Our Release Date Announced and National Freedom Day



The Johannesburg skyline at sunset - one of the sights we will miss as we return home in July

We now know when we will be returning home, as we have spoken with our successors, Steve and Julie Broadbent from Ogden, and we have determined they will arrive on the 20th of July and we will return home two days later, on the 22nd of July. That means we will be home in Utah for Pioneer Day, the 24th of July, in less than 90 days. We simply cannot believe how fast time has flown and that it was 15 months ago that we started our mission. We are going to miss so much about Africa, but we are excited at the thought of being home with our children and grandchildren.


In the meat locker at one of our favorite Johannesburg restaurants, The
Local Grill, with our friend from Cape Town, Kari Kruger. At the Local
Grill you select cuts of beef that are either grain fed (more tender) or free
range (more tasty) steaks that are all aged either wet or dry on the bone.

Today, 27 April, is a South African national holiday, Freedom Day, commemorating the first post-apartheid elections held on this day in 1994, the first election when all South Africans could vote. In a country that is 80% black, the majority black population was denied the vote until that day, when Nelson Mandela was elected President and the African National Congress came into power, and they have been in power ever since. We chose to celebrate the holiday by going to the National Apartheid Museum in Gold Reef City to commemorate 22 years of democracy and freedom in South Africa!



The National Apartheid Museum at Gold Reef  City
which opened in 2001 vividly illustrates the rise and
fall of apartheid in South Africa, 1948-1994

 



The seven pillars of the free and democratic South African

constitution tower over the museum: democracy, equality,
reconciliation, diversity, responsibility, respect and freedom

Nelson Mandela casts his ballot on 27 April, 1994



Tribute to Nelson Mandela

At the Apartheid Museum on Freedom Day

Gold Reef City is also the home to the original Johannesburg gold mine, which we also visited in the past month. When gold was discovered, the city of Johannesburg went from a population of 3,000 to  a population of over 100,000 in less than 10 years. The town was originally named Gauteng, which means gold in the Sotho language, but was later changed to Johannesburg, named after the two Johanns that established the gold mine and the city, Johann Friedrich Bernhard and Christiaan Johannes Joubert. After the first all-race elections in 1994, Gauteng became the name of the province (state) that includes Johannesburg. Before that the province had the Afrikaans name Transvaal.

 

Visiting the underground gold mine at Gold Reef City

In our hard hats with miner's torches