Barbara's Travels

Goodbye to Africa

Sunday, August 1

We left the hotel shortly after 2 in the afternoon for the Jo'burg airport where we stood in numerous lines, moving from one to another. I can't recall how many times we had our passports looked at. Lots of make-work I think. When we got early to the boarding area, Bob and I ate our lunch and settled down to wait. However, US regulations required still another security screening, so we had to pick everything up and get back in another line to have our carry ons searched and be patted down.

Our return flight had to stop in Dakar, Senegal because while planes can fly non-stop New York or Dulles to Jo'burg, they can't do the same going west due to headwinds. So we stopped about midnight in Dakar, Senegal to refuel and take on passengers. Bob says it was 82 degrees while I'm sure I heard it was 89. The exact temperature is unimportant because when they opened the door to debark passengers, the fog flooded in. As soon as the hot, humid outside air hit the air conditioning systems in the plane, it was mist and fog, which lasted for more than two hours. I was surprised when this happened and at first did not know if the plane was on fire.

We were not allowed to deplane due to security concerns and staff came on board first to check that everyone who was to deplane had done so. Then to board ongoing passengers (who were late and delayed us by at least an hour) and then we had to take all our carry ons out of the bins and off the floor so the security people could be sure every bag on board was accounted for. US regulations!

Part of our long delay in Dakar was because one of the boarding passengers had a battery operated wheelchair and a mechanic had to be found to disconnect the batteries before the wheelchair could be loaded. Security risk.

Despite all this we arrived pretty near on time at Dulles, went through immigration and customs and found our departure gate only to sit and sit. Finally they announced that the delay was because the entertainment system was not working and after an hour more they gave up and let us board, where we sat and sat until the mechanics could be persuaded to sign off on the plane, without the entertainment system. United gave us each 7000 flight miles for our "inconvenience." And so we arrived at SFO, took BART and finally met up with Lisa and got to their house. Close to 30 hours in total in transit.

Was the trip worth it? Oh yes!!!!! One of the best we have ever taken. Notice it was not one of those ABC (another bloody castle; another bloody cathedral) trips we have taken in Europe because there were no old castles or cathedrals to view. Just savannah, desert and wild game. Would I go again? Probably not; it was one of those once in a life time trips.

Our next trip is to Israel and Jordan in November. This is not a religious pilgrimage trip, though we will see religious sites in Jerusalem. Galilee, Meggido, Masada, the Dead Sea, Petra. I've begun reading history and culture to get ready and we are looking forward to it. Will send away for our Jordanian visas on Wednesday.

View of Sandton

A view from our hotel window followed by two shots of Nelson Mandela Square in the Sandton Shopping Mall. It is the depths of winter but look at all the people having breakfast or lunch (it was late morning) out on the terraces.

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A last view of Soweto

Vestiges of the days of segregation and oppression still exist in Soweto. These long gray roofs are of the buildings called hostels where men from other areas were housed (in not very good conditions) while working in the area. They are long, depressing barracks with unpaved "streets" littered with trash. The water supply is a common outdoor pipe at the end of the row. The government is gradually phasing out these quarters, but so many migrants keep pouring in, they still use them as housing is in short supply. The pastel colored buildings in front are newer family apartments but there just aren't enough of them to go around. South Africa has a long way to go to provide decent housing to all its residents and pervasive corruption in both government and business is not helping matters.

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More Soweto

An open air craft market in Soweto. Aren't the fabrics colorful!

The second picture is the monument to Hector Peterson who was killed by the police while taking part in a peaceful student demonstration in Soweto against the new rule that all school instruction must be in Afrikaans - to blacks, the language of the oppressors. His death set off the Soweto Riots of 1976, followed by upheavals in other parts of the country, which were brutally put down by the white police. Ironically, most blacks today speak Afrikaans!

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The Mandelas

Picture 1 is the entrance to Winnie Mandela's current residence.

