South Africa -- Day 8

Today, we were up early to catch our flight back to Joburg. We had a nice breakfast, though I was a little too congested and coughy to enjoy it. Instead, I swilled down chamomile tea. Our “taxi” came to pick us up… but it was a Mercedes. Now, I know I’ve seen regular taxis in this town, they cannot make me believe this was a “taxi.” Especially when it cost 300 rand (about $45) for a 10 minute ride to the airport. Whatever. The concierge claims that was the taxi and the right price. I am sure they had us pegged! Anyway, we got to the airport and checked in in plenty of time. We had enough time for a short nap before boarding. OK, I took a nap, cuz I still felt pretty bad, and I was terrible company for Mom. Onto the plane, where I continued to sleep the entire way home. My brother picked us up at the airport and we stopped by his place for a quick clothing change before heading back out to the Apartheid Museum.

Boy, was that a neat place. When you go to enter, you are issued tickets that label you as either Blankes or Nie-Blankes: White or Non-White. They issue them randomly, so we ended up with two Blankes and one Nie-Blankes. When you get to the entrance, there are two entrances and you must enter the right one based on your ticketed “race.” As you go inside, it walks you through the beginning of the history of apartheid and how races were determined and divided. How their version of census takers could completely destroy someone’s life merely by changing their race on their official paperwork from Coloured to Black or some such thing. The rest of the museum was fascinating, showing a good history of Apartheid from its origins. I am really glad we got to see this.

Tonight for dinner, my brother took us to this amazing burger and wings place. The burgers tasted like they had just come off the grill at home (well, almost as good as at home, but nothing beats Cyn’s burgers!). The wings were awesome, too. We went back home and had a leisurely night of watching television and chatting. A very low-key evening, and resting up for our big Saturday out tomorrow in Soweto.