South Africa

There are 11 official languages in South Africa. They are:

Afrikaans
English
Southern Ndebele
Northern Sotho
Sotho
Swati
Tsonga
Tswana
Venda
Xhosa
Zulu

Here are the different ways to write South Africa in each language:

Republiek van Suid-Afrika (Afrikaans)
Republic of South Africa (English)
IRiphabliki yeSewula Afrika (IsiNdebele)
IRiphabliki yaseMzantsi Afrika (IsiXhosa)
IRiphabliki yaseNingizimu Afrika (IsiZulu)
Rephaboliki ya Afrika-Borwa (Sepedi)
Rephaboliki ya Afrika Borwa (Sesotho)
Rephaboliki ya Aforika Borwa (Setswana)
IRiphabhulikhi yeNingizimu Afrika (SiSwati)
Riphabu%u1E3Diki ya Afurika Tshipembe (Tshivenda)
Riphabliki ra Afrika Dzonga (Xitsonga)

Capital: Pretoria

Government: Republic

Currency: Rand (ZAR)

Area:
total: 1,219,912 km2
land: 1,219,912 km2
water: 0 km2

Population: 43,647,658 (July 2002 est.)

Language: 11 official languages, which are Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga

Religion: Christian 68% (includes most whites and "Coloureds", about 60% of Blacks and about 40% of Indians), Muslim 2%, Hindu 1.5% (60% of Indians), indigenous beliefs and animist 28.5%

Electricity: 220-240V/50HZ (South Africa plug)

Calling Code: +27

Internet TLD: .za

Time Zone: UTC+2

One of the most significant and symbolically charged pieces of land in South Africa, Robben Island guards the entrance to Table Bay.

The name hails from the Dutch word for seals, "robbe". The island was home to Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned there along with other political prisoners. Now a living museum, the island and its ghosts are visited voluntarily. As a place of history, education and insight into South Africa's past, this is an essential excursion. The return boat trip (half an hour each way) to this World Heritage Site and a guided tour around the museum by an ex-inmate is an experience never to miss.

Bredie is the South African equivalent of a lamb stew. We have tomato bredie, pumpkin bredie, green bean bredie, cabbage bredie and the true South African specialty - waterblommetjie bredie. It is flavoured with sorrel or fresh lemon juice and just a touch of masala.

800 g lamb, cubed
30 ml (2 tablespoons) sunflower oil
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2,5 ml (1/2 teaspoon) masala
1 x 410g-tin tomatoes, chopped
125 ml (1/2 cup) white wine or lamb stock
8 baby potatoes, peeled
salt and pepper to taste
60 ml (4 tablespoons) fresh sorrel or fresh lemon juice to taste

1. Brown the lamb in the oil in a heavy saucepan. Transfer the meat to a dish. Cook the onions in the saucepan for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and masala and cook for 2 minutes.
2. Return the meat and collected juices to the saucepan with the tomatoes and white wine or lamb stock. Stir in ½ of the waterblommetjies and simmer for 1½ hours until the meat is tender. Add a bit of water to the bredie if it seems too dry. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Meanwhile, boil the baby potatoes until tender. Add the potatoes, the remaining waterblommetjies and the sorrel or lemon juice to the bredie. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve with basmati rice.

Makes 4 servings

Table Mountain is one of South Africa's greatest landmarks and towers 1,086m above the City of Cape Town.

It is visible from as far as 200 km out to sea on clear days and is often covered with cloud called the tablecloth. A revolving cable car carries visitors up and down in about 5 minutes and numerous walking and hiking paths lead up and across Table Mountain. Spectacular views of the city, the Cape peninsula, the coastline and the ocean can be seen from 11 viewpoints on the summit. Table Mountain is more than a place of dramatic scenic beauty, it is also a place of richly diverse flora. Over 1,470 plant species occur on the mountain, more than in the British Isles. Complimenting this is the fauna such as the Table Mountain Ghost Frog that is found nowhere else in the world. Consider yourself the poorer if you did not see Cape Town from this majestic mountain.

The Kirstenbosch Estate covers 528 hectares, 36 hectares make up the central landscaped garden on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, it is home to more than 8 500 indigenous plant species, and is known as one of the Seven Magnificent Botanical Gardens of the world.

