Two School Visits and the Apartheid Museum

Today was a very full day, but first a quick note about last night's dinner:
We went to Moyo Restaurant, which serves traditional African food.  The decor was beautiful, and we enjoyed a drumming performance.  I was an adventurous eater and tried crocodile pie and ostrich steak.  Both were quite yummy!

This morning, we met in the lobby at 8 am for the drive to the massive Tembisa township, population 500,000.  The township has significant socioeconomic diversity with some families living in structures that look like corragated metal sheds, and others in brick homes with tile roofs. We visited two schools.  The first, Phomolong Secondary School, is a modern school serving more than 1,500 students grades 9-12.  The school provides tablets for the students, and many of the rooms have Smartboards.  We toured the campus and enjoyed tea and biscuits.  

This lady sells snacks to the students. I tried to balance the box on my head, too!

These fried dough balls are amazing!

Posing with a group of girls

Eye exam for a student

Tembisa township, right outside the school.

The second visit was to my partner school, Ponelopele Oracle Secondary School.  This million-dollar school was built by the Oracle foundation and there are computers, wifi, and tablets. The school is two stories tall and has about 1,200 students. The principal had already told the students about my arrival and read my biography at the all-school assembly, so they were prepared to meet "Miss Sara" from Washington, DC.  We had a brief tour, but I will return on Thursday and Friday to work in the classroom with the students.

Ponelopele School!  This is my partner school. 

The township surrounding the school

Posing with the principal, and my partner teacher, Shomane.

Lots of computers

After a quick lunch at our hotel, we were off again to visit the Apartheid Museum on the outskirts of Johannesburg.  This massive museum tells the story South Africa, from the 1870s through the 1990s. The museum reminded me of the Holocaust Museum in DC or the Tuol Sleng Musuem of Genocide in Cambodia and was just as jarring and emotional. Early European economic interests in South Africa were sparked by the discovery of gold. At first, a diverse society coexisted to some extent, comprised of Europeans, Indians, Chinese, and Native Africans.  Africans were exploited from the start, forced to work in the mines under brutal conditions. Apartheid as a system developed in the 1940s, as a way to unite Europeans of various ethnicities and classes against a majority black population.  It was fascinating to consider the parallels to Jim Crow America and Nazi Germany.  The museum detailed the rise of the ANC, various protests and uprisings, violent crackdowns such as the Sharpeville Massacre, and Mandela's lengthy stint in prison.  The exhibit ended with the negotiations for a new post-Apartheid South Africa, engineered by DeKlerk, Mandela, and many others.  Clearly, I am simplifying the story, but I did purchase a museum book at the shop so that I can read and reflect over time.