Jo'Burg!

This weekend, we went on our Bing trip to Johannesburg, which was awesome. Cape Town is really just a big beach town, pretty slow and spread out, but Johannesburg is a CITY. We stayed in Melville, the "trendy" area, which I loved because it had a vintage shop, several used book stores, and a cupcake place. I could stay in Melville forever.
We're all required to take a class about the way that memories are preserved in monuments, museums, etc in South Africa and our trip focused on cramming as many "sites of memory" in as possible:The Constitutional Court is built from the bricks of the prison that used to stand there and says "Constitutional Court" on the front in all 11 official languages.

A property outside of JoBurg called "Lilliesleaf" where Nelson Mandela (and other freedom fighters) stayed while underground and the former headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe(MK), the ANC's paramilitary wing. In 1963 a police raid found all of their documents, captured 19 ANC and MK leaders and used the evidence to convict them, including Mandela, to life in prison for sabotage.

This monstrosity is the Voortrekker Monument, built by the apartheid government to honor the Voortrekkers, Afrikaners who left the Cape Colony in the 1830s to settle (read: take the land of people who were already living there, and kill them if necessary) the interior.

The monument is ripe with distrubing images of savage Zulu warriors attacking the innocent Afrikaners, but the most disturbing part for me was the resemblance to the stories of the pioneers in America, wagon trains and all.

Isivivane at Freedom Park. It's supposed to be a "resting place for the spirits of those who have died in the struggles for humanity and freedom." The boulders come from each of the regions of South Africa and are reminiscent of the heaps of stones that used to bring fortune to long-distant travelers.

"World on its Hind Legs" outside of the exit of the Apartheid Museum.

Lots of learning.