Confronting South Africa's Past and Present in Johannesburg
Johannesburg, South Africa (May 15-19)
I was definitely somewhat dreading and yet perversely looking forward to seeing Johannesburg with my own two eyes. Would it be a vast, (yet) congested cesspool where danger lurks around each and every corner and people are frantically moving forwards with nary a glance at the poverty surrounding them?? I'd been told such things by both foreign visitors as well as South African locals; in fact, not a single soul I had met during my trip had had anything good to say about the place. So....I was naturally curious to see if these conceptions would be smashed or validated.
We arrived in the city at near dusk and drove through one of its worst neighborhoods, Hillbrow, just as the sunlight slipped away and the darkness crept in. And I apologize for this, but I just couldn't help but feel some anxiety. It irrationally felt as if the color of my white skin was actually glowing like a neon sign and all too apparent to those with dark skin shuffling along these mean streets or standing around improvised street corner bonfires. "Here I am! A reasonably well-off white American girl with goodies in my bag for the taking! Come and get me!!" When we stopped for a red light at a particularly dodgy-looking intersection, I held my breath for at least 10 seconds, waiting for the onslaught. Which never came.
But then we reached the neighborhood of Melville, where I had booked a dorm room for 4 nights at the Melville International Backpackers (M.I.B...Men in Black? Ha ha!), I felt my heart rate slow down and my breathing return to normal. In fact, Melville ended up being a pretty damn cool area - full of antique shops, eclectic student cafes/bars, secondhand book stores and vintage clothing boutiques as well as an S & M Shop, "KInks!" Plus, the streets were being patrolled 24/7 by security men wearing neon-green vests so I felt secure enough to venture out after dark by myself that first evening in order to have dinner at a restaurant. Take that you Jo'burg naysayers! Don't get me wrong though. The city may have certain more affluent neighborhoods where one can feel reasonably safe walking around in the day or at night BUT (!) like in any big city, one must never be foolish and tempt fate by carrying around too much cash/credit cards or blatantly brandishing expensive gear. Keep an ever-watchful eye on your surroundings and try not to appear like an easy target or victim. If one does these things while staying out of the worst areas, Johannesburg (or Chicago, Quito, La Paz, etc....) can be a great city to visit!
Staying in my dorm room throughout my stay was an incredibly friendly British gal from East London named Josie who was a physiotherapist. She was there in South Africa to celebrate her 40th birthday and visit some of her South African gal pals who used to work with her on a Carnival Cruise Ship. Josie's zenlike ability to think positively was admirable if a tad intimidating. I am such a ying yang mix of positive/negative energy that whenever I encounter people that are able to seemingly operate without surrendering to the "dark side," I can't help but feel weak-minded. You know? Hmmm, is this blog entry getting too introspective? Yep. Here's me moving on...
While surfing the net on my iPad that first night (woo hoo to free WiFi at the M.I.B.), I discovered that Henry Rollins, former lead singer of the punk band Black Flag and long-time spoken-word artist would be appearing the following night at the Bassline Club in downtown Johannesburg!! "Ooh snap! I have got to go!!" During my early 20's when I still deemed myself a poet and songwriter, I had actually dated a would-be writer/cartoonist who LOVED Henry Rollins so my nostalgia radar was loudly pinging. Furthermore, knowing what a liberal political hothead he could be when performing, I figured I would get an enthusiastic kick out of hearing someone like-minded (but way wittier) get his rant on! Josie was willing to accompany me so I secured us 2 tickets online for the gig.
Henry came on promptly at 8 PM and, as I was sitting smack dab in the front row, I could clearly see that the man, now aged 51, was in fine form, albeit with a few grey hairs scattered throughout his buzz cut. For the next 2.5 hours, he stood front and center on the stage and talked to us without taking a SINGLE...swig...of...water. The man must produce an inordinant amount of saliva to be able to talk for such a length of time without having to lubricate his throat, eh? Regarding his shtick, he was a lot funnier than I had expected him to be, but actually not nearly as angry. Is AGE truly a mellowing experience?? Food for thought. Naturally, he did discuss/mock the recent Republican Presidential wanna-be's and saved his best insults for Rick Perry but, perhaps due to the fact that his audience was predominantly white South Africans, he didn't dwell all that much on American politics. One of my favorite stories he relayed that night was about a show he did with Black Flag in New York City where this massive idiot did a stage dive landing on a poor girl who hadn't managed to get out of the way in time. At a later gig, Henry met this unfortunate girl again and found out that the stage diver had actually knocked out one of her eyeballs leaving her half blind. Now this all sounds incredibly sad I realize, but to hear Henry tell it, the tale was hilarious, moving, and profound, all rolled into one. Thus is the gift of a masterful storyteller. So if you ever get the chance to see Henry Rollins perform, GRAB IT!!
