Soweto township tour ( June 28, 2007)

-What shall we do, those who have no houses?
-You can wait five years for a house, and be no nearer getting it than at the beginning.
-They say there are ten thousand of us in Orlando alone, living in other people's houses.
-Do you hear what Dubula says? That we must put up our own houses here in Orlando?
-And where do we put up the houses?
-On the open ground by the railway line, Dubula says.
-And of what do we build the houses?
-Anything you can find. Sacks and planks and grass from the veld and poles from the plantations.
-And when it rains?
-Sifaya. Then we die.
-No, when it rains, they will have to build us houses.
-It is foolishness. What shall we do in the winter?

(exerpt from Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton)

snow in the garden

it's snowing in johannesburg

I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland in the middle of june in africa. craziness! there is snow covering the lawns, the cacti (cactuses?), snow around the edges of peoples' swimming pools and on all the corrugated tin roofs. and it is absolutely freezing! I'm still on camping time (I just got back last night from my week in Kasane, Botswana, visiting a research team looking at community based natural resource management programs around Chobe National Park), so I was up at six, just in time to get some pre-dawn snowy photos...and to then rush into the main house to make a much needed cup of chai tea!

So here I am in wintery Jo'burg (I feel like we should be getting ready to open christmas presents), having been waylaid for a bit due to illness (yet again, bahh) en route to Gaborone. It could be worse though. I managed to land amongst the most wonderful family here (their son is a friend of a friend of a friend...seriously), whom I have been staying with while I recovered. I have learned (once again, but this lesson never gets old) that the world is a very small place, and that maybe some things work out for a reason. I've been managing to learn various Setswana phrases each morning over breakfast with an audio CD (I'm meant to be in Botswana doing a Setswana language course), but more interestingly I'm seeing a bit more the way this crazy complex upside-down country is maybe somehow trying to right-side itself up. And having dinner with two of South Africa's most distinguished doctors (the friend of a friend of a friends parents, who were very involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and also just happen to be the nicest people ever and my new South African temporary parents--the mums even British and the dad Indian) and Charlene Hunter-Gault never hurt for that purpose either. :-)

More later (about nightlife in Kasane town, run-ins with old Chewonki friends, and thoughts on all the South Africa-related novels I've been reading...currently its Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton), but for now I need to take some more photos!