Plep is visiting South Africa. Updates here! Or you might like to check out the following :-
Nkosi Johnson.'Twelve year old Nkosi Johnson, who became the symbol of the battle against HIV/AIDS in South Africa, was given a hero's burial in Johannesburg on Saturday June 9, 2001 in a funeral attended by thousands of mourners, including the former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda. Nkosi lost his own fight against AIDS when he died on 1 June, after slipping into a coma just before the New Year. His adoptive mother, Gail Johnson, who took in the young AIDS orphan when he was two, and his maternal grandmother, Ruth Khumalo, were united in their grief, and both wept as Nkosi's white and gold casket was lowered into the grave at Westpark Cemetery in Johannesburg. '
The Mandela Page and Mandela for President posters.
Bewitched Forests and Waters of the VhaVenda. 'If you leave or enter the Kruger National Park through the Pafuri or Punda Maria gates, you will see the Soutpansberg, South Africa's northernmost mountain range. The name means "salt pan range", and refers to a salt lake in the west, but author T.V. Bulpin calls them the Superstition Mountains. They have earned the title at least as much as their American counterparts. Here are magical pools and waterfalls, and forests that Bulpin described as "reputedly so full of ghosts that few men dare to wander through them." Here live the Venda people, for whom, according to the traveller John Richards, "the mountains and streams - and even the trees - are inhabited by spirits." If you have driven through the Kruger National Park north of the Luvuvhu River, you have already travelled through country which the VhaVenda claim as their own ... '
Gandhi in Durban.
San Rock Paintings. 'A complete view of South African Art should include our earliest artists.The San ( Bushmen or Basarwa ) were the first known inhabitants of the subcontinent of Africa. Thanks to Archaeological excavations and rock paintings we can today attempt a better understanding of this complex society. Our rich heritage of rock art, gives us a glimpse into the daily lives of these early inhabitants ... '
Anglo-Boer War Museum (and British concentration camps.) 'In early March 1901 Lord Kitchener decided to break the stalemate that the extremely costly war had settled into. It was costing the British taxpayer £2,5 million a month. He decided to sweep the country bare of everything that can give sustenance to the Boers i.e. cattle, sheep, horses, women and children.'
'This scorched earth policy led to the destruction of about 30000 Boer farmhouses and the partial and complete destruction of more than forty towns.. Thousands of women and children were removed from their homes by force.They had little or no time to remove valuables before the house was burnt down. They were then taken by oxwagon or in open cattle trucks to the nearest camp ... '
Shaka Zulu. 'Towards the end of the 18th century, all over southern Africa small tribal groups were amalgamating into larger communities. This was by no means a peaceful process, but the result of protracted wars. The rise of the Zulu Kingdom falls into this period. Through incredible atrocities and cruelties the infamous Zulu warrior Shaka gained control over a number of Zulu clans. He expanded his territory systematically. Shaka's warriors raided Zulu villages and burnt them down. Women and children were gored to death; young men were called up and chiefs tortured and forced into allegiance ... '
The Black Sash. 'Here for good.'
The Owl House. 'Helen Martins lay ill in bed one night, with the moon shining in through the window, and considered how dull and grey her life had become. She resolved, there and then, that she would strive to bring light and colour into her life. That simple decision, to embellish her environment, was to grow into an obsessive urge to express her deepest feelings, her dreams and her desires. '
Pictures of the Owl House and Camel Yard.
Feed South Africa. Donate by mouseclick.
The de Klerk Foundation. 'Based on South Africa's unique experience in managing and resolving conflict within its own highly complex multiethnic and multicultural society, the F W de Klerk Foundation is dedicated to working for peace in such societies throughout Africa and the world - and to continuing to strive for positive relations between South Africa's diverse communities. '
Tutu Peace Foundation. 'Desmond Tutu kept hope alive in the hearts and minds of millions of South Africans during Apartheid with a powerful vision that justice would come, freedom was unstoppable and one-day all South Africans would be free.'
Robben Island. 'For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, 12 kilometres from Cape Town, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here that rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society.
'During the apartheid years Robben Island became internationally known for its institutional brutality. The duty of those who ran the Island and its prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison for their beliefs. '
'Those imprisoned on the Island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison 'hell-hole' into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Robben Island came to symbolise, not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.'
South African Museums.
Mapungubwe. Home of the golden rhinoceros.
Cape Medical Museum. 'The Cape Medical Museum reflects medical history with an emphasis on both western and traditional medicine at the Cape '
South African Communist Party Historical Documents.
Afrikaans Language Monument.
ANC History.
The Daily Summit covered the World Summit in Johannesburg earlier this year.
Plep is normally here.
Plep's US Trip. For something completely different.
