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Southafrica - Johannesburg (Jo-Burg) - March 2007

We discuss with Christopher who proposes us a visit of SOWETO, his birthplace, using his old Volkswagen Golf.

Soweto (South West Township) is today accessible without any problem, if you are well accompanied.  But many visitors continue to avoid it…

 

 

 

 

 

 

We allowed to enter in a house of Soweto… Primerose lives here with her husband and her 4 children, one of them is a 1 month old baby.

No running water, no electricity. They light their houses with candles. A tap is available per district.

For safety reasons, they are organized in 'areas'. They have whistles, in case of a problem the neighbors come to help… but it appears that they do not make any more the law themselves and call the police force when it's needed.

 

We go to the church which is in the center of Soweto.

After-effects of the revolt in Soweto (impacts of balls, damage,…). are still visible.

Not easy to imagine 3000 students trying to leave the church through a small door to avoid the balls of the police force…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house where Nelson Mandela lived is accessible to the public. The pictures inside are prohibited, what a pity!

We would have at least taken a picture of the belt of the boxer Sugar Ray offered to Mandela to celebrate the knock-out of apartheid…

 

 

The 2 towers, not used anymore,  are decorated. It is rather original…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finish our visit by the museum of apartheid. We enter either by the reserved entrance for the whites, or by the entrance for the blacks.

It is a reproduction of the conditions of apartheid. The whites and the blacks had their own bus, benches, toilets,… it was forbidden to derogate from the rules.

 

The museum is really impressive! It shows all the history of Johannesburg since its creation, the beginning of apartheid until today.

Full of pictures, reports and speeches of that time, ...Taking pictures is again prohibited… it is necessary to be discreet...

 

An acoustic room contains microphones attached to balances which indicate different weights. Each microphone emits the word: “Sorry”.

 The feeling is incredible when you are inside!

Next to the incredible pictures is a blackboard where everybody can draw something.

"Who has made this drawing?”. Sacha answers : “it is me”. Impressive! He drew fighting people and writes a simple comment: STOP.

 

 

Discussing with a lot of persons, they told us that : " According them, only the next generation will be able to live without racism problems ...".


Incredible discovery day for the children and for us too…
 

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