Apartheid from Afar

Today we decided to give Jenna the morning off and let her sleep all morning.  The plan was to make sure we had everything we needed for the safari and didn’t want to do a tour as we figured we’d have enough of that over the next few weeks.  Got everything washed and pulled out everything we didn’t need to leave at the hostel, Shan’s pack is looking pretty light!  We got everything done early and had some time to spare so we hired Gloria to pick us up and take us to the Apartheid Museum. I had heard it was worth visiting but didn’t want to take a tour so this worked out for both of us.

Alyssa in the Apartheid Museseum.

The museum was pretty incredible to see and made me realize that it wasn’t that long ago when all this took place.  It was good to see the movie Invictus to understand the story of Nelson Mandela but this gave a lot more of the history and showed just how crazy it was.  To see the hatred, segregation and turmoil the country was in and to have someone come in and unite all the people made you realize just how incredible of a task it was.  Near the end of the museum they also had a section of the mistakes that were made throughout the times just so you see that he wasn’t perfect but hey, who is!  The whole exhibition was very well done and was a great tribute to Nelson Mandela, well worth the visit.

A tribute to Nelson Mandela.

On the way home with Gloria we got talking about how things were back in the days.  She was a 58 year old grandmother who has seen a lot and it was incredible to hear her unedited, black perspective by someone who lived through it.  It’s one thing reading panels on the wall and seeing photos and then a whole other hearing it through someone who has lived it!  Wow, Gloria is already an outgoing, boisterous, proud South African and she didn’t hold back (guess we’ve built up a bit of a connection over the last two days).  The biggest part of the whole Apartheid history is reconciliation and being able to forgive.  She said a number of times, so long as people are truly sorry for some of the inequality that took place and don’t forget that it happened, everyone is human and deserves a chance in the world.  That got us onto another topic that seems to be a real problem here as in many other areas, illegal immigrants.

Outside the Apartheid Museum.

Apparently, the number of refugees and illegal immigrants coming into South Africa is a real issue.  South Africans have enough issues with the past and employment and now all these other immigrant are coming in and taking lower wages for jobs that black South Africans are currently working at (not only here but a European issue too).  The average physical labour job is 100 rand a day ($10 cdn) where people are taking 20 rand as illegals.  That’s two dollars a day!   Gloria was also saying that most of the crime in the area is also by these immigrants as they are not safe in the shanty towns so they hide out during the daylight hours and come out to try to survive at night.  Not sure if that’s what’s actually happening but makes you realize how major of an issue it is.   Her feeling was that the black South Africans have fought for their country and that is part of the reason she is so proud.  Her take is that the people immigrating need to fight for their own country to make it liveable....  Interesting take.

The rest of the day was an overview on the trip with our safari lead, Brendan; cook, Momma Flow; and driver, Jacob.  There are 26 people on the tour going up to Victoria Falls and 27 coming back down.  All the families are doing the 23 day tour up and back as we are so it’ll be fun to watch the kids evolve.  The Italians and French have a little English but not a ton but their parents both want them to learn.  Hopefully and opportunity for our kids to learn more French and Italiano.  Tomorrow is a nice early day with a 6:30 start so it’ll be interesting to see how the girls do, looks like lots of early days ahead of us!