Established in 1913, it only grows indigenous South African plants. Kirstenbosch is best known for its proteas (best in winter and spring) and summer sunset concerts and picnics. There are hiking trails through the fynbos as well as guided tours, including twilight nature walks. Kirstenbosch is a birdwatchers delight. Pack a picnic basket or have a meal at the restaurant. Don't forget to visit the Kirstenbosch shop or the Botanical Society Bookshop.

Since 1997, The South African national anthem has been a hybrid song combining new English lyrics with extracts of the hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" and the old South African anthem "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika/The Call of South Africa". It is the only neo-modal national anthem in the world, by virtue of being the only one that starts in one key and finishes in another. The lyrics employ the five most populous of South Africa's eleven official languages - Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza) and English (final stanza).

Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.

Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa South Afrika - South Afrika.

Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,

Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

21 March: Human Rights Day
During the Apartheid era there were human rights abuses by all sides; Human Rights Day is but one step to ensure that the people of South Africa are aware of their human rights and to ensure that such abuses never again occur.

27 April: Freedom Day
This was the day in 1994 when the first democratic election was held in South Africa, ie an election when all adults could vote irrespective of their race, and the day in 1997 when the new constitution took effect.

1 May: Worker's Day
Many countries around the world commemorate the contribution made by workers to society on May Day (America doesn't celebrate this holiday because of its communist origins). It has traditionally been a day to protest for better wages and working conditions. Given the role that trade unions played in the fight for freedom, it is unsurprising that South Africa commemorates this day.

16 June: Youth Day
In June 1976 students in Soweto rioted in protest against the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction of half their school curriculum, sparking eight months of violent uprisings across the country. Youth Day is a national holiday in honour of all the young people who lost their lives in the struggle against Apartheid and Bantu Education.

9 August: National Women's Day
On this day in 1956 some 20,000 women marched to the Union [government] Buildings in Pretoria to protest against a law requiring black women to carry passes. This day is celebrated as a reminder of the contribution made by women to society, the achievements that have been made for women's rights, and to acknowledge the difficulties and prejudices many women still face.

24 September: Heritage Day
Nelson Mandela coined the phrase "rainbow nation" to describe South Africa's diverse cultures, customs, traditions, histories, and languages. This day is a celebration of that diversity.

16 December: Day of Reconciliation
Afrikaners traditionally celebrated 16 December as the Day of the Vow, remembering the day in 1838 when a group of Voortrekkers defeated a Zulu army at the Battle of Blood River, while ANC activists commemorated it as the day in 1961 when the ANC started to arm its soldiers to overthrow Apartheid. In the new South Africa's it's a day of reconciliation, a day to focus on overcoming the conflicts of the past and building a new nation.

Biltong

Biltong is South African dried meat. The word comes from Dutch with BIL meaning buttock and TONG meaning strip. Biltong has been around for centuries; for instance, a more primitive form, the Dutch tassal, was also prepared in certain areas of France during the late Middle Ages. Tassal was also made in Batavia, and made its way to South Africa with the Dutch settlers where it was adapted to the less pungent biltong.

12.5 kg beef (top round or sirloin or London broil or eye of round)
560 g fine salt
125 ml brown sugar
25 ml bicarbonate of soda
10 ml salpetre (optional)
12.5 ml ground black pepper
125 ml coarsely ground coriander
250 ml red wine vinegar
2.5 liters warm water

Cut the meat along the natural dividing lines of the muscles of the particular piece of meat you have chosen. Cut the meat into strips of about 2 " thick and as long as you like, always cutting the meat with the grain.

Mix the salt, sugar, bicarbonate of soda (this makes the biltong tender), saltpeter, pepper and coriander together and rub the mixture into the strips of meat.

Layer the meat - with the more bulky pieces at the bottom - in a non-reactive container and sprinkle a little vinegar over each layer.

Leave the meat in a cool place for 12 hours or more, depending on how salty you want the meat to be (you may need to experiment a little until you find the right time to let the meat 'marinade'.

