This morning Anne ( a Canadian friend of Johnny and Lani ) who is also visiting, went for a walk with me around the neighbourhood. Great walk, great pics below.
Pics of homes around the neighbourhood: bougainvillea below, a different variety
Below: note thorns from the branches
Below: the Fever Tree, lovely pale green trunk. All homes are walled.
Pink Frangipani below, smells divine
Succulent, euphorbias. Two pics down, I loved the foliage of this huge tree. It is rainy season.
After the walk, Johnny picked me up, and dropped me at the Gau Train. Power failed, so we got into buses, but then the power returned, so we got on the train, and went to Sandton to wait for the Soweto tour. I had a bite to eat, and found I was waiting at the wrong hotel ( there are two very close, with the same name). I made it, and was picked up by Thomas, my driver and guide. I was the only one on the tour. We drove to Soweto ( South West Townships ) and checked out this place, so significant to South African history. I took lots of pics, and include some below.
Above: the huge soccer stadium where the Soccer World Cup took place.
Goldmine waste, which is now grassed, and treed! Above and below
Welcome to SOWETO!
Below: the rich in Soweto: electrified fence!
Old mine workers homes below, but squatters occupy it now. No electricity
Government housing in the back, old housing foreground.
Pic actually shows wires taken from the street lamp to provide electricity for nearby homes. We saw this very graphically in many places in Soweto. You can't see the wires clearly.
Huge defunct coal edifices, now painted, and they actually bungy jump from the top!
Poor homes. Stones to keep roof on. But I am so so impressed with cleanliness all over SOWETO. Especially in the very poor areas. Full marks to South Africa in looking after the environment.
Below, poor homes, but we saw some really nice middle class homes too.
Below: pillars to commemorate a huge tree under which freedom meetings took place. Authorities chopped the tree down to stop the meetings!
Below: Freedom square....notice how incredibly clean, not one pice of garbage!
Freedom Square
Freedom Square...well maintained.
Below: pics of Regina Coeli Catholic Church, centre of resistance against the authorities. Note the black Madonna. Nice feature was the Madonna is white inside the church and black outside. This church is where it all happened.
Huge meetings were held here with thousands of students here, with police and bullets outside, and smoke.
Below: this is where Mandela actually stood, and did his African dance, so I'm doing it. It is a huge cross.
Below: stained glass of Mandela. This is the resistance church.
Below our guide showing original windows with bullet holes, as police shot at demonstrators holed up in the church. Police got in, and thousands of students tried to get out. Part of the altar rail was damaged in the rush. Have a pic of Mandela's signature in the Visitor book here. The altar itself was damaged by police rifle butts, in a pic I have.
Below: this is Mandela's home, now a museum. Also saw Winnie Mandela's current home.
Sidewalk souvenirs
Hector Pieterson, the 13 year old boy who symbolizes the resistance by black school kids and others who were killed. I have a pic of the place where 600 school kids were killed. The Museum is very informative, with TV , newspaper and many other methods of information.
Below, the water is tears, stones represent stones thrown at police.
The wall below has stones of many colours to show SA has all races.
Below: pain of resistance in front of the Hector Pieterson Museum. The boy had an African name, changed to an Afrikaans name to please authorities.
After the tour, I was in Sandton, world class shopping centre in Johannesburg, in Mandela Square.
