Mandela Family Museum, Johannesburg:
Nelson Mandela's humble house in Orlando West, Soweto, now called the Mandela Family
Museum, is an interesting stopover for those keen to imbibe a slice of authentic history
on the world's most famous former prisoner. The museum, a house comprising four
inter-leading rooms, contains a rather higgledy-piggledy assortment of memorabilia,
paintings and photographs of the Mandela family as well as a collection of honorary
doctorates bestowed on Nelson Mandela from universities and institutions around the world.
There's also a boxing belt from Sugar Ray Leonard, a multi-coloured cloak presented to the
former president and a row of his old boots.
The matchbox home, at 8115 Ngakane Street, was Mandela's first house. He moved there with
his first wife Evelyn Ntoko Mase in 1946. After their divorce in 1957, she moved out. When
Mandela married Winnie Madikizela in 1958, she joined him at the Soweto home. However,
during the ensuing years when his life as a freedom fighter was all-consuming, Mandela
seldom stayed there. He was the "Black Pimpernel", living life on the run, until
his arrest and imprisonment in 1962.
Madikizela-Mandela continued to live in the tiny house with her two daughters, Zeni and
Zinzi, while Mandela was in jail. The house was petrol bombed and set alight several times
during this time. When he was released, Mandela refused to move to the more opulent home
(also in Orlando West) that Madikizela-Mandela had built during his incarceration. He
wanted only to return to the house of his memories. However, after his release, he stayed
there for a mere 11 days, as he was moved around from one location to the next until he
settled into his Houghton residence.
Mandela separated from Madikizela-Mandela in 1992 and the couple were divorced in 1996.
But, although her ex-husband handed the house to the Soweto Heritage Trust,
Madikizela-Mandela refused to relinquish it. Instead she turned it into the Mandela Family
Museum and set up a pub and restaurant across the road. During the inauguration of the
museum, where bottles of "Mandela garden soil" were sold, Madikizela-Mandela
said: "A lot of history was made here. This is where the 1976 students' uprising
began, where the youth leadership met to change the face of South Africa."
Certainly, the area is steeped in struggle history. Just around the corner from the
Mandela Family Museum is the Hector Pieterson Memorial and, even closer to Mandela's
house, the spot where Pieterson actually fell. Also close by, in Vilikazi Street, is
Desmond Tutu's house. Both Mandela and Tutu were Nobel Peace Prize winners. Mandela now
lives with his third wife, Graca Machel, widow of former Mozambique's Samora Machel. They
were married on Mandela's 80th birthday.
Although the Soweto house is now back in the hands of the Soweto Heritage Trust, plans for
its refurbishment are constantly delayed, says Zodwa Nxumalo, a member of the trust and
deputy chair of community development for the City of Johannesburg. Part of the problem,
she says, is that the house is a heritage site, and proposed alterations are placed under
scrutiny and often rejected.
Currently the museum does not make the grade as a high quality tourist experience and the
tour guides would certainly benefit from more training. The Soweto Heritage Trust is keen
to make the museum more tourist-friendly and monitor access to it more closely. This will
entail building an additional room onto the tiny house and creating a controlled access
point nearby. Nxumalo says tourists frequently arrive in busloads, take pictures of the
outside and then depart, without paying the R20 access fee. Furniture and carpets, which
have deteriorated under the incessant traffic, must be replaced and parts of the house
restored.
While the Soweto Heritage Trust wants to buy up several houses in the block, create a
tourist precinct and build a restaurant on a nearby hill, those who live near to the
famous little house aren't budging, says Nxumalo. |
Overnight at 
