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So I havent wrot eup anything for ages so I am going to fill you all in on whats been happening!
Day 4- I visited the township of Soweto and my god what a truely inspirational story they have, about the apartheid and the language of Afrikaans! The people there are so friendly and so inviting its truely a place to visit despite the stigma. I first started by driving through the township passing the hospitals and schools which were involved in the Soweto upraw on June 16th 1976. I visited a cultural village where after the afrikaan people deported the people out of their homes in Sophiastown, the women built mud houses, in a little village just outside of Soweto before Jo'burg built the 14,000 match box houses for the people. At the time a lot of people were homeless and had to fend for themselves however they could. The village was also home to a prophet who predicted a lot of things were going to happen including 9/11. He painted a picture of the 9/11 attack in 1979 which had the twin towers, a sea of blood and a plane and explosions. It is sooo wierd! Whether this is true i dont know but the people of Soweto all worship him. The guy was apparently also a teacher, healer, carpenter and journalist! Clever guy!
I then went to a Roman Catholic church called the Regina Mundi. This Chruch fits up to 3000 people and is evidence that tyhe police during the Soweto uprise had no respect for the people and their religion and raided the church, leaving bullet holes, broken stools, stained glass, marble tables and many people left either dead or wounded! They document the story of Soweto and they took refuge to the people of Soweto during the disastrous time. The church is still running and also serves food to the less fortunate in Soweto. People such as Barak obamas wife Michelle, the president himself and Nelson Mandela all come to visit this church and show there appreciation often.
I then went on and visited the home of Nelson Mandela, 8115 Orlando street, this was where he lived with his first wife before they split and then his second wife before he went underground and got arrested and taken to robben island for 27 years! People in SA worship him and everywhere you go there are graffitis of him, pictures, statues and so many places named after him. He is probably the most inspirational person alongside the likes of Desmond Tutu and many others involved in the freedom and democracy of SA.
I then visited the Hector Pieterson memorial site an museum, Nelson Mandela square and then later the Apartheid museum in Sun city. All these places documents the devasation and long walk to freedom that the people of South Africa struggled through in the 1900's up until 1994 and even after when Nelson Mandella was elected president being the first president to be elected in a fully representative democratc election in South Africa. The story of the apartheid is crazy and highlights just how pig headedour Western culture is sometimes.
I finished the day by visting soccer city and driving through Jo'burg city.
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