Silhouettes and a Sunset Catch
Eight pairs.
Divination market, Durban.
Underclass.
Sunspray along a boulevard of herbal cure-alls and faith healers.
Shift's end.
Propulsion.
Fishing cliques.
Hillbrow Modern
Three images from an incomplete photo essay examining the modernist architecture of Johannesburg’s inner city.
Pressure-packed.
Skyscraper gaze.
Fire exit ribbon.
Portraits of a Rising Zimbabwe (5 of 5)
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This is the part five of a five part assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration on the rebuilding of Zimbabwe after an unprecedented economic and civil collapse. Photos Copyright ©2009 Austin Andrews / International Organization for Migration (IOM) except where noted. Not to be reprinted or reproduced without permission.
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Last August, Will van Engen (blog link) and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
As a photography trip, it was ill-conceived: IOM organised an itinerary that compressed an entire country’s worth of far-flung project sites into one week of shooting. A Land Cruiser sent us tumbling down some of the worst roads in the world, chasing light and perpetually behind schedule. For every ten minutes spent travelling we’d be lucky to have a minute shooting. But as an experience it was one of the richest and most worthwhile trips of my life. I look back on the photographs below with rose-tinted fondness.
Wrapping up the series, part five takes us through some of IOM’s schemes in place to aid returning migrants with reassimilation.
A woman watches over goats donated by IOM to households of migrants returning to southern Zimbabwe from South Africa. A sustainable biogas is produced by harnessing the methane in the goats' waste, bringing power to far-flung regions that previously had none.
Animal husbandry.
Biodigester.
Residents of the Caledonia township south of Harare queue for attention from an IOM-sponsored mobile clinic. The twice-monthly clinic is the only access Caledonia's 2000 residents have to medical care.
Doctor visit.
Inspection.
Departing patient.
Meanwhile in the city, a patient gets treated at Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital.
This doctor returned from the UK after a unity government was established in Zimbabwe to help participate in her country's economic recovery.
This welder returned to Zimbabwe through an IOM sponsorship for small business start-ups.
Statues in play.
Portraits of a Rising Zimbabwe (4 of 5)
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This is part four of a five part assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration on the rebuilding of Zimbabwe after an unprecedented economic and civil collapse. Photos Copyright ©2009 Austin Andrews / International Organization for Migration (IOM) except where noted. Not to be reprinted or reproduced without permission.
——
Last August, Will van Engen (blog link) and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
As a photography trip, it was ill-conceived: IOM organised an itinerary that compressed an entire country’s worth of far-flung project sites into one week of shooting. A Land Cruiser sent us tumbling down some of the worst roads in the world, chasing light and perpetually behind schedule. For every ten minutes spent travelling we’d be lucky to have a minute shooting. But as an experience it was one of the richest and most worthwhile trips of my life. I look back on the photographs below with rose-tinted fondness.
Part four takes us to IOM’s two Safe Zone activity sites for children at risk for trafficking, one in Bulawayo and the other in Chiredzi.
At the Safe Zone in Chiredzi, a local volunteer runs through the rules of a tire track obstacle course.
Contender.
Winners' circle.
The Chiredzi Safe Zone, one of two IOM-sponsored youth activity centres in Zimbabwe.
Point / Shot
Counterpoint / Reverse Shot
Primed.
Blue on target.
Story of a football.
Mirrored sliver.
Portraits of a Rising Zimbabwe (3 of 5)
——
This is part three of a five part assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration on the rebuilding of Zimbabwe after an unprecedented economic and civil collapse. Photos Copyright ©2009 Austin Andrews / International Organization for Migration (IOM) except where noted. Not to be reprinted or reproduced without permission.
——
This past August, Will van Engen (blog link) and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
As a photography trip, it was ill-conceived: IOM organised an itinerary that compressed an entire country’s worth of far-flung project sites into one week of shooting. A Land Cruiser sent us tumbling down some of the worst roads in the world, chasing light and perpetually behind schedule. For every ten minutes spent travelling we’d be lucky to have a minute shooting. But as an experience it was one of the richest and most worthwhile trips of my life. I look back on the photographs below with rose-tinted fondness.
Part three takes us to two separate project sites on opposite sides of the country with different focuses on the same issue: safe migration.
