South African Freedom Charter

The South African Freedom Charter was generated in the midst of apartheid (1955). It consisted of wishes for the rights of all people generated by a survey of the people of South Africa. It provided the base for what eventually became the Constitution of South Africa in 1994. The monument is located in Soweto.

We visited the monument to the process that resulted in the Charter. The dome shape building covers a pie-shaped display of the major expectations established in the Charter. The top of the dome contains an X-shaped open through which sunlight falls on the written expectations. In the photograph, the X falls on the expectations related to education for all. The X symbolizes the X of a vote.

The Doors Of Learning And Of Culture Shall Be Opened!Edit

The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;
All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children;
Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;
Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.

Universal is evidently an ambiguous word

Traveling abroad can confront you with electrical standards you may not anticipate. The rest of the world does not necessarily rely on the 120 standard used throughout the U.S.. We have traveled enough to know that this is the case so Cindy knew to come prepared. This trip involves travel to multiple countrie so after purchasing the adapter that seemed appropriate for South Africa we decided it made the most sense to purchase a couple of universal adapters.

So we left our South Africa adapter at home and brought the universal adapters we bought. It seems that it is easy to overthink things and planning to access power seems another example. While our hotel in Johannesburg offers multiple options so we are presently fine, our universal adaptors do not offer the three-pin configuration that is the standard. Perhaps it will be helpful in some of the other countries, but we are also going to visit a store to purchase an adapter we know will work in South Africa.

   

Rest and prepare

Spending the day in recovery. Found a Starbucks with plenty of folks using the free WiFi. It was a struggle getting the cashier to understand I wanted tall light roasts. They had just introduced the blonde blend here and this is what I expected, but they appear to use it like an espresso blend. Pike was what they had as a brewed coffee. Good enough. Caffeine is your friend.

Exploring "Joburg" tomorrow. It took me a while to understand folks in the know don’t call it Johannesburg. This seems a little unusual. What would you say instead of Minneapolis? Minneolas, Minnepolis, Minnolis. None of these  sounds cool. Maybe I will see if I can start a new thing when I get back to Minnlis. 

Compression socks

I assume you know that I am an old guy. I would not be able to take a trip like this if I was younger because of the time and cost. Some things about life seem unfair. When you are finally at the point in your life when you can afford to have fun, your body may not be up to the challenge. We took this into account when booking this trip realizing that it was getting close to now or never. 

So, anyway, the trip to South Africa stretches over several days. You are not on a plane all of this time, but you are also not in a hotel. It is either wait in the airport or fly. The longest flight we will take is from Chicago to Dubai is 14 hours. The last plane leg is 9 hours. 

Yes, these are my feet. No, my feet did not appear in this photo by accident. I read somewhere that all photography contains a little bit of the self. I don’t see much of me in most of my photos so I wanted to personalize this one in the only way I could come up with on short notice. I think a lot of art is created in this manner. Artists create something and then come up with a story to explain their inspiration. The compression socks are supposed to prevent you from getting blood clots - deep thrombosis. We had a friend who at a younger and more fit age had a clot behind his knee. I think they look quite similar to those some of the pro bball players wear. The red socks on top are my unique fashion sense.

Dubai from the air. It was overcast so nothing was visible until we were fairly low. I think this is a small part of the artificial islands they built.

A life of exploration

I have been lucky enough to travel a lot. Cindy and I worked in education and early on even after summer school classes were completed we had a couple of weeks to drive around the country. We eventually were able to fly and this allowed us to visit other countries. Cindy ended up taking me places I would likely have not visited if I was making the decisions myself. In a few days, we are headed to South Africa. This is one of those trips of a lifetime. I had to consider a bucket list, but I admit this was the present Cindy and I gave each other for turning 70. I hope I will be able to post frequently, but even if I cannot find a way to connect, I will eventually provide some comments. I enjoy reviewing the past trips I have chronicled here. We all make our own memories, but I hope my comments and pictures provide something of interest for others.

I have written a blog since 2002. This is pretty close to the time when blogs first appeared. Early on I combined my multiple interests in this blog and I have rediscovered some early trip memories by going through old blog posts. I see that I was not as dedicated in the old days, but this set of posts from Alaska has some great bear pictures (2008). Daughter Kim and boyfriend, now husband, Jim, worked in Alaska on a whale-watching boat and we made the journey to visit them.