Animals in South Africa

Penguin in South Africa

• The African penguin, is a species of penguin confined to southern African waters.
• Where to find them? – Ten islands and two mainland sites support the African penguin.
• The African penguin is a very popular attraction in South Africa and many tourists in South Africa want to see them in their special beaches and islands.

African Penguin – distribution, habitat and behavior

• Diet – Sardines, Anchovies, Squid and Crustaceans.
• Population – According to 2010 the number is 55,000.
• Habitat – Islands and beaches only at the South-Western coast of Africa
• Breeding – Monogamous, two eggs at a time, incubation takes 40 days.
• Lifespan – 10 to 27 years in the wild, and up to 30 years in captivity.
• Primary predators – Sharks and Seals, while nesting Gulls, Mongooses and Caracals.

Animals in South Africa

South African Reptiles

• the reptiles are one of the largest groups of animals in south africa.

•  the reptiles include animals from turtles to crocodiles.

• there are more than 200 species of reptiles in south africa.

the South African iconic reptiles:

• the nile crocodile

• the black mamba

• the leopard tortoise

• the brown house snake

• the boomslang

Famous people from South Africa

Nathaniel Isaacs

• Nathaniel Isaacs was an English adventurer who played a part in the history of Natal, South Africa. He wrote a book, called Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa.
• Isaacs born in Canterbury, England into a Jewish family.
• In June 1825 he convince his uncle to allow him to accompany Lieutenant King, captain of the boat The Mary to South Africa as the captain’s companion.
•  King sailed from Cape Town to Port Natal to search for the adventurers Francis Farewell– an East India merchant, and Francis Fynn– a physician. from whom nothing had been heard for eighteen months.
• He was friend of the powerful King Shaka of the Zulus and he was treated with favour, at the time the Zulu Empire was at its peak influence in South Africa. He records his impressions of the Zulu people and their customs which are particularly interesting.
• The Zulu or also known as Amazulu, are the largest ethnic group in South Africa with an 10–12 million people living in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. 
• The Zulu believe in Christianity, but have created a syncretic religion that is combined with the Zulu’s belief systems.
• Beadwork is worn by all men, women, and children at any age, Depending on which stage of life an individual is in, the beadwork indicates different meanings.
•  The men wore a leather belt with two strips of hide hanging down front and back, women wore traditional mini skirts that called isigcebhezana.
• The men and women both serve different purposes in society in order to function as a whole.
•  In 1828 King Shaka made Isaacs “Induna Incoola”, or Principal Chief of Natal, and granted him great areas of land.
• Most of what has been written about Shaka comes from the report of Henry Francis Fynn and Isaacs who learned to speak the Zulu language.
• Farewell, Fynn and Isaacs renamed Durban, which became the second largest city in South Africa in modern times.

Famous people from South Africa

Elon Musk

Elon Reeve Musk, was born in June 28, 1971. he was Born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa when he was 17 he moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University.

in may 2002 musk  founded spaceX. SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. the company’s goal is to enable living on other plants.

in 2008 the company launged their first rocket “FALCON 1 “  Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit.

today elons’s net worth is 40 billion USD

did south africa disappointed Musk?

The south african are very proud to say that elon musk is one of their own because he’s on of the most successful people in the world. But actually’ Elon has left the country has soon as he could, when he was a child he got bullied a lot, so much that one time he had to have an emergency surgery because few kids from his school hitted him so badly. after he left’ the school contacted him asking for money, he agreed to donated a million dollars in one condition, that they will never contact him again.

elon and The whole Musk family felt let down by the school and the country in general – according to Elon’s father, Errol, the attackers weren’t punished and the incident was passed off as a case of “boys being boys“.

The South African culture

south african music

Popular music in South Africa is usually at a variable tempo and vocal harmonies. This geographical area is recognizes by different tools, such as the iron bell and many strange harps.

There are rhythmic principles common to sub-Saharan African traditions. These principles actually constitute one main system. The principles on which music is based are similar, but their use varies by region, state, and ethnic group.

Mbaqanga is a style that grew in the 1960s when Western tools blended with local Zulu melodies and the combination became popular with both black and white South Africans.                               This is considered the music of the struggle for liberation.

Popular music in South Africa also had a role in the war on apartheid.

Isicathamiya is a musical style that developed in the 19th century for black South Africans who worked in the mines and sang about the difficulties of their lives in a-chapel harmonies. From this music we learn about the resistance of the people of South Africa who have developed the type of music so that the miners do not hear them.

The South African culture

Golf

South Africa is a golfer’s paradise, with exceptional weather and magnificent golf courses located in areas of pristine beauty. 

