Quick glimpses
Scenes from Johannesburg and Soweto. (This page duplicates my Facebook posts; it may not display correctly on phones or tablets.)
June 2, 2018. Applegate Valley "Smoky Blackberry Jam" made it all the way to Kgomotso's mother in Soweto this afternoon! I was very happy to see Kgotso again. Sipho (at the door of the family house in photo below) was a huge help finding Kgomotso after ten years. Sipho's daughter and Kgotso's daughter quickly became friends while we started to get caught up inside the house.
June 1, 2018. Goats in the streets of Soweto.
May 31, 2018. Some South African contrasts: Nonhlanhla in front of the gate to her house in Soweto, the gate to my cottage in Melville Johannesburg, Nonhlanhla on her way to work at the nursery school, a street in a northern suburb of Johannesburg (fall leaves)...
May 27, 2018. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki was a featured speaker at the close of the May African Studies / Anthropology conference this weekend. Mbeki talked in fairly general terms about the need for more funding for higher education. (The guy in the cool t-shirt was running the video.)
May 26, 2017. Yesterday was Africa Day, so I went to the Liberation Project Concert, an interesting band made up of South African, Cuban, and Italian musicians performing mostly songs from the SA resistance era. They're soon releasing an album called "Songs that made us free." Perhaps my all-time favorite musician Vusi Mahlasela played a couple of songs, and closed out the show with his trademark "Thank you very please!" You can check out Vusi in this lovely 2011 performance of "Say Africa" in Oregon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=extAAlvsjYM
May 24. 2018. Lovely to see Jabu and her family this afternoon. I stopped at a primary school for directions--GPS doesn't know street names in this part of Soweto, and there are no names on the actual streets, so I was completely lost. An office worker at the school turned out to be Jabu's neighbor, so I gave her a lift home and found Jabu! Amazing good luck.
May 23, 2018. Visited Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in downtown Johannesburg — very impressive! Then I visited Christopher in his Soweto print shop, where he carries on his grandfather's business despite enormous challenges. Equally impressive!
Christopher and I both have memories of setting letterpress type by hand in the 1098s. But for me it was artistic privilege, while for him and his grandfather it was a matter of survival.
May 20, 2018. An afternoon with Sipho and his sons. Bongani (15), in black shirt, hopes to come to study in the US some day.
Flames erupted from the field at the bottom of their street, as we left their house. Nobody seemed alarmed except me, conditioned as an Oregonian to worry about wildfires. "Don't worry about it, Margaret, it's fine." Sipho reassured me. "It will go away." And sure enough, it did. Random fires are part of life in Soweto: sometimes they're fires to keep people warm, but more often garbage catches fire, smolders, and burns out with nobody batting an eye.
Speaking of garbage and fire, the last photo is a field in Dube, Soweto that has been cleaned up nicely since the last time I was here (2009). It used to be a huge garbage heap that kids played in, smoldering all the time. Nice change!
May 17, 2018. Spent an afternoon with Mashiko and family, at her house in Soweto. I like this old photo of her -- I took a picture of the picture on her mobile phone.
May 19, 2018. At a 98th birthday party for Nthabiseng's granny, we watched the royal wedding on TV, but the real royalty is this amazing matriarch who has produced such a wonderful, welcoming family. (Last video here is an inspiring "happy birthday" song.)
Granny received about 98 years worth of pajamas, robes, slippers, and blankets as gifts!
May 15, 2018. Two things that made me smile in my neighborhood today: A serendipitous sidewalk and a serendipitous stop sign, both kind of saying the same thing to different audiences.
Just a sign on a suburban street. Anybody know what "Oregon repairs" are? Are we known for being good at repairing flooring in Oregon?
May 14, 2018. I'm starting to feel re-acclimated. Spent yesterday at the Mother's Day concert at the Johannesburg Zoo with my friend Adelaide, her daughter Lwazi, and a couple of cousins. Beautiful autumn weather, and some good music. I snuck into a photo with musician Sipho "Hotsticks" Mabuse... I've been driving back and forth between Melville and Soweto, visiting people I first met in 1998 and finding out how their lives have changed since then. (By now I'm much less likely to switch on the wipers rather than the turn signal.)
