African Time/Soweto

Things are on African time today, and yesterday for that matter, yesterday afternoon that is. I rushed my way through Victoria Falls to get to the airport two hours early for a flight that left two hours late. Then I waited for a tour of Soweto and the Apartheid Museum, for over an hour.

Interesting that the two words that popped into my brain yesterday as I was hurrying back to get to the taxi to take me back to the hotel to get on the airport shuttle were "pole, pole". "That means slow, slow". It slowed my step down for about 2 seconds, but maybe put me in the best frame of mind to wait out the next few hours with peace of mind.

I thought going to Soweto and The Apartheid Museum would be like going to the Holocast Museum in Washington DC. That wasn't really true. One could spend an entire day in the museum to really understand the events of the past hundred years or so. Actually from the time Whites/Europeans came to the African continent--Dutch, Germans, Portuguese and English. There are many similarities betweens how the Africans have been treated here and how African-Americans and American Indians have been treated in the U.S. There is still much discrimination here, especially in the rural areas, though things are changing.

Our drive through Soweto was not as I expected. It started off in a rather upscale area. People are moving back here and have modernized and expanded the homes, installing security systems on the gates that are ever present. We then traveled to the middle class part of Soweto, then to the squatter villages. There can be 6 to 8 people living in one room that has no water or electricity. Water is 1 to 2 blocks away. Batteries, kerosene lamps and candles are used for lighting. In Winter, fires inside these one room dwelling with tin roofs are used for cooking.

We drove by two "Mandella" homes. One was the one he lived in (that had been burned three times and been rebuilt), just down the street from Desmond Tu Tu. This was a very modest brick home. Winnie Mandella had another home built, much larger, on a big piece of land, and of course enclosed by alarm-type security fence. Nelson apparently refused to live in it because it was too large, more than he needed. He did live his values.

We had a few drinks with the locals in what we were told was an illegal drinking establishment, but I don't think that was true. It was interesting watching and talking to the locals in this off the beaten path place. Some are shy at first, yet oh so friendly in a nice sort of way. It was much nicer than being asked for money or some other posession all the time, which happens in the townships though visitors are encouraged not to give the kids money.