A series of small circular indentations cut a strange route right through the main living area floor, and my first thought is, they shouldn’t be there, why would anyone put something there? I quickly learned that sometimes it’s the marker of things no longer there that are actually the most important to remember, and sadly, for the worst of reasons.
Those holes, which at first glance look like the remnants of some bizarre DIY project, are all that’s left of an indoor wall built by a terrified mother to protect her young family from attack in their own home.
I’m standing in Nelson Mandela’s house in the Soweto neighbourhood of Johannesburg, where the wall erected by his then-wife was to shield their family from gunfire in the night as he served his sentence at Robben Island.
We continue the tour, our guide pointing out Nelson’s favourite chair, and his many accolades, the photos of him with noted figures, including with his fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutu.
Another wall is lined with family portraits; here, his children are now grown and smiling, but he was to outlive four of them, and I can’t stop thinking about lost time and those holes in the floor.
No, they shouldn’t be there.
They shouldn’t have had to be there.
I’m vexed by the mere sight of them, and can’t conceive what it must have been like to be on the other side of that wall; sadly, far too many do.
The wall makes for an easy metaphor for Apartheid, the legalised policy of racial segregation introduced from 1948 that saw black South African’s stripped of their voting rights, and forced into townships.
The brutality of life under the regime is on show in all its cruelty at the Apartheid Museum just outside Soweto.
Here, visitors are greeted with separate entry doorways and signage on race classification.
They read about the prohibition of mixed-race marriages from 1949, the first of 148 laws enacted, of the land grabs where half a million people were removed from their homes, and the land sold to white farmers.
One of the worst atrocities saw 69 people killed and hundreds wounded when police opened fire on a peaceful protest in 1960.
There are stories of political prisoners ‘jumping’ to their deaths while in jail and others ‘falling’ out of windows.
As at Mandela’s House, it’s impossible to visit the Apartheid Museum and not experience a visceral reaction-this is a place which by its existence makes you uncomfortable, but it’s important, perhaps more than ever, to visit and feel that discomfort.
Mandela was released in 1990, and the following year, certain laws were repealed that put the nail in the coffin of Apartheid; the struggle was aided along the way by a little Irish influence.
In 1984, 21-year-old Dublin shop worker Mary Manning refused, under the direction of her union, to handle grapefruit from South Africa in protest of Apartheid.
As they held firm in their stance, she and another co-worker, Karen Gearon, were ultimately suspended, whereupon they joined with other union members to launch a strike that would last for three years.
During this time, the protesters received meagre strike pay of just £21 punt but still continued their march.
Having heard of their protest and while en route to collect his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Desmond Tutu met with the women and invited them to South Africa, where on arrival in 1985 they were denied entry.
The outcry that followed prompted a furious political debate that ultimately led to Ireland being the first Western country to ban the sale of fruit from South Africa, two years later.
Mandela later met with Mary and the other workers when he received the freedom of Dublin City, speaking of how ‘ordinary people far away from the crucible of apartheid cared for our freedom’ and that it encouraged him as he served his sentence.
When he passed away in 2013, some of the workers attended his funeral, this time, arriving in South Africa as honoured guests.
Soweto’s scars remain on show; that much was clearly visible on our township tour with Aahaah Tours, but the warmest of welcomes awaits when you scratch the surface.
Our driver Njabulo recommended skipping the standard hotel breakfast in favour of his local recommendation and come mid morning I was munching on the tastiest fish I’ve had anywhere, in a tiny eatery tucked away in a back street.
Wander a little further, and you may even find yourself in a Shebeen.
Both Njabulo and our guide Jazz grew up in Soweto, and their firsthand account of life here makes for a wholly immersive experience.
While poverty prevails in Soweto, the township is eyeing up a brighter future where the sky’s the limit, literally at the Orlando Power Station, where I found myself clinging to the top of an energy tower for dear life.
Once serving as the cooling towers for the station, both tours have now been reimagined by way of psychedelic street art as the Soweto Towers adventure centre.
Adrenaline junkies come from all over to bungee jump inside those even braver (I was not on either front) can test their nerves on the world’s highest SCAD free-fall experience, or try their hand at paintball or ziplining.
Having worked up an appetite and grateful to be back on solid ground, lunch at Chaf Pozi, which sits in the shadow of the towers, is a real treat.
The menu included mouthwatering Chakalaka, a vegetable bean relish that you’ll find everywhere here, sausage and Castle Lager stout, which almost gives Guinness a run for its money.
Apartheid might be over, but the contrast between Soweto and Johannesburg’s more affluent neighbourhoods could not be starker.
Away from the township are bustling boulevards with shops, galleries and a thriving....
