Africa 50 Years Later: Part I, South Africa

In February and March 2023, I returned to the heart of Africa for the first time since I departed Liberia in 1973. Much older, the second time around from my 20-year-old naive farm girl self, I wondered how I would feel or what I would think. I traveled to new countries I had never been to: Rwanda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana. The Rwandan visit was unlike any African experience I had ever witnessed before. You can read about those in my three earlier blogs, A Lesson in Genocide, The Gorillas of Rwanda, and The Gorilla Doctors.

Wisdom from my 50+ years of life created a different vision of Africa through a new set of lenses. I saw cell phones on almost every person, new modern buildings, and more motorcycles than ever before. On other the hand, remote villages seemed untouched. Simple lives, raising animals and crops tilled by hand, thatched huts, and wood fires. Outdoor markets were filled with villagers who journeyed miles to sell their wares, animals, and produce…just like I remembered 50 years earlier.

The most progress that I experienced was in the advancement of women. Even though polygamy is still part of the African culture, women were asserting themselves. I saw women’s cooperatives in all of these countries with storefronts selling their crafts. Some women were even able to divorce their husbands for a variety of legitimate reasons. Birth control and access to health care, in general, were available even in the more remote villages. In some Muslim areas, women could choose to wear a head scarf or not. I wrote about these areas in an earlier blog entitled African Women Taking Charge.

I will present this photographic journey in Parts. Part I is the country of South Africa. I spent only 24 hours there. But my day-tour experience was profound. Advance the photos with the arrow.

  • Johannesburg, looks like any other big city
  • The FNB soccer stadium is the largest in Africa & 4th largest in the world
  • Mother walking her daughter from school.
  • Bronze Gold miners statue
  • A century of gold mine tailings surrounds Johannesburg.
  • Nelson Mandela’s residence after his presidency
  • St John’s College: Once only Whites could attend, now students of mixed ethnicities can.
  • The original Soweto was built in the 30s and the beginning of Apartheid, the separation of whites from blacks.
    The Soweto was built in the 30s and marked the beginning of Apartheid, the separation of whites from blacks. Still no running water or plumbing today.
  • Nelson Mandela in Soweto, before spending 27 years in prison
  • Winnie, his wife continuing the movement while Mandela is in prison
  • The Hector Pieterson memorial: one of thousands of black children who marched in protest and one of the first children to be killed.
  • Slums outside of Soweto
  • More poverty
  • The beautiful suburbs of Johannesburg
  • Black So. Africans manicure the landscape but do not set foot on the wealthy owner’s interior property
  • Wealth behind the bars in the heart of the city
  • 2.5-ton bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, the first SA president, 1994-99. THE END

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8 thoughts on “Africa 50 Years Later: Part I, South Africa”

  3. Hi Susan. Thanks for your latest. I enjoyed reading about your impressions of Africa, particularly about women after 50 years both in the urban environment and village. Good to read that health care is available.

    Best.

    Bill Booth

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    1. Hello Bill, thank you for your comments. In the email that you sent me I had not known that you were the PC director and Chad. And you evacuated the volunteers in 1999. I had lived and worked in Northern Cameroon in the small town of Mokolo off the main road from Maroua from 1980 to 82 working for care

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      1. Hi Susan. Please keep Michael Varga “Under Chad’s Spell” in your prayers. He is suffering from cancer and AIDS and doesn’t travel and hasn’t been wrting very much lately.

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    2. sorry Bill I tapped the wrong button and need to continue. While I was in Cameroon while I was in Cameroon I worked for CARE in health education. I have yet to write a book about that. It is amazing the work and travels we have done since early inauguration into the Peace Corps in our early early twenties. Thank you for keeping in touch and I look forward to hearing from you.

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