Saturday, May 6
Oh what a joy it was to go to bed last night for the first time since Monday night. That seems a lifetime ago. I awoke with a start this morning thinking that it was daylight and that I had slept in and missed my tour to Soweto. The light was only the television that was left on when I fell asleep. It was only 4:15 so I tried to go back to sleep but all I could think of was what camera equipment I was going to haul along. Things would be so much simpler, not to mention lighter, if I only had one point and shoot camera! This trip is SO photographically oriented and I have had so many difficulties of one sort or another that I am becoming paranoid with fears of camera (or mine) failure. Nothing I can do about it of course. Hopefully I will have some more interesting photos to add later today or early tomorrow.
Soweto
It is difficult to describe how I feel after this tour.
It was, at the same time, very educational, depressing and thought provoking. I need to read more and would have bought a few books if I had room to carry them. To think that these things happened as recently as 1976 almost defies description until one realizes that similar things, minus the killing, are still happening to various degrees throughout Canada in regard to our Aboriginal People. The similarities are so striking that the guide and I were able to speak the same language on virtually every topic. The one other person, Charles, from Germany, was most often left out of the conversation and question and answer sessions. Amazingly the guide, Hope, and I seemed also to share the same sense of humour and irony so we both had a very good time. Because of my background I didn't feel nearly as ignorant, though I am of detail, as I expected to be. The museum, where it portrays and preserves the 1976 protest, was so disturbing to me that I had to leave after seeing only half of it.
The only criticism I have of the tour is that there weren't nearly enough photo opportunities to allow me to document a sense of Soweto. We saw upper class areas, middle class areas and lower (poverty) areas but I got no photographs of any of them. Soweto has a population of 3.5 million but is considered and treated as a suburb of Johannesburg with no local government powers of its own. When I asked what the ratio of "blacks" to "whites" was Hope just laughed. Virtually no "whites" live in Soweto...
On a much lighter note, the street market was fascinating and I would have purchased a number of things if I didn't have the ongoing luggage problem. Hopefully I will find similar items after the safaris when I can get another suitcase.
After getting the photos loaded I went back to the shopping centre to see if I could resolve some of my camera problems and was amazed that I was able to solve the most important two of the three problems. Please heaven may I now be good to go!
I asked Hope if the Lesedi Village was, as I expected, an entertainment presentation (as I saw in Australia) as opposed to an educational one. He confirmed my thought. It is apparently reasonably authentic but is designed to entertain as well as pass on a bit of culture.
Lesedi Cultural Village
A most pleasant surprise. This was the third such show I have seen and it was, by far and away, the best of the lot. Yes, there was plenty of entertainment but there was also an incredible amount of cultural and historical information (much more than I will ever remember). My poor little brain is suffering from information overload tonight - so much so that I fell asleep in the van on the way back. I can't wait to get to bed. The show lasted more than three hours and involved a good deal of walking. They have five traditional camps set up in the original styles of the tribes and they take you on a guided walk through each of them stopping to explain the differences and functions. Once you have made the tour of the villages it is back to the main hall for much dancing and merriment (by them, not me lol). They are incredibly energetic bunch and although some of their dance moves are inspired more by break dancing from television than tradition, they are entertaining to watch.
The dinner wasn't bad but not great and they didn't have the ostrich and fish and a few other things they advertised. The crocodile was quite good and some of the different salads (beet, bean, etc.) were as well. I had some sort of vegetable that looked like mashed potatoes but was quite bland and gluey. It might have been a variety of yam or taro or something similar.
I traveled tonight with two Aussies from Sydney who are on a month long jaunt around the world - here, England, Ireland, US.
My photography woes continue. I am down to one camera out of three that is working properly. The charger I got for one of the others didn't seem to charge the battery at all. My big camera (the one I was counting on for good wildlife shots seems to be corrupting the memory cards that I put into it. All evening I was checking to make sure I was getting pictures saved but when I put the card in the computer it wouldn't read it. I don't have a clue what the problem is and can only hope that David Cardinal, the professional photographer or someone else in the group can help me somehow. I will be absolutely sick if I can't get it working properly.
On that worrisome note I will close this installment of the journal.