One of Three Capitals in South Africa - Pretoria - Monday, July 5th through Thursday, July 8th

Hello to everyone again,

Quickly, let me explain my master plan to you all.  I had been working on doing a blog post every night here in Peru, but the time zone change (7 hours) got to me a little bit the first few nights.  Anyway, I am now adjusted, and the plan will proceed, so here we go.  We'll start where I left off, leaving Johannesburg for Pretoria, then coming in the next few days will be posts about my time in Cape Town, London, Paris, Geneva, and Madrid.  I will be writing my posts about Peru during my lengthy layover in the Lima airport waiting to fly home.  And after that, a conclusion blog entry and we will be done for the time being.  So, now, on with the show.

I woke up on Monday morning pretty early, had some breakfast, showered, and got all packed up for my trip over to the nation's executive capital, Pretoria.  When South Africa had become an independent country, the three main states within it (those being the Cape, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal) each argued for some form of control in the government.  The interesting, if somewhat inefficient, solution was to place the three branches of the government in their own capitals.  Thus, the executive branch is centered in Pretoria (Transvaal), the judicial branch in Bloemfontein (Orange Free State), and the legislative branch is in Cape Town (Cape States).  I find it particularly interesting that this had lasted not only through the Apartheid governments, but also through the transition to democracy.

To get to Pretoria I would be going by car with a very friendly Afrikaner whose name I never did learn.  We drove in his truck along the highway from the hostel into the Pretoria suburb of Hatfield.  The drive took about 50 minutes, as Johannesburg and Pretoria are no more than 45 kilometers apart.  They are so close, in fact, that their urban expansion and sprawl is touching one another at this point, and they believe that within 25 years the two will be joined into one large megacity.  Once in Hatfield, which, by the way, is much closer to Pretoria than Randburg is to Johannesburg, we drove around for about 15 minutes before having to admit defeat and ask for directions.  A nice policewoman told us to take a left at the robot (traffic light here in southern Africa), and we did.  We then quickly found my place, a 1322 Backpackers Lodge.  It was a nice place, run by a young couple, Monique and Tim, who were very friendly and accommodating.  After checking in, and spending a little time playing with the family dog, Sherlock, I decided to go for a little walk around, to see the neighborhood.

There wasn't a whole lot to report about.  I am still out in the suburbs, and the streets immediately surrounding the hostel are very residential.  They could be any neighborhood street in the US if it weren't for all the barbed wire and electric fences.  There are two small malls nearby, which is nice, and I picked up some dinner supplies while I was out.  I also bought a converter, because South Africa used an electrical socket which is like nothing else I have ever seen.  Needless to say, my universal adapter was useless, and so reinforcements were necessary.  Once I was back at the hostel I spent my time making appointments with my contacts here in Pretoria, which went well.  I didn't quite reach everyone this afternoon, so some work will be needed tomorrow as well, but all is well.  I spent the rest of the day hanging around the hostel, had some microwave dinner, and then read a little and went to bed.

I started out Tuesday morning with some calls to contacts, which took about an hour and a half to get everything sorted out.  Unfortunately, one of my contacts had an unexpected event come up, so he will be out of the office while I am in Pretoria.  No matter, I will simply give him a call from Cape Town.  I then took a cab over to the Voortrekker Monument.  Built in colossal Art Deco style, it is on a hill outside the city, with a great view of all of Pretoria.  The monument commemorates the original Afrikaner pilgrims who crossed the terrain of South Africa to settle on the highveld.  Of course, to do this, they had to slaughter the original inhabitants, the Zulus, at the Battle of Blood River, but after that they had their own little Afrikaner city, which would grow to be the center of South African Afrikaner politics in the decades to come.  As such, the Voortrekker monument is a sort of pilgrimage site for present day Afrikaners.  It is a very large monument, with a tomb inside, engraved on which is the statement, "Ons vir jou, Zuid Afrika" which translates as We for Thee, South Africa.  There is also a small museum detailing the lives of the pilgrims.  It was a moving monument, despite what the descendants of these settlers would do to the country.

After the Voortrekker, I went to the center of historic Pretoria, Church Square, where I absorbed the scenery.  The square is fronted by several very beautiful Afrikaner style buildings that have stood almost as long as Pretoria.  The most important of them is the old Palace of Justice, from which Nelson Mandela was sentenced to prison on a number of occasions.  I had lunch at Cafe Riche, overlooking the square, which was by this point in the day (noonish) bustling with activity.  With the lifting of Apartheid, Pretoria finally let loose and its majority African population began to have an influence on the city.  It is now a multicultural and very fun city, if not as cosmopolitan as its larger sisters, Johannesburg and Cape Town.  For dessert I had the Afrikaner version of koeksisters, which is where the food originated (as evidence by the name).  They are a far sight denser and much more lemon flavored than the ones I had in Soweto, but still very tasty.

