Interesting Saturday and lazy Sunday

Not early to bed, but early up, again. After some intensive gymnastics and a fresh breakfast we were ready to be picked up. Accompanying us were women from around Europe, even a Finn.

Our first stop was downtown Johannesburg. The place was eerie. Many of the big buildings were abandoned due to the high crime rate, even a five star hotel. An image that stayed in mind was an abandoned city hall. The massive and beautiful building had big steps of stone in front of it, in which were carved the words “Lest we never forget”, abandoned.

After a shop full of monkey carcases, horns and herbs and playing some “spot the white man” (no points there), we headed for the Apartheid Museum. Some of us had read a bit on the subject beforehand and in not vain, because otherwise the amount of information would have been overwhelming.

The strangest thing about apartheid is how close to this day the things are. You normally associate history to be something that happened to people that have passed on at least a couple of generations ago. Here, those people work in the museums. Like for example Hector Petersons (Google: 16 June 1976) sister, who works at his brother’s memorial museum. Also we went by Winnie Mandela’s house, which she still inhabits in the township of Soweto.

Talking to the locals you get a strange feeling, because they are very willing to talk about the Apartheid era. Some say it was a really safe time, others talk about the oppression, but nobody seems bitter, only wanting to go further ahead at making things right.

The atmosphere in Soweto, at least at first glance, was warm. The people looked happy and the ones we talked to were laid back, easy to approach and polite. Those characters do by the way seem to fit almost everybody in S-A.

We even got an inside tour of one block of steel houses, walking along a dirt road, surrounded by kids and guided by a local player. Well, yes the older kids did ask for money, but only after chatting with us a bit and yes, the guide did make it clear our donations would be appreciated. Altogether it was quite surreal: nice people cashing in on their poverty.

After coming back we were exhausted from all we had seen and even our happy and talkative guide, Kagiso seemed a bit tired. After the drop off we decided to check out the grill at our local minimal. Stomachs full and heads even fuller, we had an exiting adventure walking 3 minutes back home in the dark night. No problems there, but we wont be pushing our lucks like that very often.

Finally a day off!

Sunday was our first day without any big plans. Pool, gym and food were the main pastimes. After breakfast we took off our shirts and took a dive in to the pool. We were jumping silly to the water and taking a lot of splash pictures. The weather was great and kwaito was beating on our laptops. We were also trying to dance to the kwaito videos, but the success wasn’t so good, which also was noticed by our janitor. Well at least we gave him a good laugh:)

These kind of activities are the way to start the day. The only thing hindering our recreation was that the delicious fresh O.J. had ran out and we had to settle for other fruit juices.

After digesting the breakfast in the pool we decided to go pump some iron. It was our first time at Hatfield and we weren’t so sure about the location. We tried to use our local taxi connections, but they were all unavailable. This is normal on Sundays. That’s how we ended up walking to the gym. It took an hour, but the weather was warm and we didn’t even get robbed so the walk was a success. We even got to do the local three move handshake a couple of times, while asking for directions from the locals.

The neighbourhoods of Pretoria are somewhat ambiguous. The beautiful old Jacaranda trees lining and arching over the long straight streets give the better areas a very homely feel. The electrified barbed wire around the lavish houses gives another vibe. It was said that some people put more money into the security than the house itself.

Buying a months membership at the gym wasn’t easy at all. Sure it was on the menu, but the formalities and going through them took so long that even the staff got fed up and let us train for free this time. Bureaucracy seems to be quite popular here.

After gym carbohydrates were enjoyed at Mimmos in Hatfield. The pasta tasted amazingly good after four days of meat. Food in the restaurants has been good and the prices at about a half of those in Finland.

Observing Hatfield from the McDonalds, we came to the conclusion that the South-African people are very kind and beautiful, even though the suburb was not one of the best.

A chill day without meetings and with fun relaxing activities gave us a lot of inspiration and energy.

Sharp, gents!