The sixth weekend

This weekend  I had a completely different program than the other exchange students. Elise arranged for me a really cool trip to Johannesburg.  Thursday after lunch I went home and I packed my bag. At 5 o’clock in the afternoon we were already on the plane and headed to Joburg as you would say here. I was very excited, I heard a lot about this big city, the place of the gold, Egoli. Elise grew up in Johannesburg and her family still lives there, so I was sure that I had the best tour guide ever. During our flight the weather was very nice and all the time I could  enjoy the variable landscape of South Africa. After landing we rented a car and we drove to Emmie’s house. She’s Elise’s sister and she waited for us with a delicious supper.


Flying to Johannesburg

Friday morning we started our sightseeing tour with a bike tour in Soweto. It is a famous Township which was  created  during the Apartheid Government. Here had been separated as residential area for non-white people who were not permitted to live in the center of Johannesburg.   The name is coming originally from “South-Western Townships” .  It was a very poor area where people built houses from garbage of piles. The people live here without the proper services such as sewage, clean water, electricity  and good roads. It was shocking to see  these poor living conditions. The township is growing day by day, the government is building houses  and there are some luxurious mansions. The contrast is extremely sharp. We cycled through Vilakazi Street. This is the most famous street in Soweto or even in South Africa. In this street two Nobel Prize winners used to live: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.  Our tour guide, Lungi told many stories about history of Soweto and about the feelings of people during the Apartheid Government.  After this interesting guided tour we visited the most important museum of Johannesburg, the Apartheid museum.  It is opened in 2001 and it wants to illustrate to the whole world the rise and fall of apartheid. This is the only place in South Africa, where you get an entrée ticket and standing on it WHITE OR NON WHITE.  At the entrance immediately you got a strange feeling about it. Elise’s acquaintance was our tour guide.  The exhibition has many pictures, films and other documents in chronologic order.  Some of the pictures were really scary. When you walked there every minute you got a stranger feeling about the meaning of apartheid.


Cycling in Soweto

Apartheid museum

Entrance :WHITES and NON WHITES

Our tour guide in the museum

In the evening  we had supper with Elise’s parents Marie-Louse and Jos at Sandstone Square.  It was a very pleasant evening we were chatting a lot about everything. They are very intelligent people and they really spoiled me. I got some interesting books as a present. Luckily they are going to visit us in Cape Town and I will see them once more before I go back to Holland.

Saturday we visited the Gold  Reef City Theme Park which is known one of “Jozi’s” most popular attractions for tourists”. The children of Elise’s sister also joined us.  We almost could try everything: the Anaconda, the Golden Loop, the dream boat and many more things. We enjoyed them a lot. I was also happy that there was no electricity power cut when we were on the top of the rollercoaster. In this theme park also a replica village was built which shows how Johannesburg looked like in its early days when the gold was discovered.  We also visited the historical underground gold mine. It was one of the first gold mines, but this mine is no longer operational. It worked between 1887 and 1971 but nowadays it is only opened for tourists. Before the tour started we got hard safety hats. This Golden Reef Shaft No 14 was one of the deepest mines of the world at that time, more than 200 meter underground. We went down with  a large old metal elevator. Our tour guide demonstrated very well  how difficult the life of the miners was, to earn their money for living in the darkness ,  where it is always warm and the ear shattering noise of drills. They used candles for lights but it was very risky and sometimes terrible explosions killed miners due to the presence of methane gas. At the end of the tour you even could see a gold bar being poured.  It was an unique experience to see how difficult it is to gain gold and the hard working miners did not become rich. Saturday evening we had a barbeque party at the house of Elise’s brother.  There was no electricity all evening but it was so well prepared that we did not miss it that much.


Golden Reef City

Golden mine



200 meter underground

Sunday we visited an interesting part of Johannesburg, Maboneng.  Maboneng is a SeSotho word for ” Place of Light”. It  is a privately developed urban neighbourhood, where the Art Experience got emphasis.  Here  you could find  a pleasant atmosphere with many restaurant, several little shops and different entertainment venues. We saw people enjoying guitar lessons which were voluntary given on street. We had a lunch with Maboneng and we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Cape Town.

Art Experience in Maboneng



Maboneng

I am in Joburg

This weekend was a wonderful combination of fun, culture, art, history and family life experience. Thanks to Elise for organizing this weekend in Johannesburg and thanks to her family for their warm hospitality. I enjoyed it so much and I would love to come here again!