Picture two is the house in which Nelson Mandela lived prior to his arrest and imprisonment. It is small as are most of the houses on that street. But that street is the only one in the world that can boast of three Nobel Peace Prize winners living within a few blocks of each other. (1960) Albert Lutuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.

The Mandela home is now a monument, open to the public. Mandela himself lives in a large, beautiful home elsewhere, as befits a former president of the nation.

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Soweto

Soweto - short for South Western Townships. Under apartheid, blacks and couloreds were not allowed to live in the cities but were banished to townships at considerable distances from the cities. You could come into town during the day to work but only if you had a pass and you had to leave at night. Transportation to the townships was poor so this made for long distances and long travel times to go to work.

Based on this, I had expected Soweto to be basically a shanty town. Was I surprised. Yes, part of it is. Migrants from the rural areas crowd in and illegal immigrants from other countries join them in shanty towns. But most of Soweto consists of neat houses on regular streets with electricity, water, sewage. There are shopping centers and nice public buildings. The plaza in picture 2 is where Mandela made a major address after being released from prison so even under apartheid, it is apparent that there were facilities and decent housing. And there is public transportation available.

The traffic was terrible! It was Saturday and funerals are traditionally held on Saturday so there were many processions of large numbers of cars heading to the cemeteries following services. Lots of open areas are filled with litter and women still transport large bundles and boxes on their heads, but Soweto is home to a large middle class population. Those blacks who became well-to-do after 1992 and moved out into the formerly all-white areas, are now moving back.

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The Union Buildings

Also in Pretoria. One of the compromises that allowed the Dominion of South Africa to be formed in 1910 was that government offices were scattered across the country. The parliament met in Cape Town for several months a year while the bureaucracy was in Pretoria. So when the legislature was not in session, it picked everything up, members, staff and papers and moved to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to be near the government offices. This meant that members had to have two homes, one in Cape Town and one in Pretoria. A situation which exists to this day.

The buildings are beautiful Italianate in design. The horse on the plinth is a monument to South Africans who died in the two World Wars. Lots of vendors set up tables of trinkets, mostly brought in from outside the country. We could have bought the same in Zimbabwe.

The middle picture is a sign showing all the things you are not allowed to do on the grounds. No golf, no skateboarding, no drinking, no bicycles, etc., etc. But you must pick up after your dog, who must be kept on leash, and you must dispose of the droppings properly.

bureauacry

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More Voertreker Monument

This is a reconstructed wagon of the type used by the trekers. And picture two is native vegetation, but I don't know the name of the plant.

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Saturday, July 31

Our major morning stop was at the Voertreker Monument. Built in 1939 by the Nationalist government which had taken power and was implementing strict apartheid, it apparently celebrates the travails of the Voertrekers of a century earlier. To me it appeared as a massive symbol of implacable determination to keep blacks down. I did not expect to like it and didn't. Self-fulfilling prophecy? The government no longer funds the Monument and I wonder how long the black dominated government will allow it to exist.

In some ways the Voertrekers reminded me of the westward movement across the US. The statues depict women in long skirts and sunbonnets, riding in wagons, similar to the people who crossed the prairies of the US. Instead of Indians, they dispossessed blacks of their lands and cattle.

The interior of the building is basically an empty shell with a carved mural all around depicting the journey to Blood River and a towering ceiling. I got a good history book and read about the journeys and it seems they were basically in search of open lands for their cattle and to escape the dominion of British rule in the Cape Colony. Whites moving north met blacks moving south. The black population was undergoing a great deal of turmoil during this time so were spreading out south.There were a large number of treks and they all had one thing in common - blacks were inferior and were to be dispossessed of land and cattle and forced into semi-slavery to work for the Boers.

The last picture is the top story of the monument. To me it looked like a prison. Bob did not share my negative opinion of the monument.

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Long drive to Pretoria

Impala, waterbuck, and some rare black wildebeests. Te wildebeests were in a protected area.

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