Hmmm my tummy is nice and full, and I feel like going to sleep now, not travelling around on the bus. Surely I can have a quick nap, there can't be anything more interesting to see...
We are going back in the direction we came from. The Prof is telling us we are going to see some place called Jeppestown...yawn... Fi told me that , when he was still alive, her father worked in Jeppestown. She says it is really not such a nice area...
The Prof tells us that Johannesburg was expanding so rapidly, that they knew they would have to create more residential areas. They could not go to the South because that is where the mines were, no one ever considered going to the North as they never thought it would ever get that big, so the toss up was: should they build to the East or the West? The company that was to do the expansion was called Jeppe & Ford Estate Company. They could not decide which would be better so they chose to do both Jeppe decided to build up the east side and named it Jeppestown after himself, and Ford built up the western side and named it...Fordsburg... vain bunch, weren't they?
Well Jeppestown took off with a bang and became quite a residential area. Ford built his side slightly different, he made it both a residential and a business area, and it boomed too.
Today though, Jeppestown is a run down industrial area. We passed the original men’s hostel. Oh. My. Goodness...
I can't believe people can live in such squalor.
Here is one of the original buildings that still stands today.
Fordsburg has a bit of a sad history, which you can read about now, because the sun was at the wrong angle to take photos of by the time we got there...
Basically the government decided (under the Group Areas Act IE. apartheid) that all the Indians needed to move out of the area where they had built up their businesses and move to an area set aside for them called Lenasia, 32 Kms (20 miles) away. There was of course great resistance. The government closed down the schools in Fordsburg, forcing the Indian community to move or to travel to Lenasia every day for the children to be schooled.
Eventually the government built a huge shopping centre called the Oriental Plaza for the Indian businessmen to rent out and continue with their trading, in an effort to undermine them. However, the Indians turned the Oriental Plaza into a huge success and the area is now quite a busy trading site again. In recent years Fordsburg has been affected by the same decline as the rest of Johannesburg.
Next to Fordsburg is a town called Vrededorp, which was an area set aside for the Malay people. It was built to the same plans as a black township called Orlando in Soweto. It comes as quite a shock to see it. It also has a very sad history , which you can read here. Sorry, Fi just could not take photos because it is one of those towns where each and every single family sit on the outside 'stoep' (veranda) on a Sunday afternoon, for want of anything better to do. Taking photos felt like an invasion of privacy. Especially in such a desperately poor community; and even more so as they were watching our great big bus with open mouthed astonishment. Clearly not to many tours go through there then! Interestingly it was a very mixed community but mostly white and coloured (Malay).
Well after that little trip I was wide awake again! Then the Prof said we were off to a market. Oh, I do like to shop!
