#Apartheid

Last Thursday evening I went to Soweto with a group of journalists, tourists, and locals, and we did a simple yet revolutionary thing: We walked around at night. The walk was part of a new tourism experience called “Soweto Night Out”, founded by the creator of Funk It I’m Walking.

Every time I think I’ve visited all the historic churches in downtown Joburg, another one pops out of the woodwork. My latest “discovery” is the spectacular Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin, or St. Mary’s Cathedral, on Wanderers Street in the Joburg CBD.

Two days ago, on December 16th, I went with Thorsten of Dagwood sandwich fame to visit the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.

I’ve been thinking hard over the past 48 hours about how to frame this post. The Voortrekker Monument is controversial, to put it mildly, and it’s more controversial on December 16th than on any other day. December 16th is the Day of Reconciliation, a public holiday that used to be called “The Day of the Vow” during the apartheid era. On this day in 1838, the Voortrekkers (white Afrikaans settlers who migrated from the Cape Colony to South Africa’s interior during the Great Trek) defeated the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River.

Last weekend I attended my second #SpazaShopTour of Katlehong and Thokoza (see my post about the first tour), and visited the Thokoza Memorial for the first time. The Thokoza Memorial, opened in 1999, honors the people who died in this area during the violent political conflict in the years leading up to South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.

Sometimes in my quest to discover all of Joburg’s hidden places, I miss out on the un-hidden ones. Such is the case with Mandela House, the Mandela family’s former home on Vilakazi Street in Soweto. It’s probably one of the top five tourist sites in Johannesburg and not only had I never blogged about the house before this, I’d never even visited.