One Crazy Ride!: Africa the Final Chapter

The beauty of Africa will always be engrained in my memory but so will some of the sadness that comes from it's history. I guess with any country there is a "wrong doing" and an unfairness to an indigenous group of people. I would like to think if I would have been in charge of America when it was being settled that we wouldn't have had Native Americans being kicked off the land and sent to reservations (this is such a huge topic with such a tangent I could go off on here). In Africa it was just painful to see that the history of racism with it being so fresh, it is a country with a lot of room to grow and improve. On a more positive note the people are happy and hospitable and I will take those memories home with me.

The last two days of the trip I said hasta la vista to this hunky man and mom, Lee, Charlene and myself went in search of African culture. Not to be too sad for Rand, he and Dave stayed at the ranch and hunted to the last second. After meeting up with Rand again at the airport I believe his exact words were, "that was the best hunting day of my life"! He and Dave made memories that last day that I am not exactly sure I want to know about! All I know is I that when I wasn't there to monitor him my backyard landscaping budget got used for another animal and more taxidermy!

This was Peter's kids nanny!

1st Stop to be enriched with African Culture was Lesedi!

(Reminded me a lot of the Polynesian Culture center that we went to in Hawaii!)

I wanted these guys to look a lot tougher and "african warrior like" but check out the guy holding onto me, does he looked a bit feminine to you?

Lesedi was divided up into different tribes and each tribe danced and explained their history to us. I found our time here so interesting and the people quite fascinating. The men and women who worked there very much remained in tribal status the whole time. We were treated to a royal lunch that included, Ostrich, Alligator, Monkey and lots of other things I wouldn't try even if you paid me money!

If I were not posting for my journal I would include lots of video here to show all of the different tribal dances, so entertaining and somewhat frightening all at the same time.

We left Lesedi and headed to Johannesburg to spend the night, as we drove through Johannesburg I was reminded of the extreme lack of classes. The very rich and the very poor are two class systems in Africa, the middle class seemed to be non existent. Johannesburg is such a large city and I was amazed at the living conditions of most people.

The next morning and final day of our trip was one of my most memorable. I think I am fairly well traveled, I have traveled to beautiful cities in Europe, scary cities in Russia many islands and Latin countries but with all of that behind me I have never felt fear like I felt in South Africa. We hired a tour guide which became one of the best things we could have done, he was a black man who had lived in Johannesburg and lived through apartheid and segregation 1st hand. His own account of how things happened proved to be so insightful, interesting and thought provoking. He asked what we wanted to see and we said we really wanted to see South Africa, not the tourist spots. I have to interject that poor Charlene ate some weird food and was sick all night and had to stay at the hotel, we missed her so much on our adventure! The first place we were taken to was this overlook of the city. There were so many people praying and meditating on that windy day. This was not your regular park overlooking a city, the garbage and debris of life were everywhere including the huge homeless population. Many Africans came to this place to pray, be blessed, speak in tongues, pray to Allah and everything else you can imagine. As we approached the overlook people stared into my soul, the feeling of intimidation I felt was incomparable to anything I had felt before. The eeriness of this place left a pit in my stomach and made me want to flee quickly. I started to take pictures and video and quickly put the camera away as I was being eyed up and down as a potential person to rob. I don't know what made me feel so uneasy here but Lee had the same feeling I did and I told the tour guy that we were ready to leave.

I wish I had more pictures of the poverty here in the city but it looked so obvious for me to be hanging out the window with the camera that I wanted to leave people with some dignity. There were houses and apartments everywhere that would have been condemned in America but in Africa people were living there with garbage piled as high as you could see, there was no running water, no electricity and this was right in the city.

We went shopping in the downtown district and entered a witch doctor's spice shop. The potent smell knocked me out and overloaded my senses as I walked into this crazy shop. From their apperance the ladies behind the counter were true witches I am sure of it. They had remedies for everything from a stomach ache to cancer. I thought it was a stinky, scary place and as I left the store mom soaked in all the fagraences and energy of that spooky place. I on the other hand walked out and joined Lee at a retail store that had the cheapest prices I have ever seen.

Have you ever seen a truck loaded this full?

One of the places on mom's bucket list was Soweto (the township where Nelson Mandela's was born, raised and lived)

On the way there we found a ballot tacked to a pole remaining from the election where Nelson Mandela won the presidency.

I must take a minute to stop and give some history of townships. During apartheid the segregation in South Africa was divided into different groups, colored people, black people and whites. What is the difference between colored people and black people? I asked this same question... People were judged by the darkness of their skin. If your skin was lighter you were colored if you were darker you were black. If skin was not a deciding factory you were judged by your hair. If a comb could easily pass through you were colored if not you were black. Noses were also measured and the width of a nose could be used as a classification tool for segregation as well.

Now here's the kicker.......

if you think this was happening in the early 1900's you would be wrong,

try 1950's and you still would be wrong,

this was happening in the early 90's. I graduated from high school in 1993 and never had experienced racism and people were being separated into townships and being forced to live away from family and friends. Some of the townships were only miles a way but a passport was required to visit another township and going into the city was almost always off limits. If one of your kids were lighter than the rest of the family he or she would be sent off to live in a different township. The 1990's was a very different era of time in South Africa vs the life I was living in little ole Price Utah!

This is a typical township and hundreds and hundreds of people live in these still. No running water or electricity and shared outside toilet facilities.

Walking through one of the townships we met this sweet lady who was caring for her grand baby. She graciously took us in her "tin home" and was lovely. Her home in all of it's poverty felt like a "home" and I felt just as comfortable in her home as in my own. When we left we gave her some money and witnessed true gratitude. We surprised a lady at the fountain with only 20.00 and she cried as if she had won the lottery! I think my biggest dream would be to save enough money that my children could travel the world with me and expose them to just how lucky and fortunate they are to live in the country they live and in the circumstances they were born into.

At this point Rand had just called me and told me he had shot another animal and I knew for sure that my backyard landscaping budget was diminished so that is why I am sporting the fake smile. But this is Nelson Mandela's house.

While we were engrossed in African culture Dave and Rand were visiting the taxadermist that would soon take all our money. He He!

They had just finished hunting "the best hunting day of their life"!

Peter had a small problem with vervet monkies in the orange orchard and asked Dave and Rand to take care of the over population and they were very happy to oblige.