The Bahblog

We woke up in the morning at 8am for our 9:30 Apartheid museum / Soweto tour. We walked down the block to the local Starbucks, and I had a standard iced Americano - our barista's nametag said "King Michael." We returned to our AirBnB just before 9:30, and were soon picked up for our tour.

Our tour begins

We get in the tour van and meet our guides, Bobo and Mmtunsi. The beginning of the ride is Bobo driving on the left side of the van, and Mmtunsi is chatting with us to our left in the van.

We picked up our next tour compatriot, a British man who just spent 18 days volunteering in Kruger national park protecting endangered rhinos (which we later learned). He was staying near the University, and the area was bustling with students.

We then drove to toward the Apartheid museum, but first we stopped off at the stadium of the 2010 world cup. "This is where Shakira sang Waka Waka" Bobo told us with a laugh. We got out of the van to take pictures.

We then made it over to the Apartheid museum, meeting up with our last tour compatriot, a Swiss man traveling all around South Africa in camper.

The Apartheid Museum

The Apartheid Museum did an incredible job painting the history of the incredible human atrocities that were the Apartheid.

We had two hours to go through the museum, and Claire and I had to rush through the very end to make it back to the van on time.

A brief History of Apartheid

Here's a brief on what we learned. I'm definitely missing a lot of details and history, but I'm trying to keep this short and accurate -

Lead up to Apartheid

• The Dutch settled a colony in South Africa in the 1600s. Obviously there were already people living in the area.
• The British show up in the early 1800s.
• Gold is discovered in Johannesburg in 1886, and suddenly this area is very valuable to the Europeans.
• The English and the Dutch go to war over South Africa twice in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the English win. That said, Afrikaans, a South African mutation of Dutch remains the primary language of the European in South Africa. England consolidates the colonies into a single Union of South Africa.
• The Europeans force the native black populations into working on the mines, burning down the villages of all tribes that don't comply.
• Apartheid-esque laws begin passing, such as land acts that give land rights to 90% of urban areas to whites, leaving the remaining 10% to blacks and all other races.

Apartheid - the basics

• A Nationalist party won an election in 1948, and formally began the laws of Apartheid. These were basically laws of racial classification. Every race was classified, from Whites, to "coloreds" (mixed race) to Indians to Blacks. Everyone had a racial classification.
• The rise of this Nationalist Party was fueled by poor disgruntled White folks looking for dominance and racial protection.
• Races were kept completely separate, with resources allocated differently based on racial area. White folks got all the resources, in short.
• Everyone had to carry around their racial ID cards, also known as "passes", but there were incredibly strict and difficult regulation around Black folks keeping their pass in order. This essentially criminalized being black, and folks were rounded up and jailed regularly for minor infractions.
• In addition, black folks were only allowed to live in townships away from the main city, which were starved or resources. Soweto is one of those townships.
• The Apartheid museum had interviews with Government officials in the 60s talking about how wonderful this way of government was for the black population since "They wouldn't know how to govern themselves." and "the black man traditionally didn't know how to work. We've taught the black man how to work and now he actually likes it."

A rushed history

• Things get worse and worse for blacks in South Africa from 1948 to 1960, as more Apartheid laws are passed. During this time, opposition movements spring up - namely the forming of the African National Congress, which Nelson Mandela chaired during the 1950s. The ANC is seen as a criminal organization by the SA Government.
• South Africa becomes an independent state in 1960.
• Nelson Mandela and many others are arrested and jailed for their association with the ANC in 1962. Nelson Mandela is imprisoned on Robin Island (right across from Cape Town) until 1990.
• In 1970, an Apartheid law passes that black people aren't actually South African citizens, but instead citizens of the original tribe to which they have heritage. These "nations" have no resources, and allows South Africa to state on the global stage that they are not oppression their own citizens, since there are no true black South Africans.
• Black kids went to "Bantu" schools, which were schools for blacks only, which taught non-skilled labor, in the interest in keeping black folks oppressed. In 1976, South Africa agreed to increase the skill level of the curriculum, but only if the classes were taught in Afrikaans.
• Teachers attempted to teach in Afrikaans, but most didn't speak the language themselves. Students also viewed the language as the language of the oppressor. In 1976, high school students in Soweto organized a walk out protest to show objection to the Afrikaans regulation. This was the first protest of its kind. The protest began peaceful, but soon police released dogs on the students. When the students killed the dogs with stones, police started firing. Many children were killed, including children as young as 8 years old.
• The student protest is seen as the beginning of the end of Apartheid, even though it would take another 18 years for it to end. Journalists on scene were able to sneak photographs away from the South African government and publish them. This galvanized black organizers across the country, with the mission to make the country ungovernable while Apartheid laws were still in place. Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife, was an outspoken organizer throughout.
• The black community did such a good job making their communities ungovernable over the next few years (walkouts, rent strikes, etc) that in the mid 1980s, the South African government called a state of emergency that lasted years. This state of emergency basically legalized police brutality, and the death count of black activists soared. Still, they persisted.
• After the state of emergency was called off, in 1990 the ANC and organizations of the like where decriminalized, and Nelson Mandela was freed.
• 1990 through 1994 were the most violent of the Apartheid years, with pro-apartheid operatives causing terror in black communities.
• Apartheid formally ended in 1994 with its first free election and a new bill of rights. Nelson Mandela was elected president.

