Our weekend in Joburg

Our Saturday began with a tour of Joburg and the townships. Michelle Lockwood was very gracious to drive us around and show us the various areas of the city. Tembisa is one of the "townships," or shanty towns, that many of our Aurora kids come from.

 

From Tembisa, Michelle took us to Ivory Park, which is a 1-2 million-person shanty town where some of our kids live. It was very sobering to see the squalor in which they must live. Michelle shared a sad fact--that even if you manage to pull yourself out and get a better job and nicer home, you are then expected and obligated to take care of the rest of your very extended family--even to the extent of paying for their weddings, funerals, living expenses, fees, etc. What you earn is not yours to claim, and this tends to demotivate folks to better themselves. Either way you look at it, you end up having nothing. It's so sad. 

We also drove through Alexandra (Alex,) which is an older township. Most of the following pictures are from Alex.

 

After seeing these sprawling townships, we drove to see Sandton, where the well-to-do minority faction does business. The disparity was ridiculous:

From Sandton, Michelle dropped us at the Apartheid Museum, which was very well-done. There was a temporary exhibit on Mandela that was very informative, and the rest of the self-guided tour (about 2 1/2 hours start to finish)  was again very sobering and eye-opening. 

 

After we finished at the museum, we had a quiet hour in the cafe having some delicious desserts, treats, and tea. The weather suddenly turned cold and rainy, and we actually wished we'd brought jackets--and yes, this IS a South African summer!

Then, Neville Walker "fetched" us and drove us to the Pic and Pay so we could stock up on a week's worth of groceries. Since we don't have a car, we have been trying to plan meals around our hosts' availability to drive us to the markets. Once we'd shopped, we pushed our two loaded carts down to "Nando's" for a quick dinner. We had to laugh that we were allowed to "park" our grocery carts in the restaurant with us as we ate.

 

Our next stop took us to a small cottage that SIM rents out. We'd arranged to stay there for the night so that we'd be able to attend church with the Lockwoods in the morning. Since we were already in town (about 30 minutes from our home here by the school,)  and we were planning to go to church in the same area the next day, we thought it'd be wiser to stay over night close by. The cottage was small and cozy, and perfect for a night's stay. We loaded our groceries into the cottage and settled down for a much-anticipated movie night. Popcorn, a movie--what more could we want? Needless to say, there is no TV here at the house--a fact that doesn't bother ME one bit, though I daresay I am in the minority on that one!

The following morning we joined the Lockwoods for Sunday service at their church, a small, friendly Baptist church that welcomed us with open arms and warm hearts. We really enjoyed the service.

 

Following church, we all went back to the Lockwood's for a  brunch, Southern-style, served up by Courtney, who is a 22-year-old woman here on a one-year internship at Aurora as the Grade 1 teacher. She's from the South, so she made us biscuits and gravy with bacon (my kids said it was the best bacon they'd ever tasted.) We had a totally relaxing afternoon, and the kids all had a blast playing soccer and wrestling on the trampoline.