JOHANNESBURG

27 JUNE – 1 JULY 2011

JOHANNESBURG

Welcome Terry to South Africa

When the train pulls into Park Station, I chat to a malawian off the train who is heading to the taxi rank and he invites me to follow him through the maze of station, stalls, lanes and streets. I soon find I’m at the wrong rank and ask again. This kindly lady tells me her daughter is heading out to Melville and she will be here soon, to wait with her. After 30 minutes of small talk I eventually ask from where her daughter is coming? Melville, but she will be here soon. I make a decision to head back to Park Station to get a drop taxi out to Melville and make my way back to negotiate with rogues. I eventually give up, head back into the station and ask the Tourist information to telephone a taxi company. Soon enough I’m headed for Melville for a correct price, to check in and thaw out at Thulani Lodge in Melville, a groovy suburb of Johannesburg.

Look, he's VERY happy

Later in the day I get a drop taxi out t Randburg, to visit the Girl Guides there but unfortunately I get someone who pretends to put the meter on, who takes me to a street with the same name, in another suburb and eventually after 80 minutes I give up on him and leave the taxi, refusing to pay because he didn’t take me to where I wanted to go! A bit of argy bargy follows but he is the wrong and has no idea where to go. I get directions from the Girl Guides and eventually walk there to arrive just before the last staff member is about to leave!! Phew  SAGG is a big organisation with accommodation on iste out in Randburg and a lot of history in display. They are preparing to attend the World Conference and other Guides are heading to Germany later in the week. The gorgeous Tshidi Tsati kindly drives me down to the transport to save me the walk again and puts me in a reliable taxi whose driver then spends the trip wising me up to how to get about to Sandton, back to Randburg etc etc. A trip well spent and I made notes the whole time. The next day I head out downtown to Johannesburg, via the impressive Nelson Mandela Bridge, to spend the day familiarising myself with the Jo’burg streets, taxi ranks, finding my way around town to save Terry some angst when he arrives. The Metro bus information man is particularly helpful, thank you Sir! The Market Theatre complex includes a Jazz Walk of Fame (novel), the Mary Fitzgerald Suare (named after South Africa’s first female trade unionist) and the SAB World of Beer (think I’ll save that for when Terry is here). I visit a few museums that I know Terry wouldn’t be interested in:

Africa Museum – Very comprehensive collections here with some great historic photography. A little like our Powerhouse Museum at home in Sydney but I thought it needed some good curating.

Johannesburg Art Gallery – small but some nice pieces with a whole floor devoted to the current school Arts curriculum! Dream on, Arts KLA at home!

Workers Museum – Compact and well curated with great video and audio ‘memories’. Fabulous insights into the hostel arrangements and conditions under which black and coloured workers were required to live in Johannesburg and elsewhere during the Apartheid rule. These hostels were segregated on sex with many families only seeing their husbands and fathers when they returned to villages once a year.

My partner, Terry arrives today and I catch the Gautrain to the OR Tambo airport – fab system built for the World Cup but at 105 Rand perhaps a little overpriced for most locals and with only one line needs expanding to be really useful?? Terry’s flight is delayed 4 hours due to being rerouted because of the ash cloud over Australia but eventually he arrives, exhausted after the 15 hour flight over the Indian Ocean. It is wonderful to see him here and I’m very excited to hear all the news from home. To return to Melville I’d stipulated a metered taxi but this one’s meter span faster than a roulette wheel – bugger, ripped off and very annoying. Next day we move to my original choice of accommodation, the lovely Sunbury House also in Melville. We gradually sort all the goodies that Terry has brought over for me, including my fab down jacket –I will never be cold again here and some lucky street security guard is the recipient of airline blankets that have faithfully served me – thank you Air Namibia and Kenyan Airways!! 

Today I’ve planned for us to visit the Apartheid Museum and introduce Terry to some of South Africa’s recent history so we get a local combi into town over the Nelson Mandela bridge to find Gandhi Square the home of Metro buses, walking through some of central Johannesburg. Now this square is a huge mass of bus stops and when we find the correct bus the bus driver doesn’t know (or couldn’t read) the street names of his bus route, only the way there!! Luckily the maps are enough to get us there after we hop off and soon enough we both have museum entry tickets that class us either white of black, for the racial classification entry into the museum to illustrate life under Apartheid. We’re both very impressed with the Apartheid Museum which is informative, evocative and very thought provoking. It makes me question what my opinions of Apartheid were during the 70s and 80s and I have to conclude that I had very little knowledge or interest in it, really. Just an acceptance that this was a system in place ‘over there’ without giving a thought to what people’s lives were really like under an appalling regime – the ignorance of distance and my youth, I guess? I’m ashamed to say that Indigenous issues at home in Australia were of more interest to me at that time. There is lots of oral, photo and video history here tracking the introduction of apartheid laws and various by-laws to reinforce it over the decades. Then came the development of black consciousness followed by activism and sacrifices by the many personalities such as Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Otambo, and Walter Sisulu  to name but a few. Continual uprisings locally and protests internationally, eventually garnered support worldwide for the abolition of the apartheid system, initiated by the release of political prisoners and political discussions with the ANC.

