south africa: pretoria
lebo had arranged for us to stay with her friends - a lovely couple called babalwa and sonwabile. we practised their names until it was clear that we were never going to be able to pronounce their names correctly, and settled on babs and soso. south africans have the coolest, most african sounding names ever. they have clicks and grunts and tongue-sucking. i want a south african name.
babs works in pretoria (university lecturer by day, regular pioneer by later on that same day!), so we decided to go with her one day and spend the day wandering around in pretoria.
so we started off with the national art museum. sadly we were not allowed to take pictures, but they have a small but excellent and eclectic collection that quite accurately portrays a slice of the history of south africa. some of it was pretty dark, although that too accurately reflects the country's past. towards the end, the artwork noticeably lifts and becomes happier, and this too reflects a lift in the general mood of most of the south africans we met.
the only picture we were allowed to take in the museum was this bullet hole....apparently someone stole a car and there was a shootout between them and the police, and this bullet hit the museum. i have to say in general we felt very safe....although i did feel a bit uncomfortable when we walked into a concert whose audience was entirely made up of white guys with mohawks, tattoos and leather jackets.
babs works in pretoria (university lecturer by day, regular pioneer by later on that same day!), so we decided to go with her one day and spend the day wandering around in pretoria.
so we started off with the national art museum. sadly we were not allowed to take pictures, but they have a small but excellent and eclectic collection that quite accurately portrays a slice of the history of south africa. some of it was pretty dark, although that too accurately reflects the country's past. towards the end, the artwork noticeably lifts and becomes happier, and this too reflects a lift in the general mood of most of the south africans we met.
the only picture we were allowed to take in the museum was this bullet hole....apparently someone stole a car and there was a shootout between them and the police, and this bullet hit the museum. i have to say in general we felt very safe....although i did feel a bit uncomfortable when we walked into a concert whose audience was entirely made up of white guys with mohawks, tattoos and leather jackets.
south africa, for some reason, has 3 capitals, one for each branch of government. so pretoria is the capital of the president and administration and as such they have the magnificient union buildings. these were designed by our old prolific friend herbert baker...whom you may remember from mozambique and also kenya's own parliament buildings (and new delhi. yes, the city). talk about over-achieving.
sadly the public are not allowed into the buildings, but we had the run of the gardens. these magnificent buildings were built on the site of a disused quarry. there is a lesson in that, i am sure!
when i looked at my pics later on, this guy was in almost every single one of them. dont know how i didnt notice him, except for this one where it was deliberate.
heres a view out over pretoria.
we liked the gardens of the union buildings so much, with their commanding view of pretoria, that we came back for lunch with babs.
and we finally ended the day on a spiritual note, by going to the meeting. in zulu. we understood absolutely nothing. except that when it was time to sing, we were in awe. babs and soso sing like pavarotti and (...um...pick any absolutely spellbinding songstress you can think of and insert name here). and the rest of the congregation were just as good. we were too ashamed to sing above a whisper, because quite frankly our singing is rubbish in comparison.
next stop: sandton. but thats a story for another post.
