So we are in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, apparently the best game reserve in the world, and our experience has certainly verified that. The 10 of us who chose to do this before the SLF meet-up fill up one entire jeep so we have had our own guide, and our own “tracker” for the entire time. We went out for a few hours at 3:30 pm on Friday, and at 6 am today, and at 3:30 today and again at 6 am tomorrow. They cooperate with other safari resorts in the local area to figure out where the interesting animals are hanging out, plus watch for things with their eagle eyes. Today we unexpectedly saw a beautiful pair of zebras, and also a leopard who had killed an impala and was still devouring it, along with wildebeest, wart hogs, elephants, African buffalo, hippos, bush bucks, many herds of impala and beautiful birds. And our guides drive this amazing jeep through the bush trying to get us the best views possible and very up close and personal with these amazing animals. And who knew? An evening safari always includes “sundowners” – beer, wine or cocktails served on the tail of the jeep at sunset – before heading back. And when we arrive back at the lodge, there are three choices of drink waiting for us – a cocktail, a shooter and a mocktail!

The rooms are beautiful, with mosquito netting draped fashionably over our beds, and the meals are gourmet with attention paid to all possible allergies. It will be quite a contrast to the next part of our trip but it feels like we have seen an essential piece of Africa and we feel grateful to be doing it in such style.

No words!!!!

Soweto was created in the 1930s when the white government started separating blacks from whites to create black "townships". It also attracted the working poor,  Coloureds and Indians and quickly became a community where mixed races generally intermingled. With the onset of apartheid, there was great concern over this and most of the non-black residents were moved elsewhere. Soweto is now 98.5% black and still very poor. 

Until 1976, the "matchbox" houses were provided to black residents with jobs, on lease; they were not allowed to do any renovations or build a fence or even hang curtains because the police had the right to spy on them at any time. Now the houses are owned, many by the families who leased them, but there are strict rules about who and how many can live in them.

We visited Mandala's home on our tour, where he lived both before and after his 27-year imprisonment and where his second wife Winnie lived and was regularly harassed and often arrested while he was in prison. She spent 200 days in solitary. When Mandela got out of prison, he and Winnie divorced. She apparently wanted revenge and he wanted peace and they found that irreconcilable. (He became the first black president of South Africa when he was 76, married his third wife when he was 80 and died at 95.)

Other interesting facts:

• Soweto has the only street in the world (Vilakazi St) on which two Nobel Peace Prize winners had homes (Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu).
• One of Mandela's sons, Makgatho Mandela, died of AIDS in 2005.
• The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto (formerly an Imperial military hospital) is the largest hospital in Africa and the 7th largest in the world. Since it became a public hospital in 1991, the quality of care has gone steadily downhill. Our tour guide was born there but says he wouldn't want his future children to be born there.
• The uprising that brought Soweto to the attention of the rest of the world, on June 16 1976, involved 10000 unarmed students marching to the stadium to protest the government's policy to enforce education in Afrikaans instead of in their native language. Police threw tear gas and opened fire. 176 students were killed and 1000 injured.
• In 2010, Soweto hosted the FIFA World Cup final.

While we were biking around Soweto today, here's what I noticed.

Differences from home:

• crumbling streets and sidewalks
• garbage everywhere
• lots of open fires, both for cooking and for burning trash (Near the end of our afternoon the air was filled with sooty smoke and the skies turned orange because there was so much trash being burned. Apparently this is because the refuse collectors, on contract from the government, are corrupt and don't work very hard.)
• drivers tolerant of bike riders

Similarities to home:

• lots of families in the park
• a group of girls on their way home from school giggling and practising dance steps
• kids and adults laughing and smiling and saying hi to us all day. (Our tour guide told us they are unused to seeing "the elderly" riding bikes!)

us on the bike tour (with Sara from the East Van Gogos) in front of the Soweto Towers (abandoned utility towers re-created as a recreational zone with a bungie jump and many other things, and paid advertisers)

us at the Nelson Mandela house between memorials to Winnie and Nelson

a matchbox house

Hector Pieterson, a 12-year-old who died during the 1976 uprising

Today 5 of us visited the Apartheid Museum, packed with sometimes brutal reminders illustrating apartheid and the complex 20th century history of SA. I generally whisk through museums but this one was very compelling. "Man's inhumanity to man", a common theme in the world's literature, is certainly exemplified by apartheid. Even though I just read all about it, I can't fathom the mindset behind white supremacy. I think it's mostly about fear, and about losing power when you're a minority. I read that one of the main reasons "they" didn't want to give black people the vote is because there were too many of them!

SA's Truth and Reconciliation initiative has lots of parallels to Canada's. But there is still a long way to go (in both countries). SA continues to be rife with crime, poverty and inequality. 32% of South Africans are unemployed and 56% live below the poverty line.

"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

So we had 3 long flights with a total travelling time of 28 hours. Bonnie and I each finished a book and we watched 5 movies between us! We arrived underslept and overfed but we are here, on the African continent, in the huge (10 million people) city of Johannesburg. We are staying in a very beautiful guest house for the next 3 nights, as different members of our party arrive gradually.

Everything we have learned about Johannesburg so far we learned from our taxi driver, who was talking a mile a minute and driving very fast and skillfully through heavy traffic. He told us that it costs 10000 Rand ($800) for school fees for every child who wants to attend school and that the cost prevents many poor children from attending. (All four of his children attend school but his brother died two years ago and in order to be able to put his brother's two kids in school, he took two of his own out.) One of Nelson Mandela's big dreams was for free education but it has not happened. We were driving with him in the mid-afternoon and he pointed out to us many kids of various ages walking along the sides of the roads home from school. Some of them walk as far as 10K each way, he said, and until he pointed it out to us, I hadn't noticed they were all black. "The white kids don't have to walk" he said. They all get driven. He also told us there are white compounds with a private school and shopping and parks and recreation so that the people who live there hardly ever have to leave. There are LOTS of differences between white and black opportunities, despite the official ending of apartheid. 

14 of our amazing members dressed in their VG4A shirts and came to the airport, past their bedtimes, to see Bonnie and I head off on our trip with the SLF. Solidarity means: "unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest, mutual support within a group". This was a fabulous display of solidarity and we really felt the unity of feeling. We are going to South Africa and Eswatini on behalf of all of our members, and donors, and interested friends and family members, to visit and get to know these strong and resilient grandmothers we have been supporting in Africa. Your support really drove that home and made us feel loved and appreciated and honoured. We are extremely grateful. 

We will be travelling with 14 other women from all across Canada and seven members of the Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) staff. We will be visiting nine different SLF partners, in Manzini, Eswatini, Durban SA and Capetown SA. We will also be in Johannesburg SA. We leave on the redeye to Toronto on Sunday night, May 11th.

We arrive on May 13th, rest on May 14th and go on a 4-hour guided bicycle tour of Soweto with one of the other participants on May 15th. May 16th and 17th 10 of us are doing a 2-day safari in Kruger National Park. Sunday, May 18th we meet up with the SLF and the rest of the group and the adventure begins!