Soweto and Strawberry Daquiris
Hi y’all, I’m back with my second installment of a long list of South Africa blog posts! If you haven’t read the first installment, maybe do that before reading this one. It talks about my travel journey and how it took literally 100 billion years to get to Jo-Burg!
I woke up on our first real day in South Africa to the view of a foggy af Jo-Burg, but honestly, it was one of the most beautiful views I had ever seen. Johannesburg is unlike any city I’d ever been in because the landscape and nature is just so different, even for a city!
For our first day in South Africa, my class was going to be visiting one of the biggest and most iconic townships in all of South Africa, called Soweto. If you’ve read Trevor Noah’s book “Born a Crime,” you’ll know that this is where he actually grew up! And if you haven’t read the book, then go read it asap lol.
Townships in South Africa have always been something that has really intrigued me ever since I read his book because like Trevor Noah said, townships were designed by the South African government during apartheid to be bombed. Ever since I learned that, I was so interested to see what these townships looked like. Also, isn’t that just absolutely horrible? Imagine growing up and knowing that. Ugh. So messed up.
Our class got super lucky, and our first full day in South Africa just happened to fall on their National Election (which only happens every five years!), so I was more than hyped to get the day started! Kelly, our professor, had registered all of us kids as official election observers, and that’s what our plans for the day were going to be.
After a delicious continental breakfast buffet in our hotel, our whole class loaded into the huge shuttle bus and we were off to visit our first polling location in Soweto! Now if you don’t know anything about Soweto, it’s one of the fastest growing places to live in in South Africa. Our guide Sindy, who happened to be from Soweto, called it “the hood” but honestly it consists of all classes: lower, middle, and upper.
It was a good half hour drive to get to Soweto, and even though I was watching out the window the whole time, it seemed that the landscape just completely shifted in the blink of an eye.
The part of Soweto that we went to was filled with small houses, lots of young kids running and playing around, and curious adults looking at our bus as it drove through the streets. By the time we got to our first polling station, tons of people had been waving or saluting our bus.
Because the polling place in this specific Soweto location was too small for our big class, we went in to observe the voting in groups of three. My group was picked to go last, so to fill up the time we just waited in the grass and took in the scenery, the environment, and, best of all, the kids.
There were two kids that had been running with our bus as we rounded our last corner and continuously waved and waved and waved! They were literally so cute that my heart melted.
You could tell they were so curious about why we were there and wanted so badly to interact with us, but I think their shyness definitely took over. Instead, they hid behind tiny little poles or behind a car when they got embarrassed or too shy.
I made the most of our time waiting for our turn inside the polling station and took so many pictures of my classmates. Honestly, the lighting was not that good but shoutout to my new preset I made on Lightroom because it made everything look SO GOOD. Peep me on the Kelley abroad Instagram lol (@ksbstudyabroad).
Once it was finally our turn to go inside, I was more than excited. I’ve only been able to vote once in my life due to the fact that I only was eligible to vote in the midterm elections, so it was exciting to see these citizens come out and exercise their right to vote!
You could tell that these people were excited to vote because so many people were showing up in their regalia or as Americans would call it, political merch. I absolutely loved the atmosphere because just after knowing the history of South Africa, this huge step of allowing everyone of age to vote despite race is so important, and the people knew that too.
The polling station took place in what looked like a giant yurt, and everything was made up of cardboard boxes. Once you were done voting, one of the polling employees took a yellow mark to your finger. The whole process was super fascinating and honestly when else was I going to be able to witness a national election in another country? I was HERE for it.
Once we were finished observing at this polling station, we hopped on the bus and headed out of the town and back into Hyde Park, Johannesburg. In comparison to Soweto, Hyde Park has a clear higher income level and more diversity, and that’s where our hotel was located.
The polling station at Hyde Park took place in a high school and the line was SO LONG. The funny part was that different political parties had set up booths outside the polling station with last minute information about their desired candidate, something I don’t think we see here in the US.
We were able to watch some people vote at Hyde Park, and after that it was time to go back to the hotel. I had genuinely forgotten how tired traveling can make you feel, so I was ready to get going.
Since it was our first real day in Jo-Burg, my professor decided that a group dinner would be the perfect way to end it. We headed to a place called The Foundry and ate an amazing three course dinner.
Oh, also did I mention I’m legal in South Africa? I drank a very, very delicious strawberry daiquiri and honestly it was a great way to close out the day.
We got back to our hotel, hung out as a class (and played mafia bc why not), and I closed out the night feeling super exhausted but super happy. Watching South Africa exercise their right to vote was one of the best things to see, and I’m more than thankful that my professor had set up something like that for us to witness.
That’s basically a wrap on day two of Johannesburg, South Africa. I’ll talk to you all soon!
All the Best, Sabrina
P.S. I'm posting this blog post after coming home from SA so I already have my travel video up! Watch it here, y'all. It's my new favorite.