Public Library

Port Elizabeth's Main Library stands next to the Market Square across the road from the City Hall. The original building on the site used to be a courthouse of which one room was used as a library. The present building was opened in 1902 and was given over exclusively as a library. The architecture is regarded as an excellent example of Victorian Gothic while the terracotta facade was manufactured in England and actually sent out by ship in numbered pieces to be reassembled on the site. The library has an excellent Africana collection that included a lot of 1820 Settler material. The other notable feature of the building is its stained glass windows.

Immediately in front of the library is the commanding figure of Queen Victoria. The statue is made of Sicilian marble and was unveiled in 1903 as celebration of her Diamond Jubilee which took place in 1897. It wasn't a case of the inhabitants of the Cape Colony being late in celebration, it just took them 6 years to raise the funds to erect the statue.

Ensuring the survival of the species

I noticed that this is my 100th post. I didn't realise that I've done so many. So how do I celebrate my "blog century". I went scratching around my photo stock and decided to post a one in a hundred (or probably more one in a hundred thousand) photo.

This pic was taken in the Addo Elephant National Park. They released lions into Addo about 6 years ago and at first people struggled to even find them. Since then the lions have settled in very nicely and more and more people spot them. On this day we found this male and female next to the road near one of the waterholes. The male just casually got up, ambled over to the female and presented us with that special moment that not a lot of people actual get to see in real life in the wild. Apparently when the female is in heat, the male is capable of mating with her every 20 minutes. That takes some doing... uhm.... I mean yes, very average. I will still do a post on lions to give more information on their habits and way of life. I'm just a bit lazy tonight.

Kermit's cousins

There are many different varieties of frogs in Southern Africa, some of them big and others small. Today I have two pics of some of the smaller frogs we have in this part of the world. Now I've never pretended to be some frog expert, so I went to look up their names in one of my animal books. If I'm not 100% on target, well bad luck then. I tried my bestest.

This little guy is a Clicking Stream Frog. I spotted him one day on a trip down the Storms River Pass in the Tsitsikamma. We were having picnic under the trees next to the river when I saw the movement between the leaves. His camouflage is excellent and I count myself lucky to have been able to see him.

This one, although smaller was easy to see. The Painted Reed Frog is one of those little ones you normally only hear clicking in the reeds and grasses near water. We sommer call them "tree frogs", but there are many different types of "tree frogs". He was sitting on a wooden deck at the Seaview Game and Lion Park and the other people there were looking at me very funny crawling along on all fours on the deck to get some pics on his level.

Nelson Mandela Square

I was in Johannesburg over the last couple of days at the SoccerEx exhibition. The exhibition took place at the Sandton Convention Centre. Sandton is a very (and I mean VERY) upmarket area with hotels, shopping centres and corporate office headquarters. One of the most upmarket complexes is Nelson Mandela Square. It consist of a shopping centre on the lower levels and offices at the top. At the entrance to the big courtyard stands a statue of one of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century. Nelson Mandela. You can read more about this great man at the end of this post.

The six metre high bronze statue depicts him doing his very famous "Madiba shuffle". As I have mentioned before, I live in Port Elizabeth which is part of the metropolitan area of Nelson Mandela Bay. It is the only town or city in South Africa that was allowed to take use his name.

I got the following short biography on Wikipedia, so if you want to read the whole life story of Nelson Mandela, go here.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born 18 July 1918, was the first President of South Africa to be elected in a fully representative democratic election, serving in the office from 1994–1999. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of the African National Congress' armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. The South African courts convicted him on charges of sabotage, as well as other crimes committed while he lead the movement against apartheid. In accordance with his conviction, Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island.
Both in South Africa and internationally, Mandela's opposition to apartheid made him a symbol of freedom and equality for many. However, the apartheid government and various other nations condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.
Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela, supporting reconciliation and negotiation, helped lead the transition towards multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, many have frequently praised Mandela, including 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.

In the wake ...

Everybody (well I hope everybody) knows that South Africa will be hosting the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010. In the 4 years preceding the World Cup, the host country hosts SoccerEx. It is an exhibition covering every aspect of soccer. SoccerEx is being hosted in Sandton, Johannesburg from Monday 24 November 2008 - Wednesday 26 November. The organisation I work for is an sharing exhibitor at this year's SoccerEx and our CEO was supposed to go. Late on Friday afternoon he found out that there will be something requiring his attention early in the week and the responsibility of representing our organisation fell on my shoulders. IN THE WAKE (excuse the pun) of this I won't be able to do posts for the next two or three days, but I will definitively be back on Thursday. The wake above was taken behind the Sundays River Ferry while on the way to the Colchester dunes.

VW AutoPavilion

I think I have said so before, but in case not here it is again. Port Elizabeth is part of the metropolitan area of Nelson Mandela Bay along with the towns of Uitenhage, Despatch and Colchester as well as all the surrounding country side. In the 1980's the area was known as the Detroit of South Africa due to all the motor industries in the city. Today we still have quite a lot of motor related industries in the metro. Both General Motors and Volkswagen has big plants in the metro while Ford has an engine plant. There are also various catalytic converter plants, tyre manufacturers like Continental, Firestone and Goodyear as well as many smaller component manufacturers.

The VW factory is situated in Uitenhage, about 35km north of Port Elizabeth, and attached to the factory is the VW AutoPavilion. The AutoPavilion is a museum to the history of VW. The museum is a very modern one with a lot of activities and interaction. It has various exhibits of milestone cars like the last beetle to be produced in South Africa.

Some of the interactive displays are a racing simulator, a new VW Beetle being cut in half, general knowledge consuls and a green screen behind an old Beetle. The museum is well worth a visit for both young and old. In actual fact I have seen kids looking quite bored while the fathers were having a great time. I have had the pleasure to visit a couple of times and always enjoy the visit. I think its time for me to take Chaos Boy (I just need to tie his hands behind his back) to have a look at the cars.

Township kiddies

If you ever go on a proper Township Tour the guide will probably take you to one of the local schools or creches that their company supports. One of the tours I went on a little while ago took us to a community project that started as a feeding scheme for small children and developed into a day care and pre-school. Although the tour company gives the project a percentage of the fee that tourists pay for the tour, visitors always make some donations to the school or take along stationary and the like. Through the help of tourists many such projects are run throughout the townships of Port Elizabeth.

The kids always love it when the visitors take pictures of them during the visits. After the photos is taken they all line up to see the image on the camera's screen. The photo may not be a artistic picture of any kind, but I love the emotion from the kids. It doesn't matter what kind of circumstances these kids live in, they are always happy, laughing and playing. Enjoying life, even if they are being short changed. I often think that kids in rich neighbourhoods can learn something from these kids on how to enjoy childhood.