Tourist Hypocrisy

First Day Full Day!




I am in a fighting in a losing battle against jet lag; I went to bed at midnight and was wide awake at 4:30! South African breakfasts are big and amazing. Bacon, eggs, hash brown, toast, fruit, cereal, juice, and lots of COFFEE! After a horrible name game involving foods with the same letter as your name ( try to figure out multiple foods that start with K, it’s harder than you would think under pressure.)

We all piled into our 13 passenger vans with Tula, Zed, and Steu, (our fearless leaders) and headed out of our walled and gated hostile, and into Johannesburg. Today was our “tourist day” of Jo-burg, but I don’t know how we will fit in. We are a mob of 24 walking in with American clothing, cameras, and bags.



Driving around Jo-burg you really could see the discrepancy between classes. We drove past Volvo car lots and mansions, and straight into Soweto. Soweto (South Western Township)a black township which was established under the Apartheid government and the location of the student shooting and systematic killing of 1976.



Out first stop was the Mandela house, “it was the opposite of grand, but it was my first true home of my own and I was mighty proud. A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.” Nelson Mandela. The Mandela house instilled a reverence for Nelson Mandela as well as the work and life of his wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandlea. This area was revamped and prettified for the world cup.



Hector Peterson Memorial museum



First Victim..



A bullet burnt

Into soft dark flesh



A child fell



Liquid life

Rush hot

To stain the earth



He was the first victim



And now

Let grieving the willows

Mark the spot

Let nature raise a monument

Of flowers and trees

Lest we forget the foul and wicked

Deed..





- Don Mattera 1976



Hector Pieterson a 13 year old school boy was the first victim of the June 16 1976 clash between black youths and the South African National Party government and its apartheid regime. Thousands of underfunded and neglected black school children protested the change of teaching in their native tongue to English and then Afrikaans. The planed peaceful protest turned into a systematic killing of people with an estimated 700- 1200 victims. The museum was a powerful beautiful memorial to sad history of this country. How should a history so dominated by sadness be remembered or commemorated? The museum presented the history wonderfully impressing the horror and sadness of the event as well as instilling hope for the future. I felt empowered learning how these school children some still in elementary school protested. It made me think… as children and teens we think we have no power, so we do nothing to bring awareness to issues and be advocates when these youth, in grade school, middle school and high schools, organized and marched and eventually sacrificed their lives to protest an injustice. They lit the fire to end apartheid.



We then participated in our own class hypocrisy. We went form the tin huts of the shanty town to the westernized super mall. I was slightly perturbed that we were spending our time at the mall, but then I realized I am going to be here for 3 and half months I am tired and have just arrived don’t need a 360 culture shock just yet, and this is part of South Africa, the westernized portion.



Back at the hostile they set up a tv for us and we are going to watch the south African vs. new Zealand.



It was 45 degrees this morning, then about 65 now its cold again.