The Apartheid museum also included a detailed account and tribute to the life and times of Nelson Mandela of whom they are justly proud. The final piece was a list of Mandela quotes and visitors select their favourite quote and place a corresponding coloured pole into the accompanying display making it a very personal and organic exhibition. Mandela comes across as such a wise statesman even after his prison experiences would have left most embittered and I have conclude that statesman/women are in short supply within the ANC now, judging by the newspaper headlines each day The current President, Jacob Zuma is a polygamist, has been on trial for rape in the past and is on record as stating that he showers after sex to avoid HIV infection!! The current leader of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema is currently under investigation because he flaunts a ¼ million rand wristwatch, is building 2 new homes, one of which is valued at over16 million rand all on an income of less than 20,000 rand per month. Julius called for the nationalisation of SA mines and was taped pouring vitriolic abuse upon a journalist. Alas slightly controversial and suspected of creeping corruption.

Next day we head out to the Soweto township using another Johannesburg transport option, the Rea Vaya, to visit the Hector Pieterson museum. This was named after the youngest child shot and killed during an armed reaction by South African police here in the Soweto in 1976, in response to an unarmed protest by schoolchildren to the enforced education in Afrikaans language. 

 

After visiting the museum, we adjourned for a kuta, slang for a quarter loaf or bunny chow (see my post for Soweto). Terry hated it! Ah well, can’t win them all! After walking down Vilakazi Street, home to both Nelson Mandela and Desmund Tutu, we return to town to visit South Africa Brewing’s World of Beer – all you ever wanted to know about beer but were afraid to ask!!

On our last day in Johannesburg we visited Constitution Hill and South Africa’s Constitution Court which hosted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. It is a beautiful space built from the bricks of the now demolished Johannesburg prison where many freedom activists, including Nelson Mandela were imprisoned and sentenced. In the afternoon we head to the chaotic Park Station investigating if the Gautrain is now running as advertised starting today, direct from Johannesburg to Pretoria – alas no. So back to the MTN taxi rank to travel to Pretoria, 50 Km away. Pretoria is the administrative centre for South Africa but seems more staid than Jo’burg. We call into the tourist office come against ennui and lack of knowledge, more’s the pity! We called into my second favourite grocery store here in South Africa, Woolworths (my fav is Pick and Pay) to buy a couple of sandwiches and soon found ourselves in a 50m queue. We ate our sandwiches while waiting and locals explained that it was extra busy as everyone is paid monthly and today is the first of the month, which saw everyone paid overnight! Terry abandoned the line in disgust and left me queuing when I found a sign that asked me if I had been waiting too long in the line and if so to ring the manager, which of course I did. He apologised and appeared very soon afterwards. Where is THAT sign at supermarkets and banks at home, I ask?? Eventually we locate the bus stop to get out to Will and Jills’ home in Pretoria and chatted a woman (white) who was a little downcast about Pretoria, its future and current safety issues. She was even too frightened to use her mobile phone because “they’ll just run up and snatch it off you, punching you in the face at the same time”! I was happy to see her get on her bus home! Our bus arrived, the driver very knowledgeable about his route, knew exactly where we were headed and kindly indicated when we should disembark. It was lovely meeting up with Bill and Jill again and they are very welcoming if a little surprised that we’d used local transport to their place. We meet their lovely daughter Bethany (who also praised Oppikoppi) and soon enough we’re walking back down their street to Toni’s Pizza. 

We’re told this place is consistently listed in Pretoria’s good food guides with very yummy pizzas – mine was a ham and artichoke mmm. After dinner and a couple of sherries, Bill and Jill kindly invite us to stay overnight but alas as we are flying out the next morning we’re very keen to return to Jo’burg tonight. We are more than happy to get a taxi back to Jo’burg however they would not hear of it and kindly insisted on driving us both back to Johannesburg – 50 Km each way. We parted with promises for me to stay over next time I return to Jo’burg.

FACT: Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial segregation which was created by the government of South Africa. In addition to giving preference to a very small minority of white South Africans, apartheid also created class divisions between native South Africans, forcing people to migrate to “homelands” which were divided along ethnic grounds. Blacks, Indians, and Asians were treated as second class citizens in South Africa under apartheid, a system which endured from the late 1940s right up to the early 1990s. Long live Democracy and may apartheid remain where it belongs, in a museum.