Today is Nelson Mandela Day. July 18th was Nelson Mandela’s birthday (he died in 2013 and would have been 101 today), and while it’s not an official holiday, it’s a day when South Africans are called to do something small but significant to help others in their country.
Five Things to Do in Potchefstroom
The town of Potchefstroom, 120 kilometers southwest of Joburg in North West province, has several claims to fame:
- Potchefstroom is a very old town by South African standards, founded in 1838 by Voortrekker Andries Potgieter.
- Potchefstroom is a university town. The Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education – now the North-West University Potchefstroom Campus – was founded here in 1869.
- Potchefstroom has the longest avenue of oak trees in South Africa – possibly in the entire Southern Hemisphere.
- Potchefstroom is a long and difficult (at least for me) word to say. Thank goodness most people call it Potch. (Read more about the origin of the name Potchefstroom.)
I lived 90 minutes from Potch for nearly nine years before going there. I didn’t expect to particularly like it. With the exception of the oak tree story I’d never heard much about Potch, and it isn’t a town that one unexpectedly stumbles upon. It’s not really on the way to anywhere.
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A Visit to Mandela House on Vilakazi Street
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.