NELSON MANDELA’S HOUSE IN SOWETO

Mandela’s house, number 8115, from 1946 until he left jail in the 1990s. It is now a museum. Soweto was an all-black satellite city for those who were forcefully moved out of Johannesburg at a time when whites felt threatened by their growing presence in the city as a result of at a time of booming economic activity and specifically mining activity to the city’s south. Two statements written on the wall of the house struck my attention: “I always had a fear of them taking my mother away and I missed her dreadfully” – by Zindzi Mandela in reference to her mother Winnie Mandela who was tortured, subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, held in solitary confinement for over a year and banished to a remote town.

And Mandela’s statement “The wife of a freedom fighter is often like a widow, even when her husband is not in prison.” Mandela was married to Winnie for 38 years, including 27 years during which time he was in prison.


Also a photo of Mandela with Fidel Castro on the wall of the house demonstrates the great respect that Mandela and the ANC leaders had for Cuba which delivered the first blow to the apartheid regime – and its U.S. supported allies - in Angola, thus shattering the myth of its invincibility. Even today the Cuban embassy mission is held in high regard by the older ANC leaders.