Mix the water and vinegar and dip the biltong into it (this makes it shiny and dark). Once this is complete, the meat is ready to dry. Pat the pieces of meat dry and hang them up on S-shaped hooks - or use pieces of string - about 2 " apart (so that the air can circulate freely among the strips of meat). There are many theories on how to dry biltong. Probably the most popular is to hang it in a cool, dry place with an oscillating fan blowing on it. It is very important that the air is dry. If there is too much moisture in the air, the meat will spoil.

The biltong is ready when the outside is hard, and the center part of the biltong strip is still a little moist. How dry or moist you allow the center to become is a matter of personal taste.

Makes about 10 Kg

This favorite Cape classic is one of the best-known traditional recipes. Brandy was first distilled from Cape grapes in 1672 and named "fire water." Today South African brandy is a far cry from the first rough attempts produced by a humble ship's cook. This Cape Brandy Pudding recipe serves six.

5 ml (1 tsp) bicarbonate of soda
250 g dates, stoned and finely chopped
250 ml boiling water
125 g(1/2cup) butter
500 ml (2 cups) sugar
2 eggs, beaten
500 ml (2 cups) cake flour
5 ml (1 tsp) baking powder
2 ml (½ tsp) salt
250 ml (1 cup) finely chopped walnuts or
pecan nuts
15 ml (3 tsp) butter or margarine
150 ml water
125 ml brandy
5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence
1 ml (¼ tsp) salt
Add bicarbonate of soda to 125 g dates and pour boiling water over. Mix well and leave to cool.
Cream 125 g butter and 250 ml (1 cup) sugar and beat in eggs. Mix well.
Sift flour, baking powder and 2 ml (½ tsp) salt over creamed mixture and fold in.
Add remaining dates and nuts, mixing well.
Stir in date mixture. Mix thoroughly, then turn batter into a large baking dish and bake at 180 degrees Celsius until done, about 40 minutes.
Heat remaining butter, sugar, and water for 5 minutes.
Remove from stove and stir in brandy, vanilla essence and salt.
Pour over pudding as soon as it is done. Serve hot or cold with whipped cream. May also be served topped with Amarula cream liqueuer. Or serve with Almond Ice Cream and Strawberries, as shown in the photo.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is the former President of South Africa, and the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He spent nearly three decades in prison for his struggle against apartheid.

Through his 27 years in prison, much of it spent in a cell on Robben Island, Mandela became the most widely known figure in the struggle against apartheid. Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a cultural icon as a proponent of freedom and equality.

The apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists, and he became a figure of hatred among many South African whites, supporters of apartheid, and opponents of the ANC.

Following his release from prison in 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even among white South Africans and former opponents.

Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela. Mandela, on his 89th birthday launched an initiative called Global Elders, a group of 12 wise men and women, who will address global problems by offering expertise and guidance.

(courtesy Wikipedia)

Blending Western technology with indigenous technology, Western traditions with African and Asian traditions, South Africa is a study in contrasts. It also provides lessons in how cultures can sometimes blend, sometimes collide: for example, within a short distance of one another can be found the villas of South Africa's white elite and the tar-paper shacks of black day labourers, office buildings with the most sophisticated electronic wiring and one-room houses that lack electricity. A great gulf still exists between the white minority and the black majority in matters of education and economic opportunity. Yet, South Africa is making steady progress in erasing some of these historic disparities and their consequences. Daily life is better for most of its people, and culture and the arts, which sometimes were forced into exile, are flourishing in the free climate of the postapartheid era.

According to the latest 2001 national census, Christians accounted for 79.7% of the population. This includes Zion Christian 11.1%, Pentecostal (Charismatic) 8.2%, Catholic 7.1%, Methodist 6.8%, Dutch Reformed 6.7%, Anglican 3.8%, and other Christian 36%. Islam accounted for 1.5% of the population, Hinduism about 1.3%. 15.1% had no religious affiliation, 2.3% were other and 1.4% were unspecified.

African Indigenous Churches were the largest of the Christian groups. It was believed that many of these persons who claimed no affiliation with any organised religion adhered to traditional indigenous religions. Many persons combined Christian and traditional indigenous religious practices.