PROJECT ONE / AWARENESS
IOM volunteers suit up at a UN World Food Programme distribution gathering in rural Masvingo province, an area that has seen an alarming percentage of its population flee into neighbouring South Africa. Their mission is to promote safe migration, raise awareness of hazards and prepare would-be migrants for the difficult journey ahead.
Spirited.
Locals crowd around an IOM volunteer distributing information on safe migration.
"Are you thinking of migrating?"
IOM volunteers distribute and play a game of Safe Migration Snakes and Ladders.
Eager fingertips await information.
Tattered.
PROJECT TWO / MIGRANT PROCESSING
An IOM billboard demarcates the dusty border between Zimbabwe and Botswana outside the town of Plumtree. A hotspot for illegal crossings, IOM operates a migrant processing centre on the Zimbabwean side of the border.
A truckful of deported migrants rounded up in nearby Francistown, Botswana arrives back in Zimbabwe at the IOM processing centre. The centre sees an estimated 3000 failed migrants a month, not accounting for those who attempt the dangerous border crossing more than once.
First steps back on Zimbabwean soil for a few of the 3000 illegal Zimbabweans captured and deported monthly from Francistown, Botswana.
Zimbabweans walk toward an immigration office for processing after being deported from Botswana.
A Zimbabwean immigration official addresses a room of would-be migrants deported from Botswana for illegal immigration.
The immigration official addresses the group to ensure no Botswanan citizens were mistakenly rounded up.
Migrants await repatriation papers in a processing queue in the IOM compound.
A dance troupe entertains the repatriated migrants while they await transportation back to Harare and Bulawayo.
Portraits of a Rising Zimbabwe (2 of 5)
——
This is part two of a five part assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration on the rebuilding of Zimbabwe after an unprecedented economic and civil collapse. Photos Copyright ©2009 Austin Andrews / International Organization for Migration (IOM) except where noted. Not to be reprinted or reproduced without permission.
——
This past August, Will van Engen (blog link) and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
As a photography trip, it was ill-conceived: IOM organised an itinerary that compressed an entire country’s worth of far-flung project sites into one week of shooting. A Land Cruiser sent us tumbling down some of the worst roads in the world, chasing light and perpetually behind schedule. For every ten minutes spent travelling we’d be lucky to have a minute shooting. But as an experience it was one of the richest and most worthwhile trips of my life. I look back on the photographs below with rose-tinted fondness.
Part two in what I’ll admit is an only occasionally compelling series focuses on IOM’s livelihood and employment programs for families and returning migrants in rural Manicaland, near the Mozambican border.
A family crowds around as water gushes from a deep borehole pump in rural Manicaland.
Stalks of dead grass line a child's walk back to her family's small rondavel village.
A midday scene between terms at an IOM-built, government-run school in rural Manicaland. This compound was once part of a white-run commercial farm that fell into disrepair after President Robert Mugabe's forced land grabs put it in the hands of urban blacks with no previous experience in farming.
Attentive eyes know.
Lessons for Wednesday 26 August 2009.
An uncertain hand rises in the back of the class.
The women behind the scenes of a local bakery, one of the many employment schemes IOM runs for returning migrants in the rural Mutare area.
Bread's last daylight as dough.
Hot loaves, hand delivered.
Hot loaves, hand delivered II.
Replacing the now-defunct Zimbabwean dollar in April as the country's street currency, a single US dollar now buys what 10,000,000,000,000 (10 trillion) Zim dollars once did.
Another IOM initiative, this community garden provides growing space, seeds and water access for its 28 members. The residents of these sunbaked rural highlands otherwise has little access to fresh vegetables.
Children work away in their family plot.
Prudence.
The fingers and shadows of ownership.
Construction implements and evidence.
Portraits of a Rising Zimbabwe (1 of 5)
——
This is part one of a five part assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration on the rebuilding of Zimbabwe after an unprecedented economic and civil collapse. Photos Copyright ©2009 Austin Andrews / International Organization for Migration (IOM) except where noted. Not to be reprinted or reproduced without permission.
——
This past August, Will van Engen (blog link) and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
Part one focuses on IOM’s homebuilding programs in remote rural communities for returning migrants.
Boys look out from behind a gate in an IOM-built community outside Mutare, an MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) stronghold near the Mozambican border.
IOM vests supervise a project site near Chiredzi. Here, locals build their own homes from materials provided by IOM.
