Jo'burg in a day

I have one day in Johannesburg, a city of 8 million.  I wanted to get out of the backpackers so I signed myself for a mini-bus tour of the city.

For a tourist sum of R480 (NZ$96), you get thrown into a van and paraded around extortion hotspots for the day.  Our guide was characteristically friendly, I'm guessing due to the quantity of cash he would make from us, and the remarkably sharp wit he used against the New Yorker sitting next to me.

Johannesburg was built on gold.  It was discovered here in the form of rift gold about 120 years ago, and caused a flood of immigration from across the globe.  The rift is massive, and a hive of mine tunnels has been honeycombed for kilometres under the CBD.  A hint at its size are the dozens of hills created from the earth extrusions.  The modern name for the province takes its name in Sothu from this feature, 'Gauteng' literally translated means 'place of gold'.

But a city is a city.  Cars, traffic lights, tall buildings, all unsurprising.  My New Yorker friend remarks about how surreal it feels, since some places are a spitting image of his home town.  He then tells me about his last week in a children's conference in Jo'burg, pressing flesh with the likes of Roy Disney and other aluminates.  Then he tells me about his University major in communications, focusing on children's media.  Then he talks about what he wants to do for his spring break.  About the Danish girl he was flirting with last night.  About the hot Asian in the van.  About beer.  My New Yorker friend, you may tell, has a problem shutting up.  I, you too may tell, have a problem with his incessant yabbering.  The bus drives on.

We stopped outside a medicine shop in downtown Jo'burg and notice the sign above the wholesalers store next door.  It reads, "NON-WHITE SHOP."  The shop is filled with animal skins, hooves, heads, tree bark, and large amounts of undistinguishable items.  No-one bothers to ask what they are, the sensible notion amongst the group is that ignorance is bliss.

After the thankfully brief stop in the CBD, we're taken to Soweto.  "Welcome to my home." The tour guide tells us with a smile.  We drive in and are bussed around the township for a quarter of an hour.  Our guide is quick to dispel notions of wanton crime and poverty in the region, and we are carted through streets upon streets of red brick houses.  Home to 4 million people, it has the population of Cape Town living in a fraction of its size.  It's not Beverly Hills by any means.  The sheer scale of size makes comparison difficult, but imagine a poor but not dilapidated housing estate, then make it a thousand times larger, and you get the picture.

Shanties still exist, however.  We arrive at a one close to the hospital, and are dropped off for quarter of an hour.  Now not too long ago I may have written, in not so many words, that rich foreign tourists invading a shanty town wasn't kosher in my books.  I may have used words such as 'repugnant', and 'repellent'.  I understand then if this seems rather hypocritical, but I ask you to suspend judgement for a moment.  My opinion remains unmoved.  People do need to be educated about the conditions the poor live in, however invading some old lady's house to gawk and take pictures was revolting, and left me with a bitter taste.

The group is led through a street, and pointed to the infrastructure of the development.  Shanties are built with scrap metal, corrugated iron, and little else.  There is no electricity.  Food is cooked with paraffin stoves, and lighting other than the overhead pylons are provided by candles.  There is no heating, unless you count blankets and human bodies.  A few millimetres of iron ensures that these dwellings retain the heat during summer, and keep frozen during winter.  Water is provided by taps interspersed throughout the slum.  Port-a-loo's too, dot the scene.  Unemployment is high, and literacy, as you'd expect, low.

We are made to feel guilty as we walk through this place.  It's partly an unfair sentence, but we are given reprieve in the form of making donations toward the community.  The kids run out to us, hold our hands and play as kids can only do.  Some of the older ones reveal an ulterior motive.  One pretty young girl holds my hand and asks demurely: "Where are you from?  What is your name?  May I have some money?"  Declining, she moves to the next guy, and repeats her act.

It's depressing, not only to see kids beg, but to see how they have reduced us to walking cash-dispensers.  Our guide asks us not to give money to the children.  "They form bad habits.  They think they can make money this way so they don't go to school.  You must not give money to the children."  We are asked instead to make donations to the community leaders.  Many of us open our wallets, and R50 (NZ$10) and R100 (NZ$20) notes are flashed.  We are told this money will go toward developing facilities to the community, as well as paying for the children's education.  My sense of scepticism is piqued, but I let it rest.

We visit Nelson Mandela's house, converted by Winnie Mandela into a museum.  It's a small four-bedroom affair, and has been adorned with paraphernalia.  SEE MANDELA'S OLD SHOES!  LOOK AT MANDELA'S BED!  TOUCH MANDELA'S STOOL!  It's wearing a little thin now.   An industry has developed to create an icon from the man.  I call it 'Mandela Inc.'  It would be interesting to know how much money the ex-President of South Africa inadvertently pulls into South Africa from tourism in his name.  We are carted through his home to the garden outside, where lo and behold, we are offered a gift store with which to purchase Mandela t-shirts and baseball caps.  We also pass Winnie's house, but little else is said aside from, "She was married to Mandela.  Look how she still lives in Soweto!"  To live in his shadow.

Off we go again to the school that started the Soweto riots, then to the spot 13-year old Hector Peterson was killed, and where the iconic photo was taken.  Just minutes down the road, we are taken to the Hector Peterson Memorial and Museum, and left to wander for half an hour.  I end up spending it with a German girl.  While walking through the images of police and teargas, we talk about her idea that black people smell different.  We pass a glass cage with Sten guns, while we were comparing Rand to Euro.  I can't remember much of the museum.

Back on the bus, then through to the Apartheid Museum where a few of us brave souls hopped off and elected to spend the next three hours.  There were only five of us:  An middle-aged Canadian couple, and a young Welsh brother and sister, plus myself.  We form a friendly international community and have lunch together before venturing inside.

Three hours is a long time to venture, and while the museum is fascinating, it's too much.  Too much reading.  There are hundreds of displays, yet I didn't feel as though they had enough depth.  Events appear airbrushed.  Whining is never popular, I know, so let me give just one example.  I was inquisitive how they would explore the notion of how Afrikaners perceived Apartheid, how these terms would be justified, how the cultures of the time operated which made such separation a grand idea.  I hope you'll agree, it's an important question, and there was indeed a room entitled '[The] Introduction to Apartheid'.  I was disappointed to find, however, that it contained only a few minutes of news footage from the SABC and the BBC.  Little was done to rationalise the notion of separate development to a modern audience.

Time was swallowed far too quickly, so we skipped the final few rooms and made our way out.  It was a long day, so the bus was quiet for the hour's drive back to Shoestring.  I'd forgotten yet again to buy something for dinner, so I consoled myself by making a cup of tea and drinking it very slowly while everyone around me cooked their food.  The couple from Kenya and Columbia threw away a plateful of spaghetti, exclaiming, "what a waste!"  I enviously peered inside the bin and wondered... perhaps... no.  No that's revolting.  I remained hungry for another night.

I make my way out of Jo'burg tomorrow, and north 250km to the Limpopo district for several days.  From here on in, I know I'll be leaving civilisation and start to see what the real Africa is made of.