The Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the size of Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria combined. It's population is only 60 million though
which is the same as France's population. The Congo is probably the African country most written about. That is because its history is exemplary of a lot of African countries.
Although first contacts with Portugese explorers in the 15th century were peaceful and based on mutual respect and exchange of courtesies, soon after, domination of Whites over Blacks began.
Slaves were traded form the Congo basin to the rest of Africa and the World by Whites, and in the East Arab slavers enslaved entire villages at a time.
Famous explorers like Livingstone and most notably Stanley mapped the Dark Heart of Africa, triggering interest of the Belgian King Leopold II and others.
But it was the Belgian King that managed to claim this vast country as his personal property. After fighting the Arabs, the Belgians installed a reign of terror to force Congolese to harvest rubber and
dig out copper. They used a "divide and rule" tactic amongst the many Congolese tribes and used cannibalistic tribes as allies, promising them the meat of their victims.
Although certainly some good intentions were involved, and parts of the country were developed, everything evolved around exploiting natural richness.
When the Congolese fought for their independance, acquiered now exactly 50 years ago, Belgians kept trying to secure their access to natural resources. They assasinated Patrice
Lumumba and installed Mobutu Sese Seko as president of the Congo. Mobutu turned out to be one of the worst African rulers.
Unfortunately the atrocities, misgovernment, corruption, civil wars, poverty and other horrors found in Congo's recent history are found in other African countries. Many claim
that the ideas behind these terrible things occured first in the Congo, and were then taken over by other countries

Super XIV rugby

Southern Hemisphere Rugby

The Super 14 Rugby tournament is a competition between the top provincial teams in the Southern Hemisphere. This tournament is arguably the best in the world and has 5 South African teams, 5 teams from New Zealand and 4 from Australia. Most of the players of the national teams of these countries play in one of the teams of the Super 14. So that definitely adds to the excitement and level of the games played. The Stormers are the team for Western Province, and play their games in the capital of this province: Cape Town (what a nice coincidence). They have been performing

average in the past years, but this year was their best year ever. For the first time they made it to the finals, but were beaten by the Blue Bulls.

Of course, the fact that it was an all South African final was a huge achievement in itself that was proudly emphasized by commentators here.

Townships

A "township" is a term from the Apartheid era, and refers to an urban area where none-whites live. I guess the term itself can be used as a synonym for ghetto, favella, borough, shantytown maybe even slum... because they are all very alike.But if you look closely at the description, you'll notice that a township has nothing to do with the type of houses. Indeed townships can have the whole range from normal brik houses down to little shacksout of plates of corrugated iron. A squatter camp is different in the sense that it is illegal: people moved there and started living there although it was not approved by the goyvernment.Most cities have townships, and they vary from well organized - having tarred roads and electricity, running water, sewage, garbage collection - to not organized at all.Gugulethu is one of the biggest townships of Cape Town, housing mainly Xhosa speaking South Africans. The name is a contraction of "igugu lethu", which is Xhosa for "our pride".

Mozambique

Mozambique is a neighbouring country to South Africa, bordering on the north east. The capital is Maputo, and lies in the far south of the country, about an hours drive from the Kruger national park. Mozambique became independent in 1975 after a 13 year long lasting war between the guerilla forces and the Portuguese army. The Portuguese had occupied parts of the land along the coastline for around 500 years, mainly serving their lucrative trade with the far east. The civil war was not the only evil that struck, natural disasters and economic mismanagement deepened the problems. This leads to a low average annual income of $ 370 per capita for the 23 million Mozambiquans. Official language is still Portuguese (next to other languages), and the majority of the population is christian, clearly showing the influence of the colonists.

AWB leader murdered

Eugene Terreblanche was the president and leader of the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (AWB). The political party is extreme right and very racist. He pleaded to re-install apartheid and was a forefighter of racial discrimination. Back in the '90s he had quite some followers, but the last few years the number of followers were like his ideas: marginal. He saw himself as a new Hitler, and was not afraid to say so. This can be seen in the flag the AWB has (see picture), very much like the Nazi Swatsika.

He was brutally murdered by two of his black domestic workers, one 28 years old, the other only 15. They jumped him in his sleep and bashed his skull withand iron rod. Their motive was that they had not been paid for their work since December 2009. Some argue that this murder was inspired by the hatespeech of Julius Malema, the ANC Youth president who has been trying to get the "Kill the Boer" song registered as national heritage. That song was used by black anti-Apartheid fighters in the 90's and calls to kill whites. It says "one Boer one bullet"; A "Boer" means peasant aka white South African.

South Africa's constitution

South Africa's Constitution was the result of remarkably detailed and inclusive negotiations - difficult but determined - that were carried out with an acute awareness of the injustices of the country's non-democratic past.
It is widely regarded as the most progressive constitution in the world, with a Bill of Rights second to none.
Human rights are given clear prominence in the Constitution: "a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights". These are then further spelt out in detail. Very important ones, especially compared to other countries on the continent are: freedom of sexuality (often also seen als sexing freely) and freedom of expression. The latter entails that South Africa has free press, which can be a very strong weapon against bad gouvernment.

All in all, with so many good intentions aligned in one text, a good reason to have a day off and do nothing... because everyone feels to have that right now and then.

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.