Day 6 - Apartheid Museum & Top of Africa
TOP OF AFRICA
Apartheid Museum
I am in J'bourg for 2 weeks helping the MC out with the upcoming LCP summit. I've never had roomates before so it's been awesome sharing a house with 9 others. Try sharing one bathroom with that much people. The mornings are most hectic (our rule is 10 min. showers). However, I have chosen to shower at nights instead to beat the rush. What perhaps is the best is that we all are from different countries working here in SA, 3 Canadians, 2 South Africans, 2 Estonians, 1 Nigerian, 1 Hungarian, 1 British.
Yesterday was pretty much another site seeing day. At about noon we got to the Apartheid Museum. We spent about 2 ½ hours there, just watching films and looking at all the exhibits. I would have to say that this was perhaps the most emotional tour through a museum that you could possibly experience. No one can walks out of this museum and not be touched by the struggles and history of the people of this country during the Apartheid regime, between 1948-1991 in which segregation of South Africans by race was instituted. As we entered the museum we were each given an identity card. This card represented the race in which we belonged to, as a result, you pretty either belonged to whites (Europeans) or Blacks & Coloureds (Indians, Chinese, etc.). As we walked through separate pathways it helped up depict the real existence of life for these people during the regime.
During the tour we reached an exhibit where there was an extremely large police/tank car. These cars were used during the riots. The back of the car was covered in steel bars and the windows had been broken immensely due to stones, gun shots, and bricks that had been thrown during the riots. If you climb into the car there is a mini tv in which you can watch some of the riots. Here I had a chance to speak to Aubrey’s friend who was about my age (he’d been driving us around J’bourg site seeing for the day). I asked him if he had remembered anything during the Apartheid regime. He simply recounted his experiences to me and said that he was in elementary school then and that he was perhaps lucky to have not seen any of the riots or the violence, as he was very sheltered by his by his family from all this. However, his family was particularly active in the freedom movement. His uncle was so active that he had to flee the country to Canada for fear of assassination and it was only until 1993 that he came back to SA for the first time in many years.
Later that evening Sarutu our Nigerian roommate brought us to the top of Africa. This building was suppose to be the highest point in Southern Africa. We got there just in time to watch the sun set over the Johanesboug skyline. After that we went to a Jamaican bar called Cool Running (yes like the movie....about the first Jamaican bobsled team) for a bite to eat and couple of drinks.
Apartheid Museum
I am in J'bourg for 2 weeks helping the MC out with the upcoming LCP summit. I've never had roomates before so it's been awesome sharing a house with 9 others. Try sharing one bathroom with that much people. The mornings are most hectic (our rule is 10 min. showers). However, I have chosen to shower at nights instead to beat the rush. What perhaps is the best is that we all are from different countries working here in SA, 3 Canadians, 2 South Africans, 2 Estonians, 1 Nigerian, 1 Hungarian, 1 British.
Yesterday was pretty much another site seeing day. At about noon we got to the Apartheid Museum. We spent about 2 ½ hours there, just watching films and looking at all the exhibits. I would have to say that this was perhaps the most emotional tour through a museum that you could possibly experience. No one can walks out of this museum and not be touched by the struggles and history of the people of this country during the Apartheid regime, between 1948-1991 in which segregation of South Africans by race was instituted. As we entered the museum we were each given an identity card. This card represented the race in which we belonged to, as a result, you pretty either belonged to whites (Europeans) or Blacks & Coloureds (Indians, Chinese, etc.). As we walked through separate pathways it helped up depict the real existence of life for these people during the regime.
During the tour we reached an exhibit where there was an extremely large police/tank car. These cars were used during the riots. The back of the car was covered in steel bars and the windows had been broken immensely due to stones, gun shots, and bricks that had been thrown during the riots. If you climb into the car there is a mini tv in which you can watch some of the riots. Here I had a chance to speak to Aubrey’s friend who was about my age (he’d been driving us around J’bourg site seeing for the day). I asked him if he had remembered anything during the Apartheid regime. He simply recounted his experiences to me and said that he was in elementary school then and that he was perhaps lucky to have not seen any of the riots or the violence, as he was very sheltered by his by his family from all this. However, his family was particularly active in the freedom movement. His uncle was so active that he had to flee the country to Canada for fear of assassination and it was only until 1993 that he came back to SA for the first time in many years.
Later that evening Sarutu our Nigerian roommate brought us to the top of Africa. This building was suppose to be the highest point in Southern Africa. We got there just in time to watch the sun set over the Johanesboug skyline. After that we went to a Jamaican bar called Cool Running (yes like the movie....about the first Jamaican bobsled team) for a bite to eat and couple of drinks.
posted by Sarin @ 2:08 AM
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