Johannesburg

Yesterday we arrived in Johannesburg after a very long drive. The highlight of the journey was a visit to the Blyde River Canyon, one of the largest canyons in Africa. The photos below will give you some idea of just how spectacular the view was.

This morning we did a tour of Soweto and visited the Apartheid Museum. The name Soweto used to be an acronym for ‘Southwestern Township’ however the official name was changed to Soweto in the 1960s. In this formerly very segregated land it was intended as the place where black people working in the city could live. Today it has a population in excess of 5 million and suffers 27 per cent unemployment! So you can imagine that it is not a very wealthy place to say the least. There is one fairly affluent area, and some of Soweto consists of shacks like the other townships we have seen. However most of Soweto appears to be the sort of humble public housing that the Government tries to provide. 

While in Soweto we visited the house in which Nelson Mandela lived before he was sent to prison. The house is typical of most of the Soweto housing in that it consists of only three rooms and is pretty cramped. We were shown the marks left by police bullets and also burn marks from fire bombs hurled at the house by Mandela’s opponents. Quite a sobering experience.

The Apartheid Museum is a very modern style museum with a range of displays including photos, artefacts and videos. We were not permitted to take photos inside as there are many old papers on display that are sensitive to camera flashes. We were impressed by the coverage of South Africa’s history in relation to the issue of race. During the decades before apartheid was formally introduced in 1948 various governments gradually enacted a range of legislation that increased the segregation of racial groups, so that the introduction of apartheid essentially completed that process.

Photos :

1-5. Blyde River Canyon

6-11: Images of Soweto. Note the boys dancing for us in photo 10. They were good!