Mandela house scores big with tourists

By Omulo Okoth

As teams fight it out in the South Africa’s magnificent stadia, delegations are falling over one another in a small, but famous corner of the south western townships of Johannesburg.

The Mandela Museum on 8115 Vilakazi Street, Orlando West, in Soweto (the acronym of South Western Townships) is teeming with people from around the world. This house, at the corner of Vilakazi and Ngakane Streets, is where the anti-apartheid icon popularly known as Madiba, lived in between 1946 and 1962. It is only a few metres away from the house of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, giving the road the elevated status of being the only street in the world where two Nobel laureates live.

Sports Editor, Omulo Okoth, was also among tourists who called at the museum last weekend. [PHOTOS: COURTESY AND OMULO OKOTH]

"We would go to sleep knowing the door would be knocked and sharp spotlights would be trained on us in the middle of the night," Winnie is recorded as saying.

Tourists pose for pictures inside the house where the Mandela statue stands at a corner, or beside the sideboard where there are pictures of other freedom icons like Thabo Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Steve Biko, among others.