So on Saturday (Oct. 22) we took a flight to Joberg! In Joberg we stayed in Sandton at the Westford Suites. When we got there they had pizza for us and Natalie, Sarah and I went outside by the pool and read our books! After a little while we went to Nelson Mandela Square where we had dinner, fresh sole and grilled calamari with veggies and a brownie sundae!
On Sunday we went to Soweto, the largest township in South Africa. There we took a tour of the Hector Pietersen Museum. The police shot and killed Hector Pietersen on June 16, 1976 at the age of thirteen. On June 16, 1976 school children in South Africa protested the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in secondary schools. More than 500 people died in the uprising and June 16 is a symbol of how brutal the apartheid government was to non-whites. During the tour of the museum I was most touched by the picture (posted on this blog) of Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo after he was shot and his sister crying as she ran beside them. After security services discovered it was Makhubo who carried Pietersen away they harassed him and forced him to flee South Africa. Between the devastating picture and the story of how Makhubo was forced to flee South Africa I then realized how bad apartheid really was in South Africa. After the museum we went to Nelson Mandela’s Family Home on Valakazi Street. Valakazi Street is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having two Noble Peace Prize winners live on the same street (Mandela and Desmond Tutu). It was great to be able to see Mandela’s home and there was many pictures and interesting stories told in the house. For lunch we went to Wandi’s. Wandi’s had a buffet full of traditional foods from Joberg and it is a fun little place as they allow you to write and place things on the wall saying where you are from. We saw last years nursing study abroad groups writing and a school of nursing professor’s business card! Of course we all made our mark too! After lunch we went to the Rosebank Flea Market and had soooo much fun bartering with the men and women who were trying to sell us things. I bought wayyy to many souvenirs but it was so much fun. I was exhausted by the end of the day from trying to lower the price of EVERYTHING and telling people no to things I really didn’t want. They would try and try to get me to buy things I didn’t want and follow me around the market asking.
On Monday we took a tour of the Apartheid Museum and that museum had so many things to look at it was a little overwhelming. It was huge but our tour guide taught us the gist of everything that was in the museum. For lunch we went to the Gold Reef City Casino and after we went to Constitution Hill. At Constitution Hill we took a tour of the Johannesburg Prison. It was incredible how black and white prisoners during apartheid were treated so differently. Black prisoners were given less food and had about 60 prisoners packed into a cell that was supposed to have about 25. Even the black wardens were treated differently. They were forced to stand throughout their whole shift while white wardens were able to sit and ordered the black wardens around. We also toured the black male prison where there was a lot of gang activity and our tour guide was great at explaining how the gangs operated in the prison. We really were able to learn so much from going on the tour. Going through the prisons really caused me to feel so many emotions and made me realize even more how lucky I am that I have never had to deal with the events that South Africans had to deal with less than twenty years ago. After the tour of the prison we went to the Constitutional Court. This court solely tends to human rights cases. There are 11 different judges, two of them are women and one is blind. It was beautiful inside of the court and it is great that South Africa has a court that just hears to human rights cases in an attempt to never experience another issue like apartheid again. For dinner we went to the Monti Casino and it was really a casino for a princess. It was beautiful inside and seemed like a fairytale! Dinner was beyond fabulous!
Tuesday was supposed to be a day full of going to the largest hospital in the southern hemisphere and going to the peri-natal HIV research unit. We were all so excited but we couldn’t go because the person who does the tours was on holiday. So instead we went to African Romance. At African Romance we learned all about diamonds! At African Romance all of the diamonds are from South Africa and all of the employees are South African skilled workers. The tour guide started out by telling us all about the four very important c’s of a diamond- cut, clarity, carat, and color. We then took a tour of the facility where we learned the process of how the diamond goes from basically looking like a stone to a beautiful diamond that we are all used to seeing. When the diamond comes into the facility the employees begin by boiling them in hydrochloric acid for forty eights hours. Then every diamond gets a barcode that basically shows the whole history of the diamond and travels with the diamond for life. In order for the diamond to be cut it has to be painted black and put into a little pot. It needs to be painted black because the machine that cuts the diamond has a laser that slices the diamond at 1500 degrees Celsius The laser would reflect and crack the stone if it wasn't painted black. The machine takes about three minutes to cut a 3-7 carat diamond and the operator at African Romance is the first black woman to ever operate a laser-cutting machine. The diamond then goes for polishing and “brillianteering,” in my opinion this process is an art! Every diamond then gets a certificate that travels with that diamond (with the barcode) forever. After we went through the diamond process we went downstairs to the gallery and all of the diamonds were beautiful! There was jewelry of all kinds along with diamonds that were not set as well. The employees taught us how to look at a diamond and what to look for in terms of quality. We were all very lucky to have that experience, as in my opinion it is very important for our possibly near future with diamonds!!! After African Romance we went to the amazingly beautiful World Cup Finals soccer stadium. The stadium is shaped like an African pot and one cant tell that so much work went into designing and building the stadium. 
Wednesday we went to Pretoria (one of the capitals of South Africa), which is also known as Jacaranda City. The Jacaranda trees are so beautiful and make the whole city look purple when one looks down upon the city. There we went to the Union Buildings, which are beautiful, where we took many pictures outside by the gardens. At the Union Building there was a group of Chinese tourists who were acting like paparazzi. It was really a sight to see as they were flashing cameras in our face and took pictures of everything we did! We all couldn’t believe it. For dinner we went out to dinner all together and then a few of us went back to Nelson Mandela square for desert in our last night in Johannesburg! 