Our Arrival in Johannesburg, S. Africa!

Here we are again, with all of our bags, ready for the next adventure. We arrived in Johannesburg yesterday! Wow, it is really strange to think South Africa is now our home. It took about 24 hours to get here with a 16 hour flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg. Despite our inability to sleep (only 3 hours or so), the flight went quickly. We thought the lack of sleep would help us sleep last night; and therefore, negate jet leg…but, nope! We were both up for three hours in the middle of the night. We are really hoping our fatigue will carry us through tonight.

Unfortunately, I mixed up the days when booking our flight to Durban so we now only have one full day in Johannesburg and two nights. Chris had his meeting with the NGO regarding his research and it went really well. I went on a walking tour of a township outside of Johannesburg, called Soweto, and Chris joined the latter half.

The tour had a bit of a slow and odd start, to say the least. It took awhile to get to our destination due to dropping off some other tourists along the way; and once there, my tour guide, Caroline, asked for five minutes to get ready. A half hour later, I was still sitting at her kitchen table - fighting off fatigue, mesmerized by the dinosaur magnets on her fridge. Her 24 year-old son, Ivan, gave me a tour of the tower and a cultural center. While explaining a mural on a cave wall, three other men start arguing with him, clearly wanting to take over the tour and get a piece of the pie. Ivan ends up leaving me with these three random guys as the main guy explains to me, while spitting through his gapped teeth, that Ivan didn’t replace a bulb in the cave and he is angry. Meanwhile, he goes on to explain these two statues that represent the importance of letting go of…I am not making this up…petty arguments. As he starts explaining the statue of a “giant penis,” ivan comes back with Caroline in toe to continue the argument, which I was quite thankful for because this new guy still felt like a stranger as he talked about male genitalia with me. We walked away as they all continued to argue over who was going to receive my money. Of course, I can’t blame this territorial mentality when Soweto has a 60-70% unemployment rate. Thankfully, the tour improved as I got to know Caroline and Soweto more. It was Sunday, so I was able to see a Sunday worship service (along with all the people adorning colorful uniforms representing their place of worship). Caroline commented, “We black people like our uniforms!” I guess one man, with a lovely perfume of alcohol, had a different view on religion because he felt completely compelled to stop me in the middle of the street to inform me “there is no life after death.” When I mentioned my belief in reincarnation, he seemed okay enough with this reply and shook my hand as I went on my way. Among other sites included a sculpture with the 10 commandments of Soweto (such as, equal rights to jobs and education), Mandela’s house, Desmond Tutu’s house (completely surreal after living with him on the ship), a museum commemorating a child’s death during the apartheid era, etc. Soweto felt a lot like Ghana, as I was the only white person in an impoverished township, and yet felt completely safe and welcomed. I also left appreciating Chris more as Caroline discussed the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among married couples in Soweto. She was angry as she discussed the typical cultural view of marriage where the men will leave for 1 year, 2 years, or 27 years, and the woman still must consider herself married and wait for his return. He may return sick with HIV; and yet, the wife cannot ask for her husband to use a condom because he is her husband. She was quite emotional about this and when I asked if she was married, she replied in one short word, “yes.”

We didn’t eat lunch so by the end of the tour, Chris and I were exhausted and famished. We went to a restaurant in Melville, the suburb where our B&B is located, to eat dinner before crashing. Chris started to fall asleep at 6:30 PM so I gave him a nudge and forced him to sit up so he didn’t disrupt sleep for tonight. Tomorrow, we arrive in Durban, where my friend, Gina, is picking us up. I haven’t seen her in 10 years! I look forward to reconnecting with her. We have already emailed a few places regarding living arrangements so we hope to start this process in the next day or two. I look forward to feeling a sense of “home” here in S. Africa, especially since we have been in transition for almost five months now.