The next day, Josie, Rachel (a Brazilian gal also staying at our hostel), and I went on an all-day tour of Soweto and the Apartheid Museum with "Chico Touch Tours." Chico happens to be the hardest-working man in
I had been interested in seeing Soweto Township for over 20 years, ever since I had seen the 1987 Richard Attenborough film, "Cry Freedom," starring Denzel Washington as a young, tragic Steve Biko. At the end of the film, there is a powerful scene showing the massacre of students in Soweto which took place starting on June 16, 1976. Chico took us to the exact place in the township where the first child, Hector Pieterson, aged only 12 for God's sake (!!), was gunned down by the police. Today there is a Soweto Uprising memorial and museum at the location, which displays the shocking photo of a mortally-wounded Hector being carried away by Mbuyisa Makhubo while Hector's sister, Antoinette, runs along next to them, visibly crying and with her right hand held up in a "Stop!!" gesture. At this memorial, I also learned, much to my profound dismay, that Mbuyisa was driven into exile by the South African police and later disappeared in Zimbabwe in 1978, never to be heard from again. His mother said this of him and his actions on that day:
"Mbuyisa is or was my son. But he's not a hero. In my culture, picking up Hector is not an act of heroism. It was his job as a brother. If he left him on the ground and somebody saw him jumping over him, he would never be able to live here."
It was impossible not to be extremely emotionally affected by these words, the photograph, and later on in the tour, the actual living conditions of many who reside in the still unbelievably poorer parts of Soweto. Chico took us to visit some people who lived in one of these "shacks." Inside, there is no electricity or running water and what little furniture they have is sadly sagging and hardly comfortable. And yet? The children we met there and with whom we cuddled and played, seemed so innocently happy...as if they had yet to realize the depths of poverty in which they were being raised. I hope that I never get so jaded in my world traveling that when confronted by such a harsh reality that I simply shrug it off and carry on...
In the afternoon, Chico dropped us off at the internationally-acclaimed Apartheid Museum (60 Rand). Frankly, this museum is so densely informative that one really requires 3-4 hours to take it all in (whereas we only had 2). When one first enters the museum, it is through one-of-two entrances marked, "Whites" and "Non-Whites." The entrance visitors use all depends on the ticket issued which randomly allocates race. I was designated as "White" that day, whereas Rachel and Josie were "Non-White" so for the first section of the museum, we were literally separated/segregated from one another. What an effective way of driving home the ridiculousness and reality of apartheid!! Wow.
The following day, the three of us took another tour with Chico - this time to the Lesedi Cultural Village, a tourist attraction about an hour and a half's drive north of Johannesburg, where one has the opportunity to visit the "traditional villages" of five South African tribes: the Zulu (known for being mighty warriors with a powerful past), the Xhosa (perhaps best known as Nelson Mandela's tribe and for having the language with "all those clicks"), the Pedi (a tribe with men who adorn Scottish kilts to commemorate a battle they long ago lost against the British whom they mistakenly took for women dressed in skirts and thus refused to fight), the Basotho, and Ndebele. Initially I wasn't particularly impressed by Lesedi for it all seemed overly touristic, but slowly but surely I was won over by the charm of the place, especially the amazing and exhausting-to-just-look-at dancing done near the end of the tour. The experience was also made memorable by the verbal antics of our Lesedi guide who jokingly took me on as his "First Wife" and then later Josie, his "Second Wife." Unbeknownst to me at the time (but secretly witnessed by Josie) was the fact that Chico had slipped our guide some extra moolah so that he would give the three of us special attention throughout the tour. Nicely and clandestinely done, Chico!
On my final evening in Johannesburg, I persuaded Josie to go out and celebrate her 40th birthday with me. We went to the Sophiatown Bar and Lounge on the main Melville drag, 7th Avenue, where we listened to an incredibly talented male/female duo perform jazz music standards from South Africa as well as the States. Unfortunately, the musical act had no CDs for sale, so we simply asked to go on their emailing list in order to be notified once their CD became digitally available.
Gosh this has turned into an EPIC blog entry! For those who have managed to read it in its entirety without needing a bathroom break, I sincerely applaud you (and your bladder) and only ask for a few more moments of your time so that I may extend a shoutout to the 2 gentlemen who work at the Melville International Backpackers. Anton! If ever you read this, it was such a pleasure spending time with you and sharing all those inexplicable, uncontrollable giggles! And George? You too were a delight to meet and I applaud you for your efforts to provide for your family back in Malawi.
Without further adieu then...all things must come to (a toothy Great White Shark) end where it all began...in Cape Town!
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