Soweto is Sa-sweeto!

This past weekend I was able to fit in the last of my travels around Jo'burg.  I went on a bicycle tour around Soweto (short for South West Township), which is one of the largest townships, certainly the most famous in South Africa.  Soweto is the famous site that District 9 was shot in, although its anything far from it.  I thought it was one of the most "vibey" places I've been to in Jo'burg and I would highly recommend anybody to go visit it.  The townships were developed for the non-whites to live in.  Although Soweto has a bad reputation of being dangerous, being there it was far from it.  In fact, one of the girls I met at the hostel told me about how she ventured into Jo'burg and got mugged!  In addition to Soweto, I visited the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Human Kind (second world Heritage Site I've been to in 2 months!).  Being the dork that I am I had to visit the caves because this is where they found one of the earliest human fossils, it was also referred to in the book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.  Ha, yes I am a dork!  Anyway, here are some pictures from the trips and around Jo'burg.  Since today was my last day of classes, I am off to travel for the remainder of March.  Here's what I have planned so far: safari in Kruger National Park, diving in Sodwana Bay, party in Cape Town, surfing the Garden Route and then back to Jo'burg! Please feel free to give me advice!!

Dolphins in Durban

Italian with the Italians

World Cup Stadium-Jo'burg.  This is where the opening and closing ceremony will be, and yes that is massive construction outside...

Entering Soweto

The tall lamp post was used as curfew lights

Stopped for a drink at the local "shebeen" or drinking place in the township

Thirsty!

"Cow Head Meat" Yummm

Plaque at Hector Pieterson Square remembering the student uprising (protesting the teaching of Africaans in the black schools) in Soweto where 13 year old Hector Pieterson was shot dead along with many others.

Plaque outside Nelson Mandela's house that was converted into a museum in Soweto

Bunny Chow in Durban

Bunny Chow in Soweto

That Anna's so hot right now

Speaking in Clicks with the Zulus

Classes I am taking at WITS: Storytelling, Strategic Finance, and Negotiations. Yes it's a hard schedule. What makes it harder (that's what she said) is the fact that I have classes for like 3 days straight then no class for a week to recuperate! :-D Anyway, as a result of this awesome schedule, I get to take the whole month of March off to travel. Hooray!

Anyway, so far Johannesburg has been absolutely amazing! It really does remind me of living in Australia, at least with all the partying! Although it is very interesting the way the clubs work. The clubs that we have gone to have been either predominantly white (~95%) or predominantly black. Even after the end of the forced segregation it seems that the people still segregate themselves. We went to a predominantly white club recently and our friends (who were black) had a hard time getting served by the bartenders because of their skin color. Yes, race is still an issue here. One of the white guys in our storytelling class was telling us that his dream is to buy a farm eventually but he doesn’t know if he wants to do that since his farm might get taken away from him.  Guess it affects both sides somehow.

This past week we took a vacation and went to Durban, which is a beach town five hours away from Jo’burg. The town boasts to have the largest Indian population outside of India. We took a walking tour of the city and it was interesting to learn that back in the day, there was 4 basic separations: whites, coloreds (black and white mix), blacks, and Indians (no group for Asians since there wasn’t that many of us here!). At the end of Apartheid, the Indians was given rights first over the blacks and as a result a lot of the shops in Durban are owned by Indians. Some of the Indian guys in our class were saying that they didn’t get to meet people of other races until they went to high school and that was the first time they got to interact with them. How crazy is that? Our tour guide was Zulu so she taught us some Zulu words which involve some clicking, it’s the hardest language I’ve ever had to learn!

In Durban we also got to going out to the shark nets with a boat to tag the sharks that have been caught in the nets.  I guess Durban is one of the few places that have shark nets to protect the surfers and other beach swimmers (no we did not get to go surfing because the blue bottle jelly fish were being blown in and they were EVERYWHERE).  On the boat we learned that there was a recent shark attack at Cape Town where a guy was just standing in the water and the shark came up and ate the whole person, like it would a seal!  They were saying that the reason there's more shark attacks is because of all the shark cage diving that happens here.  Since those boats feed the sharks and then the humans get in, the sharks begin to associate human heartbbeats with food, hence the attacks.  I was originally planning on going shark cage diving but after learning about this I'm not sure if I want to.  It sucks then the sharks get hurt because we humans trained them to attack us!

New Friends

My New Pet Simba

Yes, the giraffe is licking my hand

House Picture! There are 9 of us here from the US, Italy, Switzerland and Nigeria, we're so international!