We finally, finally got to Johannesburg, or Egoli, "City of Gold." It's a gold rush city, built in the middle of the mines, and remains the economic, entertainment and political powerhouse of South Africa.
For the first time, on the turn offs from the highway, we saw townships ("locations") that ranged from the small shanties, to actual houses of one to three storeys. Johannesburg is also the only city we saw with a vibrant, black downtown. Finally, it felt like Africa.
We stayed in a cute hippy neighborhood in a little B&B that catered mostly to business guests. The neighborhood was also pretty unsegregated, with both black and white employees and customers.
The major drawback of Jo'burg is that is it really really dangerous. It is the one place where, when people talked about car jackings, rapes, murders or robberies to be careful of, they were often speaking from PERSONAL experience. So many people, black and white and colored, before during and after our time there, warned and warned us, that we actually put our NY skepticism aside and were super careful. That means, for example, not stopping at red lights (the cops won't ticket you apparently, and none did anything to us) and not going anywhere downtown at night, or walking far even in daylight. It was hella stressful.
My one regret was that I didn't get to the Stoned Cherrie store, or any of the other stores of the new black designers. I did get a Stoned Cherrie t-shirt at Woolworth's though.
Last thing about Jo'burg, the tv there was really good! They have these evening soaps with multi-ethnic casts, where the characters speak in mostly Zulu and English. The news is on for like three hours,as the different channels play the news in most of the eleven official languages. We watched it in Sesotho just for fun.
Then we saw the sights. We went to the apartheid museum in Jo'Burg, a stark building with the history of the rise and fall of the apartheid era, that begins with the known history of humans in Southern Africa -- in other words, from almost the beginning of our human origins.
Across the street from the Apartheid Museum? The rollercoasters of Gold Rush City Amusement Park, Jo'burg's answer to Great Adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment