Joburg, South Africa

Jan 6


We are staying at a cute bed and breakfast just outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. The locals and people in Mauritius call Johannesburg by a nick name-Joberg. Nick and Emma say we should start a nick name at home-Rburg. Spalding has found a person who will drive us to different places. It is so nice to have a local person to show you the sights and tell you about the places. First we went to the Hector Peterson Memorial. He was not the first child to die in the riots that were happening in South Africa, but he was the first to be photographed so the world would know what was happening. Then we went to the Nelson Mandela house. Spalding was really excited to go there. He has always thought highly of Nelson Mandela. I learned a lot. After that, we went to the Apartheid museum. We learned about the apartheid system and how the people were put into various racial classifications. Spalding and our children would have been classified as colored. There are several variations of that, and sometimes families would end up with different classifications within "colored". Vanessa, our guide, told us that in her family, the three kids were each classified differently because of their skin tones. She was in high school when apartheid ended. We learned some more about Mandella and the riots, and the changes that have happened in South Africa. Our last stop was the Johannesburg temple. We enjoy seeing the LDS temples in the places that we visit. I don’t think that the kids really enjoyed all the museums and history, but we feel it is important for them to learn about history.

Jan 7

Today we went to the Lion park. The kids loved petting the lion cubs and feeding the giraffes. We went on a tour of the park, and one lion even jumped up on the truck we were in. We learned about different types of wildlife in Africa and saw various antelope, zebras, hyenas, cheetahs, many lions, and giraffes. We are preparing for our long plane ride home. We have to fly 15 hours to the US, then go through customs in New York before we get on the plane for Salt Lake. From there we will drive home. Not looking forward to the long plane ride, but looking forward to my home.