Johannesburg, now called Egoli [meaning City of Gold,] is the only city I have ever lived in that is not close to the sea. In fact it might be the only city [anywhere in the world? ] not built by a coast, river or lake...... nothing except for little Sunday afternoon walk around with the children Zoo Lake. We had to drive for about seven hours through the mountains to Natal to find those beautiful but shark ridden beaches. No,the scenery around the city is made up of the mine dumps; the waste left over from the gold mines. The summer of 1976 was not the best time of times to arrive there in the middle of the Soweto riots, having to work around 'Kill a white day' once every few weeks, riots in the city centre and day long unpublicised work boycotts once a month. It made for an interesting life and one that had people, even then, used to having burglar bars on windows, dogs in the gardens and guns in the bedrooms.
For all that, our two years in that 'Golden city' were ones that opened our eyes, allowed us to discover the wonderful countryside of South Africa, gave us two great places to work, encouraged us to make great friendships and let us enjoy out first two years of marriage. We rented the tiniest of houses in a lovely garden of a big house sandwiched between their swimming pool and tennis court both of which we could use. It was the best and worst of places and we saw both extremes.
I'm reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography at the moment and am at the point where he is the first practising black lawyer in Johannesburg. The Government laws and restrictions he writes about were draconian and could almost sound idiotic today. More recently he wasn't able to bring the changes quickly enough and fulfill the hopes and wishes of the impatient popualtion after he was released in 1989. Too many expectations....
Here are two of his quotes;
"In my country we go to prison first and then become President."
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
Comments