Greetings once again!
After an eventful week in Cape Town, the group of now nineteen arrived in Johannesburg for the second half of our travels.
On our first day, we met our second wonderful guide, Loreto. She greeted us with the outpouring of love we had all become familiar with in South Africa, and her ability to connect with each of us was powerful. She started by giving us a tour of Soweto township, a place in which she had grown up and still called home.
We began the tour at Regina Mundi, a Catholic church where schoolchildren took refuge from police gunfire during the Soweto Uprising. Our guide there showed us the numerous bullet holes still in the ceiling before taking us to a gallery of photos from before and during the uprising. She gave a thorough explanation of every passing landmark as we drove towards the Hector Pieterson Memorial Museum. Hector Pieterson was a twelve year old student who was shot and killed by police while protesting the use of only Afrikaans in classrooms. He was one of about twenty thousand students who protested in the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976. The museum was filled with powerful imagery from the day of the uprising and the reaction, both locally and internationally.
After the museum, we went to Loreto’s home where she had prepared us a typical local meal. Over lunch, she shared with us more of her background and invited locals to perform traditional dances and songs. After lunch, we walked over to Nelson Mandela’s house, which was conveniently located one house over. Loreto told us stories of how Mandela would often pop over the fence to get some peace and quiet in her home.
Because Loreto is very involved in a township school, we were welcomed in to get a short tour. Although brief, the differences between an underfunded public school in Cape Town versus that in Soweto Township were clear. Loreto, being the wonderful person she is, explained how she runs a program which helps provide feminine hygiene products to students without sufficient access to them. Our group presented her with a donation of those products to further her outreach abilities.
The following morning, Loreto brought us to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. In our three hours there, we were given a comprehensive interactive tour which educated us about everything, from what led to apartheid, how the oppression was systematically implemented, the resistance to the efforts, and the aftermath following the end of apartheid. We were allowed inside both the jail cells where political prisoners were held and the trucks from which police fired upon children during the Soweto uprising.
We departed from the museum and made our way to Pretoria, the administrative capital of the country, to get a tour from the Anglican Diocese there. Their warden walked us around, giving us a deep history of the city, diocese, and cathedral. He also explained the many local outreach programs they lead, which our final monetary donation in South Africa would go towards.
We departed from Johannesburg by bus to our final destination as a group, Kruger National Park. Here, we were able to wind down after ten busy, productive days. Although our time here was short, we had the opportunity to go on a safari and take part in a traditional South African cook-out. Our informative guides helped us see every animal the park had to offer, from elephants to a rare rhino. Our group learned about the group names of different animals, with our favorites being a dazzle of zebras and a crash of rhinos. After one full day there, we traveled to Kruger Airport, together for the final time. Here, a third of us continued home while the rest continued on to Victoria Falls.
All of us had a wonderful time during this cross-cultural experience. I know I will remember the friendliness and hospitality shown by everyone with whom we interacted and I look forward to telling stories about how the country overcame so many oppressive struggles.
Will Buckley