Soweto Tour

After the Apartheid museum, we drove into Soweto. Our guide was born and raised in Soweto, and stressed that while the township itself has its fair share of slums, it is full of wealthy and middle class areas as well. It's an immigration center, as many from neighboring African countries migrate to Soweto in search for jobs, a better life, etc. Bobo first took us through the upper class neighborhood of Soweto, and you can tell the residents were doing quite well for themselves. “Think of how much water it takes to keep those lawns green”, Bobo laughed. He indicated that Soweto is 65% middle class, 15% upper class and the rest lower class.

On our way to lunch, we passed a field next to the road filled with goats. There were SO many goats. Bobo told us that they’re all owned by local families, and generally used for sacrificial rituals. Claire asked how families keep track of which goat is there, to which Bobo responded it’s rhe job of the shepard. We didn’t see any shepards, and many of the goats looked identical.

A delicious South Africa Braai

We drove to lunch, which was served at a restaurant underneath the towers of an inactive electricity plant. The plant shut down do to the pollution it was causing in the local community. The towers now serve as enormous advertisements, as well as a site to go bunji jumping.

For lunch, we were served a traditional South African braai(“bry”) - chicken wings, steak and delicious sausage. This was served with cole slaw, pap and chakalaka. I reference it in the last post, but pap is basically the mashed potatoes of corn meal. I was easily convinced to purchase and enjoy a Soweto Gold, beer from Soweto, distributed by Heineken.

We then go back in the van to continue our tour!

The lower class section of Soweto

We drove over to a Soweto slum, and got out of the car. We met a local man told us to call him Jack, as his given name was too difficult, and announced he and a woman would be guiding us through the slum. They both lived in the slum, and walked us through, continuing to remind us "You can take as many pictures as you'd like. Ask as my questions as you have." It was a bit overwhelming, as if they were saying "Take photographs of the poverty! Take pictures of the children!" We were informed that the slum had an unemployment rate of 70%, and the main source of income for the unemployed was to collect recyclables and bring them to the local recycling plant. Jack also let us know that there was no wealth disparity within the slum, as everyone follows the spirit of "Ubuntu", the spirit of humanity - that everyone in the community would rather their neighbor eat and themselves starve. When asked about crime, he said that all crime was perpetrated by people from outside the community, since they take care of their own there.

Jack then took us to us to a local kindergarten. He explained how the community had a kindergarten, but once the kids were 7 years old, they'd have to walk at least an hour each way to get to school. The kindergarten was a small shack, filled with children and two exhausted looking women. Jack asked us if we wanted photos with the kids, and only our Brit friend said yes. The children, as if they'd done this many times before, swarmed around him, smiling and waving for the camera.

Jack then showed us into his house, so we could see life without electricity.

Vilakazi street and the Hector Pieterson museum

We were then brought to the street where both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu had houses, though never living there at the same time. We walked from the Tutu house to the Mandela house, and had to turn down many vendors selling hats and trinkets. We decided not to pay to enter the Mandela house.

The last part of the tour was the Hector Pieterson museum, named after the you test child slain by police in the 1976 student protest. We were met by a volunteer who told us all about the day and how the protest was organized. He explained that many of the older generations were scared and complacent, while the younger generation was angry and ready to protest for their rights. The South African government tried to cover up all events of the day, but the photographer of the photo below hid his film in his sock.

After the museum, the tour was over. Mmtunsi drove us back to our Airbnb. Big thanks to our guides!!

Our two guides and our swiss compatriot.