a really busy weekend

saturday:

we all went to the apartheid museum, which was EXCELLENT. i must go back to digest everything more slowly. definitely not a day to forget the camera on, but it happened anyhow.
and then for class/for paper writing we took a look at the steve biko traveling exhibit, which was pretty unimpressive on the whole, but it was a small traveling thing, to be fair.

then a quick sandwich at the museum cafe, then 2 taxis (mini buses, not radio taxis) to maponya mall, where we bought some food for a braai we had been invited to through a friend at wits / looked on as people ate from the various maponya fast food places. the pick n pay in maponya, in fact all of maponya, is glorious. not only is there a pick n pay hyper with massive produce displays, there is also a liquor store on the side, from which we bought a case of heineken and started the walk into residential soweto to the braai.

the streets are kind of arbitrarily branched, and there aren't really names or numbers, so you go by landmarks, as our host told us, which is how she got lost going to this place once before. people cruised by and said hello to us in languages we don't know, and yelled welcome to soweto!, because no matter where you go in the world, i think, lower income communities are places where you will find hospitality. nobody yelling welcome to sandton! or welcome to houghton! or welcome to befordview!

some residents probably build their own houses and fences. i saw a bunch in varying stages of completion. i respect this, especially because i would have no idea where to begin with it. my maternal family built a house cement block by cement block while renting a place next door. i suppose when it was done they just picked a house number and tacked it up and there you go, 16 na komardi exists, time to move all of twenty feet down the road. that has to be a good feeling, to live in a place you built with your own hands. it must be just as good to give your kids a house you built yourself.

women don't really drink beer here, we were reminded when the braai chef of the night started joking with us when he saw us crackin em open. the food was good -- boerewors and rolls, chicken, beer, peanuts, roasted marshmallows. i can't remember the last time i had something from a backyard grill, so that was pretty nice.

later we walked out to get another taxi back to wits, and people were still out after dark, saying hello, washing cars and drinking and dancing and kids in the street playing. this was more normal than ghost town braamfontein. and more likeable. i was thinking about a friend at home who got busted & fined by the nypd for drinking a beer on his own stoop, while watching everyone out having a good time. somehow i think the open container ordinance is the last thing the nypd should be worried about when there was a grow house in our building last year, but, you know, maybe they keep the fine...?

after i got back to wits, i left half an hour later to see a band called the indian ocean for free at the blues room in sandton. sandton and soweto in one day...i prefer the latter. the band was good, though, good enough that i bought one of their cds. we went to melville to get pizza real late and they forgot/didn't hear our order, so that took a little while. it was decent...easy to find peppadew peppers and feta here, which makes pizza good even if there's rib meat involved (hmm). now if only this country could figure out proper crust and stop putting so much sugar in their tomato sauce!

more on the steve biko thing, and how that is playing out in class, another time. i've got some work to do, for once.