Islam in South Africa probably pre-dates the colonial period, and consisted of isolated contact with Arab and East African traders. Many South African Muslims are described as Coloureds, notably in the Western Cape, including those whose ancestors came as slaves from the Indonesian archipelago (the Cape Malays). Others are described as Indians, notably in KwaZulu-Natal, including those whose ancestors came as traders from South Asia; they have been joined by others from other parts of Africa as well as white or black South African converts. It is estimated that Islam is the fastest growing religion of conversion in the country, with the number of black Muslims growing sixfold, from 12,000 in 1991 to 74,700 in 2004.

Hinduism in South Africa dates back to British Colonial period primarily but later waves of continuous immigrants from India have contributed to sizeable Hindu population.Most Hindus are predominantly ethnically South Asians but there are many who come from mixed racial stock and many are converts with the efforts of Hindu missionaries such as ISKCON.

(courtesy Wikipedia)

For the more daring diner, South Africa offers culinary challenges from crocodile sirloins to fried caterpillars to sheep heads. All three are reputed to be delicious. For the not-quite so brave, there are myriad indigenous delicacies such as biltong (dried, salted meat), bobotie (a much-improved version of Shepherd's pie) and boerewors (hand-made farm sausages, grilled on an open flame).

Those who prefer to play it altogether safe will find that most eateries offer a familiar global menu - anything from hamburgers to sushi to pad thai to spaghetti bolognaise. And you can drink the water.

On a single street in a Johannesburg suburb, one finds Italian restaurants, two or three varieties of Chinese cookery, Japanese, Moroccan, French, Portuguese and Indian food, both Tandoor and Gujarati. Not far away are Congolese restaurants, Greek, even Brazilian and Korean establishments, and, everywhere, fusion, displaying the fantasies of creative chefs.

It's not much different in the other major centres, such as Cape Town or Durban. Restaurant guides that categorise eateries by national style list close to two dozen, including Vietnamese and Swiss.

Those in search of authentic South African cuisine have to look harder for those few establishments that specialise in it - like the justly famous Gramadoelas in central Johannesburg, Wandie's Place in Soweto, the Africa Café in central Cape Town or smaller restaurants in that city's Bo-Kaap, in Khayelitsha and Langa.

Or one can watch for glimmers of the real thing. There are varieties of biltong in every café, in big cities and little dorps. Every weekend there wafts from neighbourhoods rich and poor the smell of spicy sosaties being grilled over the braai. Steak houses may specialise in flame-grilled aged sirloin, but they also offer boerewors.

And sometimes, in posh restaurants, there is the occasional fusion dish - not the common merger of east and west, but north and south: marinated ostrich carpaccio at Sage in Pretoria, oxtail ravioli with saffron cream sauce at Bartholomeus Klip in Hermon on the Cape west coast, even Tandoori crocodile at the Pavilion in the Marine hotel in Hermanus.

There is crocodile on the menu and kudu, impala, even warthog at a number of restaurants that offer game. But there won't be seagull, mercifully, or penguin. Both were staple foods for the strandlopers (or beachcombers) - a community of Khoi who lived on the Cape shore - and the Dutch and Portuguese sailors who made landfall there.

It was the search for food that shaped modern South Africa: spices drew the Dutch East India Company to Java in the mid-1600s, and the need for a half-way refreshment stop for its ships rounding the Cape impelled the Company to plant a farm at the tip of Africa. There are sections of Commander Jan van Riebeeck's wild almond hedge still standing in the Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town.

That farm changed the region forever. The Company discovered it was easier to bring in thousands of hapless slaves from Java to work in the fields than to keep trying to entrap the local people, mostly Khoi and San, who seemed singularly unimpressed with the Dutch and their ways. The Malay slaves brought their cuisine, perhaps the best-known of all South African cooking styles.

The French Huguenots arrived soon after the Dutch, and changed the landscape in wonderful ways with the vines they imported. They soon discovered a need for men and women to work in their vineyards, and turned to the Malay slaves (and the few Khoi and San they could lure into employment).

Much later, sugar farmers brought indentured labourers from India to cut the cane. The British, looking for gold and empire, also brought their customs and cuisine, as did German immigrants.

And black communities carried on eating their traditional, healthy diet: game, root vegetables and wild greens, berries, millet, sorghum and maize, and protein-rich insects like locusts.

Today the resultant kaleidoscope - the famous "rainbow" - applies not only to the people but to the food, for one finds in South Africa the most extraordinary range of cuisines.