 Golf in South Africa has a long and illustrious history and South Africa is one of the great golfing nations. Golf is easily the best individual sports event that South African participatesouth africa has a golf championship called “African Open Championship”.The South African Open Championship is one of the oldest national open golf championships in the world.According to the South African Golf Association, there are more than 450 affiliated golf clubs serving more than 125,000 golfers.

South Africa

Climate of South Africa

• South Africa is a sunny country.   In most areas sun shines on average  8 to 10 hours a day.
• In summer rain comes unexpectedly without warning.
• The highest rainfall is in the  east.
• The rainy season is summer and usually accompanied by short thunderstorms in the afternoons.
• The country’s eastern coast is characterized by a high-humidity tropical climate and many precipitation.
• Summer season is the rainy season and the hottest and the most moist (Summer season is November to February).
• In the autumn season, weather is ideal. During the day is pleasant and the night is a little cold (autumn season is from March to April).
• During the winter season it’s cold and dry. The most cold period is between July and August. (Winter season is from May to September).
• In the spring season nature blooms, the average temperatures in this season ranges from 25C-30C to a combined degrees of pleasant winds (Spring season is from September to November).

South Africa

Diamond mines in South Africa

The diamond business in South Africa is a major part of the economy.  South Africa is rich in the quarries and sits on the greatest world stratum of diamonds and gold. Actually, After more than 150 years of intensive mining following the discovery of the Eureka Diamond on the banks of the Orange River  in 1867 and it was  the first diamond and it weighed 21.25 carats.      

Venetia Mine is South Africa’s largest producer of diamonds ,only in 2017, over 60% of South Africa’s diamonds came from the Venetia Mine. 

In 2019 South Africa produced 7.2 million carats of diamonds. 

The underground mining and recovery of diamonds continues to this day in the vicinity of Kimberley, the site of the early main discoveries in the 19th century. It is, however, on limited scale with a major focus on reprocessing old tailings dumps to recover diamonds left behind by older recovery processes. 

On the map we can see where there are diamonds mines in different regions in south Africa.

The biggest diamond producing mine in South Africa is Venetia. It produced 4.2Mct of diamonds in 2018. Venetia is also the world’s eighth-largest diamond mine.

THE APARTHEID

Nelson Mandela

• Nelson Mandela was born on the 18th July 1918 in the village of Mvezo, South Africa
• Mandela’s African name “Rolihlahla” means “troublemaker.”
• Nelson Mandela had a hard life, his father died when he was 9 years old.
• Nelson studied at school and later learn in University of Fort Hare, the South African Native College.

then moved to the city of Johannesburg to study law at the University of the Witwatersrand.
He was finally a lawyer at the age of 24 in 1942 and became South Africa’s first black lawyers.

• Nelson Mandela was the first leader of South Africa  against the apartheid.
• Nelson Mandela was the president of South Africa from 1994-1999.
  He was the first black president of South Africa, and the first president to be elected in a fully representative election.
  
  Nelson Mandela’s government focused on destroying the Apartheid government in the country, which had focused on racial segregation (הפרדה גזעית) enforced by the law
• In the 1950s, he was elected leader of the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC
• When the government Not approved the ANC for racial reasons, Mandela organized a secret military movement.
  In the past he been involved in peaceful protests(הפגנות) but when they were met with violence from the government he went on to support an armed movement.
• Mandela was Was in jail from 1962-1990 for treason and conspiracy(בגידה וקשירת קשר) against the government. He was sentenced(נידון) to life in prison, Finally he released early when the ANC became legal again.
  While he was in prison, Mandela was a symbol to the Nameless ones in South Africa who were fighting for rights.
• Mandela is considered to the father of Modern South Africa.
  He has helped for the ending of the oppressive government (Apartheid) and beginning democracy. Because of these things,in 1993 he won Nobel Peace Prize
  In addition to the Nobel peace Prize, he won over 250 other awards.
• In 2009, the United Nations proclaimed Mandela’s birthday (July 18th) to be Nelson Mandela International Day. The holiday asks people to spend 67 minutes doing something good for others, which represents the 67 years he spent working toward change.

THE APARTHEID

Traditional Food

• South African cuisine includes cookery practiced by indigenous people of Africa.
• The cuisine is not rated as a gourmet cuisine in this country and as such it is very much a home cuisine.

The colonial influences

• The colonial influences include that of white European people of mostly Dutch, German, French and British.
• The latter includes the cuisine of the “Cape Malay” people, which has many characteristics of Indonesia.
• Sometimes it called “ The Rainbow Cuisine” because of it diversity.