City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality

After visiting the Apartheid Museum we took a two hour tour through SOWETO or Southwest Township, really an area of many small towns southwest of Johannesburg.  First we drove by the soccer stadium which has many names.  My favorite is The Calabash.  Others include Soccer City Stadium, FNB Stadium, First National Bank Stadium. It is the largest in South Africa and can seat nearly 95,000 fans.

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In SOWETO are two former cooling towers of the Orlando Power Station, an old coal-fired power plant, that now provide a recreational bungee jumping spot between them.  The towers often get repainted depending upon who sponsors them.

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We stopped by the Hector Pieterson Museum that was created some time after the 12 year old boy was shot and killed during a student demonstration (SOWETO Uprising) during apartheid in 1976.

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Remembering Winnie Mandela

Street Vendors

The homes of two Nobel Peace Prize laureates-South Africa's first democratically elected president, the late Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu-are found on Vilakazi Street in the Orlando West section of SOWETO.

One Mandela house is now a museum.

A Winnie Mandela House

Other SOWETO Housing

Mbali, our guide to SOWETO, told me he spoke about 12 languages: 4-5 dialects each of Zulu and Xhosa, Afrikaans, German, Dutch, and English.

For our last morning in Africa, we rode around on a red tour bus.

Street Market in Johannesburg

Murals and Sculpture around Johannesburg

Women of South Africa

Train Yards and Trains

In the afternoon our home of 45 days got a much needed bath before we returned it in Pretoria.

Good-bye Africa

Apartheid Museum

Arriving in Johannesburg, we immediately located the Apartheid Museum.  Days, you could spend days here.  One of the ongoing exhibits includes the life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

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This is the front of the museum.  

The quotation on the front reads:

"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

-Nelson Mandela

June 1999

The creators of the Apartheid Museum really want a visitor to feel what it would be like to be white or non-white.  You begin your experience the moment you receive your ticket.

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The identities of some real people, white and non-white, are shared.

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A long walk way leads to the museum building.

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Art enhances the path.

Visiting the museum is a highly emotional experience...visually, sound-wise, and touch-wise. We did not have the time to explore and read and listen to everything.  There was so much...from the rise to the fall of apartheid.

Try to take a moment and read The South African Bill of Rights.  Either click on the photo to enlarge it, or go to this link.

Our living document of The United States Constitution should be updated to include these rights.