Eikestad

Stellenbosch is considered to be one of South Africa’s most beautiful villages. Located at the foot of the mountains in a fertile valley, the scenery couldn’t be more beautiful. The place is named after it’s founder, the Dutchman governor Simon Van Der Stel, and meant “Stel’s bush”. Back in the day, people did not think this had a double meaning (you perv.). Van Der Stel is seen as the founder of Cape Town in name of the VOC and had a major influence on the area. One of those influences was importing oak trees.

South African trees did not grow tall and straight, so they were not ideal to make timber wood off. That is why Simon Van Der Stel started growing European oak trees. Today the city still has the nickname “Eikestad” (oak city). As you can imagine, you can still find a lot of oak trees in the streets.

Diving

I now have my official diving certificate issued by PADI. PADI ( Professional Association of Diving Instructors) is a worldwide diving association, and one of the biggest in the business. The organization checks affiliated diving schools on how they perform and how they operate. This way they guarantee safe and adequate diving assistance to scuba divers. So if I rock up to an other country and walk into a PADI dive shop I know I’ll be in good hands. Scuba itself is an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. But because that is a mouthful and sounds cocky, scuba became a word on itself. What scuba really means is diving with compressed air (not oxygen) in tanks, but that you should’ve guessed by now. With the open water certificate I attained now, I am allowed to dive down to 18 meters. So now the fun can really start. There are many different types of dives: adventure dives (looking for hidden objects with a map), wreck dives (following marked routes in wrecks), night dives, orientation dives (with map and compass), explorer dives (looking for specific sea life)… All of which I am very keen to do of course. There are many more types of certificates I can attain, let’s see which others I might get.

Vuvuzela

The ancestor of the vuvuzela is said to be the kudu horn - ixilongoin isiXhosa, mhalamhala in Tshivenda - blown to summon African villagers to meetings. Later versions were made of tin.
The trumpet became so popular at football matches in the late 1990s that a company, Masincedane Sport (curses be upon them), was formed in 2001 to mass-produce it. Made of plastic, they come in a variety of colours - black or white for fans of Orlando Pirates, yellow for Kaizer Chiefs, and so on - with little drawings on the side warning against blowing in the ear!
There's uncertainty on the origin of the word "vuvuzela". Some say it comes from the isiZulu for - wait for it - "making noise". Others say it's from township slang related to the word "shower", because it "showers people with music" - or, more prosaically, looks a little like a shower head.
The announcement, on 15 May 2004, that South Africa would host the 2010 Fifa World Cup gave the vuvuzela a huge boost, to say the least - some 20 000 were sold on the day by enterprising street vendors.
It's a noisy thing, so there's no surprise some don't like it. Journalist Jon Qwelane once quipped that he had taken to watching football matches at home - with the volume turned low - because of what he described as "an instrument of hell". (source: http://www.southafrica.info/2010/vuvuzela.htm)