Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Today I did a bit of tourist stuff with Thapelo, Porsche, and Tsebo. They showed me around town a bit, we went through the Apartheid Museum, saw the jail that used to hold political prisoners (now an art museum), went to Nelson Mandela square, saw one of Jo'burg's main libraries, and walked around downtown a bit. I took some pictures of the view overlooking the city from a rooftop, and some things around town, but since cameras weren't allowed in the museum, most of what I did today was unphotographable.

There's a lot to absorb in the Apartheid museum. Like any museum, you could spend days there and still not take everything in. I knew about Apartheid before, because I'm not completely devoid of historical knowledge, but at the museum they go into such detail about how it got to be that way, who fought against it, how it managed to change, and what happened to people because of it. It's really almost overwhelming.

In the evening Porsche cooked for us again, this time chili over pasta, and again it was delicious. We spent pretty much the rest of the night chatting on the couch, watching TV (I learned about Kwaito music and how it is like a youth movement, as well as the big problems that people face because of theft of electricity and copper), and being amused by Tsebo's antics. He warmed up to me by the end of the day, and he was really quite funny. It made me kind of sad to leave just as the baby was getting comfortable with me and I was getting to know the family. They did say I could stay the rest of the week if I wanted (after originally saying they'd only be able to host me for a day or two), but I'd made other plans and already had another host expecting me for the remainder of the week. It's good to know that next time I visit South Africa, I've got a number of friends I can stay with for more than a night. Even though I didn't get to do a heck of a lot of touring of the city, I got to know the people I've been staying with pretty well in a really short amount of time, and I think if you're going to experience another country, getting to know the people who live there is just as important, perhaps moreso, than doing all the things that everybody else does when they come to visit a place.

I know this makes me sound like a spoiled American brat (and I'll admit that I am), but I'm so used to high-speed WiFi. I've been borrowing Thapelo's laptop to check my email and make sure I've still got my other hosts lined up, but I haven't felt comfortable imposing and just sitting on it for hours blogging and facebooking and emailing and such (even though he said it was perfectly fine to do so). Tomorrow I'll probably be on my own in the city for a bit, and I think I might find an internet café somewhere to upload the blog posts I've been writing in NeoOffice and maybe some pictures. I called Dad when I couldn't sleep again tonight (still jet-lagged) just so that he knows I'm not dead. I kind of figured he'd be worried with two full days of no blog posts or other internet communication. That's kind of half the reason I got a cell phone down here in the first place.

Anyway, I should try to sleep, because tomorrow I'm sure will be busy, and I do have to get up early. Ciao ciao.