Staring contest at the washing station. Photo ©2009 Will van Engen / International Organization for Migration (IOM).
A woman sits in her living room under wall-mounted pages from the Qur'an. With electricity sporadic at best, the television sees little use.
Foot traffic outside a new IOM-constructed brick house situated in a community of traditional rondavels.
A father and son make their way through the home-specked flatlands off the grid in Zimbabwe's remote Eastern Highlands.
Chasing the day's last golden light, an IOM convoy makes its way through the bush toward a far-flung building project.
Construction gang on the left, residents-to-be on the right.
Earthly Hands / Materials of Habitation.
Rim tracks in the path to a new home.
A family pauses midway through moving furniture into their new IOM-constructed house.
Cut Scenes from Zimbabwe’s Dark Decade
This past August, Will van Engen and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
The following are cut scenes from an upcoming photo series on the slow rebuilding of Zimbabwe after one of the darkest decades in recent African history.
With the cooling towers of the Bulawayo Power Station looming behind them, residents of Zimbabwe's second-largest city wander township streets.
Main street bustle in the town of Chiredzi. With goods back on shelves after a long period of uncertainty, shops have reclaimed their status as community hubs.
Families stream in and out of a rural general store in the hills surrounding the border town of Mutare in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands.
A cattle drive by morning light.
A long-haul busliner. Vehicles like this one are a common sight on the nation's roads, with most domestic routes plied by dilapidated buses that are more than a half century old.
T-shirt ballot.
Sunset split.
Suggested treatment at Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital.
Reminders of 2008's controversial elections still haunt many of the streets of capital city Harare.
Roaming from driveway to driveway, two buskers stop to play a streetside tune in the affluent Avondale neighbourhood.
A group of suburban youth wander home after a Friday night hanging out at the Avondale shopping centre.
Once a popular diversion for middle-class Zimbabweans, the nation's cinemas have fallen into disrepair and neglect in recent years.
Round-the-clock electricity still eludes Harare, with power cuts stretching for six hours or longer on most days. Her computer down, a cashier tallies up orders by hand at a Nando's fast food restaurant in Avondale.
As good a sign as any of the nation's topsy-turvy currency, the runaway hyperinflation of the Zimbabwe dollar has given way to stability as the nation shifts to the US dollar.
Another indication of the stabilising economy, shops are reopening as hard currency trickles through the population.
Dark City Daylight
Johannesburg’s densely-populated Alexandra township has held many roles since its inception in 1904, from its early days as a freewheeling freehold kingdom where blacks could buy their own land to a centre of activism against encroaching apartheid policy in the 1940s and 1950s through to its position as South Africa’s “Beirut” under the nation’s State of Emergency of the 1980s. Today Alexandra is among South Africa’s highest profile townships and is a place where historical prejudices and modern day open-mindedness form an uneasy truce.
The following street portraits are from a day spent exploring the township.
- Foot traffic outside a decaying worker’s hostel. Re-envisioned during the height of apartheid as a “hostel city”, only three of the single-sex behemoths were ever built. Each house an estimated 10000 people and are all still in operation.
- Residents tend to early morning washing in an Alexandra squatter camp.
- Sunrise bottles clear and green.
- Township dwellers buy still-warm ‘fat cakes’ on their morning walk to the taxi rank.
- Police presence.
- The rooftops of a recently-electrified shanty block.
- A morning walk against rainbow flats.
- Rainbow washing against rainbow flats.
- Comings and goings. Only one toilet serves this thirty household “yard” of shacks.
- Alexandra resident George Mashile sorts through clothing in his one room shack.
- Hail.
- Fresh faces and fresher paint.
- Tuck shop commerce outside the women’s hostel.
- Standing water in the brick jungle.
- A child runs through one of the sweeping courtyards of the women’s hostel.
- A kettle boils as two girls do dishes in one of the hostel’s industrial-sized kitchens.
- Sunlit parallelogram.
- Laundry under the watchful eye of Jacob Zuma.
- Pedestrian routes along the Jukskei River.
- Burnt tones.
- Opposing faces on either side.
- Expectant taxis waiting at the taxi rank.
- Two boys follow a bottle cap as it flows down a roadside gutter creek.
- Two silhouettes and an obstacle.
