Gold Reef City

On Sunday, 2nd September, I met Karen Jean at the back gate to Gold Reef City. There is a Protea Hotel on the property there, and she had decided to stay there on her return to Jo'burg (from a side trip to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe) because GRC is across the street from the Apartheid Museum.

Our plan was to tour the old gold mine and learn a little about gold mining and the beginnings of Johannesburg. We rode a shuttle through the big parking lot to the front gate, where we had to pay admission to the park. The tour of the mine was an additional fee. A bit of a rip-off if you ask me, but never mind.

Some of you may not know that Johannesburg grew up around the gold mining industry. Gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand (white waters ridge) reef in the 1880s, and soon thereafter people from all over the world flocked to Jo'burg in search of riches. So, unlike most other cities in South Africa, Jo'burg has always had a large international population.

Gold Reef City is a theme park that is built on the property that was owned (perhaps still is) by Crown Mines. Crown Mines is still in operation, by the way, and is just down the street from the theme park. I think these days they are busy reclaiming old mine tailings, or mine dumps as they call them here, for extra gold.

The tour goes through the No. 14 shaft of Crown Mines. The tour was interesting but sadly it moved too fast and it was too dark for me to take notes, and because I've waited so long to write this entry, I've now forgotten most of the facts that we heard, like how many tons of rock will go into one of the rail cars, or how many tons of rock it takes to extract how many grams of gold (not very much), and so on.

After the tour of the gold workings, we visited the mining village, which has recreations of typical homes of mine supervisors and owners in the late 1800s. Then we went into a little auditorium and saw a gold pour. They let us touch the new bar. If you can pick it up with 1 finger, they will let you have it! But it's incredibly heavy. :)

When we finished, I drove Karen Jean over to the Apartheid Museum. I didn't stay. I've been there twice, and find it emotionally exhausting.

Underground rail car.

That's a mannequin.

A chute used to pour rock from a higher shaft down to a rail car.

Supports holding up the walls and ceiling.

Philemon demonstrated the more recent use of drills. It was loud!

Maps of various shafts.

The emergency exit. I forget how many steps; lots!

A pump used to keep underground water from flooding shafts.

No. 14 shaft up above, surrounded by the theme park.

Karen Jean and Katy and brightly painted, happy cow.

The entrance to the Apartheid Museum. The pillars represent the seven fundamental values in the new South African constitution: democracy, equality, reconciliation, diversity, responsibility, respect and freedom.

IFLA Satellite Meeting

Again, some of you know that I did local arrangements for an IFLA satellite meeting (which is what IFLA calls pre-conferences) in Cape Town. You can see the wonderful Web site, designed by Graziano Krätli and Jessica Slawski at http://www.library.yale.edu/preifla2007/capetown_index.html. I especially like the use of various African fabrics.

Here are just a few photos from the pre-con.

Kimberly Parker, Yale University.


Oliver Pesch, EBSCO; Karen Jean Hunt, Duke University.

Susan Hanekom, EDULIS; Jennifer Lang and Rochelle Ballard, Princeton University.

Caroline Dean, UCT; unkown to me; Kimberly Parker; Fiona Bester, Worldwide Information Services; Kusturie Moodley, Durban University of Technology.

Audrey Patrick, Cape Peninsula University of Technology; Yvonne Halland, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; Caretha Nel and Cavall Barends, CPUT.

Anusuya Aramugam, University of Johannesburg.

Oliver Pesch.

Jennifer Lang and Rochelle Ballard.

Karen Jean Hunt

Sometime in July, I think, I received an e-mail from a former Auburn colleague, Nancy Gibbs. Nancy is currently in the library at Duke University, and she told me that one of her colleagues was coming over to South Africa for IFLA, and she hoped I didn’t mind that she’d given the colleague my contact information. “Not at all,” I replied. “I’m happy to help fellow Americans navigate their way through South Africa.”

The colleague’s name is Karen Jean Hunt, and she and I had a few e-mail exchanges, during which we discovered that each of us is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. She was also happy to learn that I am familiar with ugali (what they call sadza in Zimbabwe, and what they call pap or mealie pap here in SA).

I also suggested to Karen Jean that in addition to the usual tourist stuff in Jo’burg, she should try to visit the Rosa Parks Library in Soweto (one of the US Consulates libraries, formerly called the American Library). I offered to phone my friend Selaelo Ramoleta to set up a tour. I told Selaelo that KJ is the director of the John Hope Franklin Collection at Duke, and Selaelo informed me that John Hope Franklin himself had been to visit the former American Library not so many years ago!

(John Hope Franklin is an historian who was instrumental in weaving the history of African-Americans into U.S. history. He is well-known for his book From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, which was first published in 1947. The collection at Duke includes his personal and professional papers.)

Because she was arriving late in the afternoon on a Friday, I volunteered to pick KJ up at the airport and drive her straight to the Rosa Parks Library. This was the first time we’d met in person, and we hit it off right away. We spent a fair amount of time together over the next few weeks (she was in Jo’burg for several days, then went to Cape Town and attended the IFLA pre-conference for which I had done local arrangements, then went on to Durban for IFLA, came back to Jo’burg, went to Victoria Falls, and back to Jo’burg before flying home – how did she get so much vacation time?!?), and as I write this, I feel sure that I’ve made a lifelong friend. I do find it kind of amusing that a middle class white kid from Tennessee and an inner city black kid from Detroit have so much in common!