Jo’burg

Our next stop was Johannesburg. The city, 2nd largest in all of Africa, has a population of approximately 4 million. It is the largest city in the world not on an ocean, sea, river or lake. It is however the main “port”of entry for goods in the country. The city is affectionately called Jo’burg or Josie. The city covers 150 square kilometers. There are 11 official languages.

40% of all human remains have been found in the area around Johannesburg.

The city was founded in 1866 when gold was discovered by a pair of farmer brothers. Some of the mines go 1 mile deep. The country of South Africa has everything that can be mined or dug from the ground except oil.

Sadly there is huge unemployment with only about 28% employed. The city used to be almost entirely white but after the end of apartheid in the late 60’s the white population left the main part of the city. There are still areas that have abandoned buildings in disrepair next to beautiful new buildings.

We toured Soweto which is the contraction for South Western Township. This was the area outside of Jo’burg where the black workers were forced to live in the apartheid times. This is still predominantly a black area with tin houses, being replaced by the government with concrete block houses. Unfortunately the blacks are then keeping their tin homes and renting the better houses to immigrants and earning some money that way. In Soweto we went down Vilakazi Street where we saw the homes of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. We also went to the memorial to the young man who was killed first in the student uprising.

The current government is taking some of the 40,000 farms from white farmers and giving the farms to blacks who do not know how to manage a farm. Our guide predicted that soon there would be a food crisis in the country. The traditional African system of wealth determination is cattle, the number of wives and the number of children (in that order).

We then went to the Apartheid Museum. It was a beautiful building. There was a special exhibit about Nelson Mandela, commentating his 100th birthday. The main museum was well done with photos, videos and films. The written explanations were excellent. No photos were allowed there.

After a fantastic lunch at the Mad Giant Brewery and Urbanologi we had a free afternoon.

Dinner at Marble, another fantastic restaurant overlooking the city.

Early to bed because it was bags at 6:30 AM.

Dinner at Level 4 at our hotel, 54 on Bath

Housing in Soweto