- Kids watch a tyre fire from a ridge of dredged-up construction materials.
- A hand points to an abandoned and unfinished housing project in Alexandra’s Far East Bank extension.
- Island in a road in a frame.
Check out Will’s blog Steeltown Blues for another angle on the same day’s exploration.
A Protest Song for the Deaf
Over 10000 striking municipal workers took to the streets of central Johannesburg yesterday for a 15 block march to the city municipal offices to demand an above-inflation 15% pay increase. Over 150000 police, sanitation and transportation workers are striking nationwide.
Photographed mid-dance, a woman leads a procession ten thousand strong across the Nelson Mandela Bridge.
Layered onlookers on Jorissen Street.
A marshal contains protestors as police set up a perimeter.
Skyscraperside filmstrip.
Johannesburg metro police set up a riot guard as protestors arrive at the municipal building for an address by the mayor and union leaders.
Bullet strip at the ready.
Chants against nepotism.
Architecture/protest halves.
Impassioned.
Municipal workers are protesting across the country.
For another (better-researched) perspective on the same protest, check out Will’s blog Steeltown Blues.
A Township in Flames
Tensions between riot police and the citizens of the Siyathemba township in Mpumalanga province reached a fever pitch yesterday in a stand off that saw police fire tear gas and rubber bullets at violent protestors. The nation’s eyes descended on the the rural township after a spate of xenophobic attacks earlier in the week — the first since a wave of violence killed 63 in May 2008 — erupted from broken election promises and poor housing delivery.
An armoured police Nyala watches over a restless citizen congregation during an address by the mayor of neighbouring Balfour. Later that day the same crowd burned his house down.
Jeers from behind a mesh fence.
Peace, for now.
Watching through a hole in the fence.
Headspace
Fired-up township dwellers take to the streets after the disappointing address.
Protestors storm the streets in riot configuration.
Riot police move in to defuse the situation.
A man throws a stone at police from behind the safety of a private residence.
Protestors run from approaching police Nyalas.
Guns at the ready, police scour the township for protestors brazen enough to show themselves.
Armed with rocks, protestors flee from approaching riot police.
Photographers Alon Skuy and Thys Dullaart of The Times take cover from crossfire.
A man runs from an armoured police Nyala rounding the corner.
A policeman guides a Nyala around hastily-erected roadblocks.
Standing in the Nyala's path, a protestor holds a stone at the ready.
Photojournalists take shelter from crossfire behind a Times car.
Bush Flight
ZS-SZ-MJO cargo hold on a Cessna 210.
Fins and rotors, blues in rhyme.
Pilot Rob Snaddon does a final inspection of the 210 before a delayed takeoff.
A subdivision skeleton north of Witbank.
Manmade clouds at the site of a controlled burn east of Pretoria.
Panic button in the afternoon half light.
Rolling hills and drifting wildfires.
Dan looks out from the Cessna over the sunset landscape.
Approaching the Drakensberg escarpment north of Witrivier.
The town at the end of the world.
Rob banks sharply to the left as he approaches the dirt runway.
Twilight landing.
Sunset beckons night. Photo credit David Snaddon.
Emma, Dan and David on a game drive through Selati Reserve later that weekend.
Wide-bodied belly.
Beacons in Orange and Blue
A torched car burns on the N3 motorway north of Johannesburg Saturday night.
The Township as Spectacle
The South African township holds a curious appeal for many photographers, myself included. For all their talked-about poverty and crime statistics, townships are also home to a vibrancy and sense of community rarely found in the gated palaces of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. People here pass their days in the public space; on streetside curbs, at friends’ stalls, forever milling and browsing. The hand-scrawled signs and labyrinthine incompleteness to the space lends photos instant production value. And for the outsider there’s never a shortage of places to explore.
Scroll down for selections from a morning spent in the Johannesburg East Rand townships of Katlehong and Thokoza.
Vanishing point / a morning commuter train to Vereeniging.
Minibus taxis prepare for the peak hour commute at the Thokoza taxi rank.
Transiting silhouettes at the taxi rank. Most of South Africa’s townships were originally built as labour pools for pass-carrying blacks who were employed in the cities but prohibited under Apartheid from living in them. In the absence of public transportation these cheap and reliable taxis became as much a fixture of township life as the sangorma faith healers and ubiquitous streetside vendors.
