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| Lightning strikes Hillbrow Tower in Gauteng. Photo credit: GoodThingsGuy.com |
Orange streetlights spill into the darkness. The robot turns
red. Shift down, accelerate, fly through. A driver never stops in this city.
Lightning strikes sideways across the sky, and a single bolt
strikes at the needle-like tower at the city center. No one blinks.
On a quiet side street, a constant buzz. On top of the walls
of each house hums a trio of electric wires. In the next neighborhood over, bottle
shards top the walls. Unannounced visitors should knock first.
Along the roadside, open fires burn, melding eerily with the
dim streetlights. Two shadowy figures huddle amidst the swirling smoke. It will
be a cold night.
As the sun rises, the streets teem with activity. Fruit trees shine in their green glory. Buses hurtle past,
screeching to a stop as passengers flash hand signals to the driver. Students
trot to school in uniform. Fruit vendors fill the sidewalk. Tradesmen hawk
their wares at the traffic light. Walking past a seemingly empty lot one peers over
the fence to see a swarm of people, working below ground to erect a massive
skyscraper. This city is surging forward, unified in the belief of the freedom to make a rand on the Witswatersrand. This is the City of Gold, dug from the bowels of the earth, laid
brick by brick, a bustling place at the heart of the province with nearly the
same name:
Welcome to Gotham, Gauteng.
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| Jo-burg CBD |
It is a city with Two Faces. The Gau-train rumbles past handsome estates, shack cities and belching coal plants.
It is a city of Jokers with international acclaim, Riddled with opportunity and ridden with crime.
Its wild Penguins cannot be trusted, their tuxedos and suits merely a guise for greed and corruption.
It is the ultimate Scarecrow, whisking away potential visitors with violent lullabies.
If you live nearby, you avoid a visit.
If you visit Gotham, you leave in a hurry.
If you live in another city, you know every reason why Gotham is the world's most miserable place to be. After all, you could die there.
But those who ride its streets know that the city's richness doesn't just come through the gold pumping through its subterranean veins.
Here, segregation is broken by the hilly landscape, with no mountains to separate people.
The entire continent flocks to Gotham's doorstep.
This is where music is made.
Where cultures collide.
Where languages are born. After all, Sifanakaloku - we are all the same.
Yho! Here was the very origin of humankind!
And in the spring - every tree is set ablaze with the purple petals of a million Jacaranda trees.
In the day Gotham comes to life.
But every night, this city needs a superhero.
