 1920’s…and it was neat to learn about his struggle as an Indian minority under apartheid. The tour was really educational and I was able to learn about the prison structure within inmates, the inequality between races (both as employees and inmates) and of course, a little more about Mandela because he had been imprisoned there as well. Today, the constitutional court is also located within the old prison walls, so we were able to go inside and look around there too. The court was incredible; it reminded me a lot of the United Nations because the architecture was really modern. It was open and spacious, there was a ton of natural light able to penetrate into the courtroom…and there was also a huge cultural influence. The judge’s chairs were covered in animal-print and there was a huge South African flag draped along the back (it was hand-sewn and beaded, it was gorgeous)…and there were also murals along the walls in the lobby. Part of the court was reconstructed with walls from the old prison, and two of the stairwells were also directly incorporated into the architecture. It was neat to see how much consideration was done to allow the court to serve as a reminder of the past as well as inspire hope for the future. [I’m actually writing a paper on this for a class now because I found it to be so interesting…thank you humanities for forcing me to analyze architecture]

The apartheid museum was by-far the coolest part of our trip. We were only at the museum for two hours but I could have easily spent all day there. Instead of walking around with my friends I wandered alone and tried to take in as much information possible, but there was so much to read about. The visit to the museum combined with actually staying in Soweto kind of sealed the deal for me in recognizing the dehumanizing extent of apartheid. I understood that the government didn’t recognized blacks, colors, and minorities as citizens but I always though it operated more on white privilege and less on torture or violence…but I was so wrong. The South Western Townships were settled in the early 1900s and the majority of the housing is permanent (versus the shantytowns in the Cape Flats), the layout of the neighborhoods was a constant reminder of the perpetual discrimination preached by the government. The apartheid museum just made it easier for me to understand the laws and regulations used by the government to further enforce and ensure inequality and separation.

The biking tour of Soweto also added to understanding the apartheid government. Although apartheid is over…and has been for over 15 years, the housing in the area is still so segregated. The biking tour was cool because although I was staying at B&B in a nicer area of Soweto, we biked into the much poorer areas. I was riding through rocky, dirt roads over garbage…and trying to avoid running over any wild animals (including chickens and stray dogs?). There were kids running around that would yell to us and try to slap us high-five as we rode past as well as random people who would come over an ask us about American and how we liked Soweto. We got to see the hostels that miner’s lived in (which up until the 1980’s were male-only housing…so we also saw the neighborhoods were many prostitutes worked to ensure these workers needs were met, hmmm talk about HIV/AIDs? Maybe?) The tour was really cool but also kind of difficult to gauge, but everyone we met was really friendly so it was neat to interact with people, and ask questions.

The soccer game we went to was also really cool, and a lot different the game I saw earlier in the semester. We were definitely the only white people in the entire stadium and let me tell you, the people there live for soccer. It was raining so were sure to sit far back (to stay dry) but most fans sang and danced in the rain the entire time…and of course blew those kazoo things that are so so so obnoxious. People wanted to take their pictures with us and talk to us there too it was really funny; my advisor said it was just curious for us to be there and also probably exciting for them. After the game I went out with two of our “guides” or RAs for the trip (who were from Soweto but had worked with CIEE in previous semesters) and they took us to some bars in the suburbs of Joburg. The bars were actually kind of a disappointment, it was a Saturday night and we were told we were going to a club…so we got dressed up and were really excited to dance and meet people and see the city but in reality, the bars were pretty deserted and there was no dancing. So instead of a crazy night out we just sat around and bonded a little within our class, which was still nice but not what we really expected.

On the last morning I got up and went to church with most people from my class. The service was really different from any church I’ve attended and reminded me more of a gospel concert than church. First of all, the church was huge, it has over 11,000 members and it took place in this huge open warehouse/gymnasium venue…it was packed. Half the service was singing (all the songs were in a different language so I have no idea what I was saying) and the other half was a sermon, there were little prayers and no communion. The singing aspect was actually really fun, people were up and dancing and it was only 9 AM so that was great it helped me wake up a little and every was so lively. The sermon was over an hour long though and was definitely a disappointment. There was a guest past speaking and he kind of preached about male-dominated society and encouraged people to buy his CDs with his lessons on them it was really upsetting. Without the sermon though I would have been able to say I really enjoyed myself.

As always that was an incredibly long post but it really was a great weekend…!

Cheers,
H.