An informal spaza convenience shop peeks out from a landscape of shanty shacks.
Curious kids in a township crèche (pre-primary school).
A woman walks past graffiti’d reminders of the township wars of the early 1990s, when anti-Apartheid uprisings in Thokoza were violently suppressed by the state police force leaving thousands dead. The East Rand townships were also the epicentre of last year’s xenophobic attacks that saw 100 killed and over 100,000 displaced.
A streetside barber hangs his shavers up after a customer.
Shadow inconsistencies at a streetside salon.
Salon styles.
An enterprising spaza shopkeeper at his phone booth.
Holler.
Power pole kings over a hawker market.
An interested buyer at a streetside clothing stall.
Busy hands at a sidewalk butcher.
Shopping bag.
Business hours.
Pedestrian traffic at a busy Katlehong intersection.
Flames and heat shimmer in an RDP neighbourhood. These one room houses are a common sight in the modern township with over 1.1 million built by the incoming ANC government in the early years after 1994.
Homeowners out front of their RDP house.
Living quarters.
The view out over the centre compound of a single-sex workers’ hostels. Formerly reserved only for pass-carrying black labourers, the hostels of Thokoza were notorious cesspools of crime and abject squalor during the dark days of Apartheid. Although most are still overcrowded and gang-ridden, this particular hostel retains little of its edge today.
Orange vendor.
Orange transport.
Orange delicious.
Diagonal kids / slide queue.
Fatherhood.
Tombstone Factory (and Kitchen Tops!)
Detritus and overflow from a burst sewage line.
Rusting, out of commission taxis at the taxi rank.
Long distance bus rank.
Salon shadows.
Sweeper’s shadows.
Five in Black and White
Selected angles from an orphanage for HIV positive children outside Lenasia in southern Gauteng province.
Story of a wash basin.
Catch-hands.
Bubble barons.
Three faces, four eyes.
Laundry line.
A Black Hole in the Rainbow Nation
My photography project on the Zimbabwean refugee crisis, most of which appeared on this blog in March, has found new life as a thirty shot multimedia slideshow. Check it out and don’t forget to turn the pesky captions off.
The slideshow can also be viewed in high resolution on the Medecins Sans Frontieres site and on The Times‘ online multimedia portal.
Special thanks to Thato Mogotsi and Alon Skuy at The Times and Zethu Mlobeli at MSF for helping put it together!
Matchbox Hillside
Seven takes from the former asbestos mining town of Bulembu, Swaziland. The mine closed in 2001, leaving the town of 15000 to plod along without an industry. The remaining few eke out a living working in the nearby logging camps as the town hastily reshuffles itself as a remote getaway resort.
Colour codes.
Green on the move.
Reunion.
Homefront.
Invisible kid.
Rustred.
Wind/sun direction.
Homeless/Homes
With the rest of the country flocking last week to the polling stations in record numbers, hundreds of residents of the Alexandra township opted to boycott the election to make a stand for poor government-subsidised housing. Speaking out against the corruption and delays that has marred delivery of a new housing project in the Far East Bank of Alexandra, the protestors held chants and dances on a grassy knoll across the street from a line of police vehicles and media.
Jig jog.
Stand.
Township police.
Swat.
Guards keep watch inside the disputed –and very incomplete– housing project.
Incline.
For the full series, including several (rather mediocre) photos not published here, check out the multimedia slideshow on The Times’ website.
Stadium Spectacular
Crew and extras on the set of The Human Factor, an upcoming Clint Eastwood-directed rugby film starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.
An endfield Tuesday.
An endfield Sunday as crowds arrive at Ellis Park for the African National Congress’ final rally before Wednesday’s general elections.
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The following article was written by my friend Sarah about our experience attending the rally. Keep scrolling for more photos.
Text © Sarah Godsell / BusinessDay
Photos © Austin Andrews / The Times
Zuma Dispels a Sceptic’s Notions
I am a young South African, 23, and while I am very excited about voting tomorrow, I’m confused and a little disillusioned about who to vote for.
In this state of mind I, almost by accident, attended the African National Congree (ANC) rally at Coca-Cola Park in Johannesburg on Sunday.
I’m not an ANC supporter (well, specifically not a Jacob Zuma supporter) and I was expecting to have a day of grinding my teeth through speeches. Instead, I had an overwhelmingly positive experience, which, while not converting my vote, left me feeling much calmer and more positive about the country and its leadership after these elections.
