I hadn't originally planned on going to the Apartheid Museum, but on the second day of touring I asked David if we could work it in somewhere. It turned out to be the perfect day for it. I went to the Origins Center in the morning. The Center traces the history of humans in South Africa and then through the world as well as a study of the San people and thier cave art.
Basically it picked up where my visit to Sterkfontein Caves and Maropang Center left off with the history of the San People, Bantu Speaking People through when the Europeans settled and the San and Bantu people were either enslaved, put on reservations or kicked out. Sound familiar? Native Americans anyone? I had the audio tour so I poked around (again, I was all by myself) and viewed the exibits, art and short films. I felt like I understood so much more the pre-history of the country and a little how the people lived. Then it fed perfectly into the Gold Rush and the Apartheid movement.
After lunch David took me to the Aparthied Museum. He purchased my ticket for me and walked me in, telling me a brief history along the way. He again reinforced what I had learned previously at the other locations but this is the point where it really started to all fall together for me. He gave me my ticket, I was a Non-White so I had to go in a separate entrance. The tickets are given out randomly so people can share in the experience in a small way. Since I was non-white I went in the small, tight corridor and led up stairs. Where the "whites" were in an open corridor and went up a ramp to the entrance. Everything in the design and layout of the museum and exhibits are to add to the effect. After viewing a short introduction movie, I wandered around viewing and reading as much as I could. It took me over 3 hours and I didn't read or study everything like I wanted, but I could only take so much. At one point I was wondering through and exibit where TVs showing footage about people being arrested were behind cages and the visitors were standing in what felt like prison cells, I got a text message from Sam. It was a simple message about that evening's plans but I burst into tears as I read it. It reminded me that this wasn't something that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago to people I would never know. This was the very recent history of the people and the land I was standing on. This was Sam's history. 
That evening when we were walking to dinner I was telling him about my day and all that I had learned and felt. He said that during Apartheid we wouldn't be able to do what we were doing right then, a black man and a white woman walking down the street. He said that if we were, people would have stopped their cars and asked if I was ok. I was struck by what he said. Again, it all seemed so present and real. At that moment I reached over and grabbed his hand and pulled him close to me. We had several moments like this during my stay.
We were constantly stared at, especially in Soweto where I was the only white person and we were the only mixed race couple. It didn't bother either one of us and everyone was very kind and non-obtrusive but it was a constant reminder both of how far the country had come and how close Apartheid really is. We talked many times about how our relationship was really a celebration of what the freedom of South Africa and the end of Apartheid meant. It made me feel closer to him and embrace the miracle of what we had that much more. The responsibility and the depth of it also impacts me on a daily basis, especially when Sam talks about how I am the first white, or non-native, person that anyone in his family has every been with.
Besides the very intimate and personal issues brought out by my visit to the Apartheid Museum, it also hit home in another way, home being the U.S. of A. America, the land of the free, the leader of the free democratic world, yet most of us really have no idea what that means. We are taught for a long time about the evil British and how we rejected their tea and trampled the red coats but none of us was there. Few of us can relate to why fighting King George or even writing the Declaration of Independance was such a big deal. Especially while we were at the same time tromping on the rights of Native Americans, not to mention thousands of African slaves...but I digress. .
My eyes are always opened when I travel to other countries and see how others live how much we as Americans have absolutely no idea what we have and why we have it. But in South Africa, they fought, literealy fought for basic human rights in their own land. You sense it everywhere you go in Johanessburg. It isn't contained in a museum. Every person can tell you 100s of stories about how it was like for them and how things are different now. It makes me proud and terribly, terribly sad. "Freedom" and "Democracy" made in america, but what are we doing with it and do we really know what it means?
