Cheers from Joburg!!

Well, I made it!!  A long, long journey to get here.  And, other than almost getting stuck in London due to weather and a fairly bumpy flight over much of Africa....it was uneventful.  A rather smooth 2-days of traveling. 

I arrived yesterday about 7am here.  Got to the hotel, checked in and took a little nap.  It was so nice to be back in a bed!! 

From there, a colleague and I had a 1/2 day tour planned.  I will write more tonight, but all is well here.  I'm very glad that our trip started in Johannesburg.  I think this is a much more realistic picture of Africa and probably a good part of S. Africa.  From what we've heard, Cape Town is very Mediterranean and much like a European town.  S. Africa is comprised of 45MM people and 80% are black.  I don't think Cape Town shares that ratio. 

Yesterday was a bit heart-wrenching.  To just get a glimpse of the apartheid and what happened to the people here is unbelievable.  And, to think that it ended in 1994 is something tough to get your arms around. 

Here's a glimpse at what we toured. 



And, Soweto - from Wikipedia:

As Soweto was counted as part of Johannesburg in South Africa's 2008 census, Soweto's population is 1,3 million [13] recent demographic statistics are not readily It has been estimated that 40% of Johannesburg's residents live in Soweto. However, the 2008 Census put its population at 1,3 million [14] (2010) or about one-third of the city's total population.

Soweto's population is predominantly black. All eleven of the country's official languages are spoken, and the main linguistic groups (in descending order of size) are Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Venda, and Tsonga.




More tonight!!