Day 13. Unlucky 13. The day the Proteas crash and burn out of the Cricket World Cup. Again.
I’m so depressed.
My fellow braai tourers are already an hour in bed, concluding a day that began with some world class hangovers (not mine thankfully – I missed the Mystic Boer festivities last night) and ended with a similarly world class batting collapse. Such was the misery on both ends of this unlucky 13th day that it’s quite a surprise we’ve had such a good time in between.
Today’s braai was in Soweto, home to an estimated 3 to 4 million people, in 31 suburbs, covering approximately 200 square kilometres southwest of Johannesburg. Established in 1936, the name is derived from its original designation “˜South West Township,’ and over the last century it was the home of many of South Africa’s most famous and influential black political leaders, including Nelson Mandela and (Braai4Heritage’s own patron) Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Both Mandela and Tutu lived at one time or another on Vilakazi Street, in the Soweto suburb of Orlando West, and have thus made it famous as the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Laureates – Tutu having received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and Mandela the same prize in 1993.
Like I said, the day started badly. Bleary eyes stared miserably back at me from the other side of the breakfast table – all except for hardened cameraman Timmy who either didn’t drink as much last night or definitely drinks too much on a regular basis. I suspect a combination, leaning towards the regular.
Eventually feet were dragged towards the bakkies and we departed for Soweto, there to braai outside Tutu’s old house on Vilakazi Street and go on a quick tour around some of the key historical sites in the area.
The Freedom Charter Monument is, I have to say, a rather nondescript structure, built of mottled, light coloured face-brick in a design vaguely reminiscent of a large, outdoor pizza-oven chimney. The effect isn’t enhanced by the occasional brick missing here and there. Inside the monument, however, the 10 principles of the charter, laid out round-table style on polished concrete, speak for themselves and for the 3000 delegates who gathered in this spot on 26 June 1955 to sign them. The monument commemorates a key moment in South Africa’s history and it was definitely something worth seeing.
Our next stop was the Regina Mundi church where protesting students fled during the Soweto Uprising and were fired on by police. There is a fascinating exhibition of black and white photography in the gallery upstairs and the old rector, who takes tours around the interior, is a true character: “Tell me what do you see up there – and don’t tell me a stained glass window! We can all see that!”
The braai itself was at Sakhumzi Restaurant which backs onto Desmond Tutu’s old house on Vilakazi. The small, 2 or 3 block area is now quite the tourist Mecca and doesn’t really have much of an authentic feel, though the food and general friendliness can’t be faulted. With the signed walks, tour busses and the usual sort of South African tourist fare on sale it didn’t at all feel like the real Soweto and so, when the braai was done and bellies full, we went in search of a more genuine experience.
We didn’t have far to go. Down the hill and round a corner and a proper 24 hour “˜Chisa Nyama‘ came into view. On the corner some guy was hacking his way into a cows head with a machete and, next door, blanketed by ear splitting kwaito, the guys were braaing – heart and sausage and livers roasting over a massive half-drum braai with flames licking up from the rough-cut logs below.
As Jan is fond of telling us, the thing about braaing is that everyone in South Africa does it. It’s the one thing you can be sure of when you meet a fellow saffa, here, there or anywhere in the world. You may not know what they do, what their political beliefs are or how they feel to be South African, but you can be sure that at some point in their lives they have had a good old braai. This is the point of National Braai Day and this is why we’re on this tour.
The guys at Muthwa Butchery and Fast Foods (24 hours!) were happily braaing away and more than happy to have a chat and don a T-shirt or two for the cause. We chilled there for a while, had a few laughs, gave out a few T-shirts and some boerie and then hit the road to our guesthouse, Castello di Monte, in Pretoria.
It was a good day for the braai tour, if not for the Proteas, or our forever-to-be-dashed hope in South African cricket.