The experience started with my Canadian friend, a photographer who invited me to the rally, and I walking to the stadium together with throngs of singing people. The atmosphere was celebratory, and anticipatory. I got caught up in it very quickly, although we stuck out in two ways. We were the only ones not wearing ANC T-shirts, which made us more conspicuous than being the only two white people in the crowd.
On our way into the stadium, having now acquired ANC T-shirts, I was reminded about the diversity of ANC supporters – the pace of the civilised crush was slowed by older people walking with sticks and young children, their ANC shirts reaching to their knees and toes.
The reception I received from the people around me was overwhelmingly positive. The area of the stadium in which I was sitting was so full that people had crammed onto the stairs; a jigsaw puzzle of people with a common purpose. The middle-aged women I was sitting next to were friendly and concerned, and offered me half their seats. And there were many idiosyncrasies that surprised me, and which made me smile.
While, as far as I could see, we were the only white people in the stadium (apart from members of the media on the field), the only languages on the posters were English and Afrikaans. But the crowd’s response to the Afrikaans prayer was positive (even the prayers were diverse, with a prayer by an imam, a rabbi and Christian ministers). At the end of the Afrikaans prayer the woman sitting next to me said: “In die naam van God,” (In God’s name) and leaned over to me and said: “Ek probeer.” (I’m trying).
I went to the rally strongly opposed to Zuma, with my arguments against him neatly lined up in my head. It was only when he started speaking that I realised that I had never actually heard him speak (I’m not counting the choice 30-second extracts shown on the news), and I was pleasantly surprised.
He spoke of a country where every colour and every gender feels comfortable and is not discriminated against, and reassured people that even if the ANC gets a two-thirds majority, it would not change the constitution.
His speech was not life-changing for me, but it did challenge my preconceived negative notions of the person who is probably going to be our president. I am grateful for that. And while some of my friends pointed out that words are just words, what else can you have in a speech?
I was also impressed by the spectacular organisation. There were at least 100 000 people gathered in the two stadiums and the areas outside, but everything was completely relaxed and peaceful. I had watched as the organisers stopped letting people into Coca-Cola Park and started sending them to the Johannesburg Stadium next door. I expected people to get angry. I expected lines of policemen. But there was just one line of security personnel, firmly standing holding hands and directing people to other areas, and people obeyed them. It made me so happy to live here.
Leaving the stadium was also very relaxed, my friend and I both in our ANC T-shirts. We were a bit of an oddity in the crowd, and people kept testing us, saying amandla. At first I was shy about responding; I never know whether it’s my right or not. But seeing people’s responses when I did respond, I carried on. And why not? Power to the people, to these people, the everyday people. And my hope, my prayer, is that the people in power remember every single day whom they are here to represent. I had definitely forgotten what the ANC stood for.
All in all, it was an intensely positive experience. And an intensely democratic one. I felt comfortable and proud to be South African. Everybody says that we have lots of work to do, and it’s true. And we don’t know what kind of president Zuma will be.
I still don’t know who to vote for. But I do know we’re going to be okay. And my friend and I can have some fun shocking all our friends by going out in our ANC T-shirts!
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Mugs and brims.
Sea of arrivals.
Supporters crowd the entrances for a view of the festivities.
The view from the upper tier.
Cascading crowds/opposing diagonals.
Decked out in ANC yellow and green, a helicopter flies over the two stadiums to raucous cheer.
Obey the corner.
Thumb-eyed.
Flag-faced.
Misty-eyed supporters recite the national anthem Nkosi Sikelele.
Point.
X
Brim message.
Crowds react to the surprise appearance of former president Nelson Mandela.
Face times four.
A Concert at the Central Methodist Church
On Saturday night the doors of the Central Methodist Church, an informal refugee camp housing an estimated 5000 Zimbabwean refugees in downtown Johannesburg, opened for a few of the city’s brightest musical and spoken word acts.
Open mic.
Sleeping berth.
Sound engineer.
Clapalong.
Singalong.
Commotion.
The lines divide.
Emcee.
A choir exits stage right.
High note.
Bubble-in-wait.
Frenetic.
Ledge.
Bounce.
Perspective.
A captive crowd.
Attentive.
Cell phone glow.
