Make Every Day A Nelson Mandela Day

Yesterday was by far my best day here in PE. It began with a walk to campus to catch a bus for a city tour. The walk is long and it’s always hot here but it’s so beautiful and I’m so thankful not to have snow that I find myself smiling the whole way. When I enter the parking lot, the first thing I see is a rainbow-colored double decker bus that says Hakuna Ma Tata…what could be better?!

We board the busses and our guide introduces himself and talks about what we are seeing on the city tour. He gives us brief bits of history of the city while we are driving to our first destination. We are let off in the main part of downtown and I feel like I’m in London again. Most of the buildings have stone facades or are built with imported material from Europe. There’s a statue of Queen Victoria and City Hall has a huge clock tower. It felt so out of place but our guide explained how much influence the colonizers forced into South African society. 

We then walked to the beginning of “Route 67”, a path that portrays the struggle of the apartheid that rocked the country a short 45 years ago. The struggle still continues today in many parts of the country and our guide told us it will get worse soon. He believes that when Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1992, it wasn’t the end of the revolution, it was the beginning. We walked the timeline which was more than a mile long, the whole time listening to our guide. He was 12 the first time he was thrown in jail for being a member of the revolution. The police entered his school and arrested a huge group who had gathered to discuss what they might do to join the rebellion. Once at the prison, the boys were separated into cells with members of “The 26’s”, a prison gang know for sodomizing non-members. This was common practice and wasn’t even close to the worst actions by the police. 

Our guide grew up in the townships, or slums, and told us stories from his childhood. People have to pay for school here because they are not fully funded by the government. School fees pay for things like custodians, sports facilities, new books, and other classroom materials. These fees in the white school were high but affordable to most families and if not, the school would let it slide because you were white. In the black schools, the fees were lower but still too high for most families to pay it. This caused the school to deteriorate faster. Another problem was building equality. While the white schools were built on large areas of land with beautiful stone and brick, the black schools were squeezed into small corners of properties and were made of asbestos sheets. Our guide explained that he wasn’t taught the same thing as the white kids. Since most black people at the time got blue collar jobs or were servants to whites, these are the skills they were taught. The inequality was so evident but the country was run by people with the mindset of “White is Right” so nothing was changed until people started fighting back.

Route 67 wound its way up the hill and ended with a silhouette of Nelson Mandela raising the black power fist. There was a beautiful view of the town and harbor and it was a good way to wrap up the morning. We then went to the large shopping mall for lunch.

After lunch, we got back on the bus and went to the townships. The gap between the wealthy and the poor here is astonishing and the images I saw will stay with me for the rest of my life. I didn’t take many pictures when we rode through this part and here’s why: I didn’t feel right invading these people’s privacy. When we drove through there were people outside of their homes enjoying the day. Some waved, some flicked us off, and others spoke to us in their native tongues. We had kids follow the bus for several blocks before adults would pull them out of the road and scold them for being foolish. I saw both a cow and pig being butchered and cooked on the streets. These homes were no more than cinderblocks and tin roofs. There was no running water or electricity in some parts. Imagine “Slum Dog Millionaire” and you’ll be on the right track but I cannot explain how hard it was to actually be there. We got off and walked through a small craft store before going to The Red Museum. The museum is a memorial collection of images and items from the apartheid. It was built in the middle of the township and towers over all other buildings around it. It was named the Red Museum because of the houses surrounding it; when it rained, the roofs would rust and a sea of red was formed. When we got off the bus in front of the museum, a group of kids started creeping closer and closer to our large group. They didn’t say much at first but then one of the braver boys shouted, “HEY SEXY LADIES…GANGAM STYLE!!!” and they all began to dance just like in the video. We instantly fell in love with them and most of us stayed outside and played with the instead of going into the museum. I went in and read some of the articles and bios about people involved in the end of the apartheid era. The museum was built to make the viewer uncomfortable. There was little to no air circulation, the lighting was dim in some spots, and the stories were hard read. After an hour or so, I was emotionally drained and had to escape. I went back outside and introduced myself to a few of the township kids. They were so incredibly friendly and happy that they lifted my spirits enough where I could smile again. There was a large sign outside of the museum with a picture of Mandela that said "Make every day a Nelson Mandela day" which I thought was beautiful. When I asked the kids who their father was, they all pointed to Mandela and called him "Madiba", or "Father". One of the youngsters took my camera and began snapping photos of anything and everyone before giving it back and saying, “Thank you”. We gave them some fruit and snacks and when we gave them water, they were amazed by the bottles. They were used to drinking rain water that was collected in rain catchers on their roofs. The kids asked me if I knew Nikki Minaj and 50 Cent, if I played Call of Duty and how many TV’s I had. They couldn’t get over the amount of hair on my legs and arms. They all laughed when they saw my chest hair in my “cereal bowl”. When one kid decided to use my arm as a swing, I lifted him up and he gasped. I then had about ten kids around me feeling my arms and flexing their muscles. I lifted one kid up above my head and when he came down, he informed me that he was now Superman because he went so high. I then had 15-20 kids surrounding me wanting to fly so I spent half an hour throwing the little tikes around. We then got on the bus for our trip home. It was a very emotional day and the ride home was very quiet.

Back home, the people who didn’t go on the tour were preparing for that night and we shortly joined them. I got pizza with some friends before taking a cab to the stadium for the soccer match between Ghana and Mali. It had begun to rain so we didn’t spend too much time outside but we were there just long enough to buy a vuvuzela for 20 Rand (about $2.50). The stadium was open-roofed but the seating was semi-covered so we stayed relatively dry. We had tickets for the nosebleed but they didn’t even sell half the tickets so we moved down to the premium seats behind one of the goals. I was cheering for Ghana who was the heavy favorite but Mali came out with more fire. They scored the only goal in the first half and then scored again three minute into the second. Ghana came back and scored a beautiful goal but couldn’t find the back of the net again to save their lives. It was a great experience and I can’t wait to go there for a rugby match or two this semester.

It was a very long day but I had a great time. I’m not sure if I’m fully prepared for school to start tomorrow but I guess it has to happen sometime. Anyways, look for another post in a few days time J