From Church Square I walked down one of the main roads of the city toward the former house of Afrikaner legend/former President of the Transvaal Republic Paul Kruger.  Along the way I had some delicious street food.  It was chicken gizzards cooked on an open grill and covered in a spicy sauce.  This is not actually as strange a food as some of you may now be thinking, as I have seen it on the menu at Lee's Chicken, an American fast food chain.  Either way, it was very good, and it provided a little kick of spice that got my fully awake and out of that annoying sleepiness that comes with midday lunch.  After that was taken care of I made my way to Mr. Kruger's house.  It was a modest affair by today's standards, but back at the end of the nineteenth century I'm sure it would have turned heads.  Inside it was decorated with same sort of flair and extravagance as the Biltmore Estate, although admittedly not with the same level of exuberance.  To finish off my day of exploration I went to the Union Buildings, the home of the executive branch.  They are a strikingly designed building and I was quite disappointed when I was told that the public are not allowed to visit.  Once I left there I went back to the hostel for the night, watched some World Cup action, and went to bed.

The next day was also free for me, since it had been the day I was planning to meet my contact who was now out of town.  I decided to make the most of it, though, and set out on another day of exploration.  I started my day out with a drive over to the Pretoria Central Prison.  I had hopes of visiting the prison museum, but the guards were confused that I was not there to visit someone, and it took a little while to finally be allowed entry.  The museum sits within the gates of the prison, across a parking lot.  As I was walking over to it, the claxons began to sound, as they do for an escaped prisoner.  I scurried inside the museum, and spent several tense minutes thinking about how I would react if said prisoner were to show up here at the museum.. Fortunately, he did not, the claxons became silent once more, and I was free to explore the museum.  The place was pretty small, but given the importance of prisons and prisoners in the recent history of South Africa, there was a lot of information to get through.  There was even a scale representation of the cells on Robben Island, where Mandela spent most of his time in prison.  It was a very thought provoking museum, and on leaving, visitors were left with a quote by Winston Churchill that you should only, "judge a civilization by how it treats its prisoner."

From the Prison Museum I went to the Melrose House, which was another extravagant house of the Boer upper class.  It was noteworthy for its mixture of Victorian and Dutch Colonial styles, and as the site where the treaty ending the Anglo-Boer War was signed.  From there I had a cheap street lunch of beef and paap in the park nearby, where I sat in the sun, had my delicious and cheap lunch, and watched all the kids playing soccer nearby.  It was a very relaxing spot.  Next I reunited with my taxi driver and went to the National Zoo, because I have an interest in animals and I thought that, like Taronga Zoo in Sydney, there might be unique or unusual animals here that were extraordinary and not common in American zoos.  I was not to be disappointed.  I spent about 3 hours at the zoo, and there were more animals there than I can recount, and it seemed like all of them were active and roaming around their enclosures, which were not too badly kept at all.  After the zoo I spent a small amount of time at an African crafts market nearby, and then retreated back to my hostel for the night.

Today, Thursday, was a day of work for me.  I woke up early in order to get dressed and ready for the day, and then got a cab over to UNISA, or the University of South Africa, where I would be meeting with two of my contacts, Drs. Human and Bezuidenhout.  Dr. Human was the director of graduate studies for the Department of Health Studies, while Dr. Bezuidenhout was the head of the entire department. Both were very welcoming and helpful ladies who did everything in their power to assist me and answer my questions.  We spent a while together, before I had to excuse the two of them for other university commitments.  In that time, however, I learned a great deal about the health situation in South Africa, and how it has changed and become much more unified since the fall of Apartheid.

Now, a bit about UNISA.  It is the largest university in southern Africa, with an enrollment over 100,000.  This is due to its acceptance of long distance learners as well as on campus students.  This proved to be a boon to the political prisoners of the Apartheid regime, as they were allowed at times to study.  Many would leave Robben Island with advanced degrees, earned in most cases from UNISA.  I was very happy to have such a productive meeting with members of the staff at such a meaningful university in South Africa.

After my meeting I spent the rest of the day doing research on the internet and generally working back at the hostel.  I hung out with some kiwis I had met the night before, had some terrible Lebanese food for lunch, and read scholarly articles on South African healthcare.  That night I packed up for my flight the next day to Cape Town, had some dinner, and made an early night of it.