Podcasts about transkei

La cineasta i escriptora sud-africana Milisuthando Bongela va n

John Maytham speaks to Dr. Amber Reed, a cultural anthropologist and researcher with a Ph.D. from UCLA, about how her work in rural schools and urban advocacy organizations paints a striking portrait of political ambivalence in contemporary South Africa.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

his is episode 206 - all fire and brimbstone, a horror show. The squeamish should gird their loins, prepare the poultices, polish your monocles and tighten your bootstraps, grab your smelling salts Roll up your sleeves and fetch the brandy, brace for impact. It's an episode that will begin a series of episodes which are clouded by a fine bloody mist, and a fog of confusion. We're going to look at the amaXhosa Cattle Killings of 1856-57 and then the Zulu's most bloody civil war clash, the Battle of Ndondukasuka. One was a millenarian movement gone hopelessly wrong, the other was the old story of a young prince seizing power from the heir apparent. Both epics are an exploration of human consciousness and both changed South African history. Cetshway kaMpande of the amaZulu was amassing great power under the very nose of his dad, King Mpande. Hold on, Before we head off to Zululand in forthcoming episodes, we're going to peruse southern Transkei. Alongside a magical river called the Gxarha. The little river is about 20 kilometers long, a tiny snakes' tail, a meandering whispering essence, slithering through deep ravines and splashing in splended mini-waterfalls. This is a case of dynamite in small packages because the river harboured dark secrets. It was to bare witness to a catastrophe. The twists and turns of this saga are echoed in the twists and turns of the river, it's a squiggle of a sprint for those tiny twenty kilometers. Cliffs and thick forest, more a jungle, make it impossible to walk along its bank for very far, and giant shadows are cast at dusk and dawn from the strelitzia and the reeds. A sand bar blocks its final sprint to the sea which bursts open in summer, a blend of bush, cliffs, forest and water. It was a day in April 1856, the exact day is lost in time, when two youngsters, Nongqawuse who was an orphan of 15 and Nombanda, who was about 8 or maybe 10, left their homestead on the Gxarha river. Nongqawuse's uncle, Mhlakaza, asked them to chase birds away from cultivated fields. As they shooed the birds away in the early morning of that April day, Nongqawuse heard voices. She turned and standing inside a nearby bush were two men. They gave her a message which she was to relay to Mhlakaza when she and Nombanda returned. “Tell that the whole community will rise from the dead, and that all cattle now living must be slaughtered for they have been reared by contaminated hands because there are people about who deal in witchcraft…” The fusion of faiths and the belief in shades were intersecting in this youngsters' mind. She had heard the stories about previous prophecies as she grew up, about Mlanjeni the Riverman and Nxele the wardoctor. The violence and upheavals of the Frontier Wars were paralleled by a huge spiritual upheaval which resulted in a clash of Xhosa and Christian religious ideas. During the next thirteen months of this cattle killing between April 1856 and May 1857, about 85 per cent of all Xhosa adult men killed their cattle and destroyed their corn in obedience to Nongqawuse's prophecies. It is estimated that 400,OOO cattle were slaughtered and 40,000 Xhosa died of starvation. At least another 40,000 left their homes in search of food. But it was to have another effect. After a dogged 80 years of resistance to colonial expansion, the amaXhosa struggle collapsed by their own actions - and almost all their remaining lands were given away to white settlers or black clients of the Cape government.

his is episode 206 - all fire and brimbstone, a horror show. The squeamish should gird their loins, prepare the poultices, polish your monocles and tighten your bootstraps, grab your smelling salts Roll up your sleeves and fetch the brandy, brace for impact. It's an episode that will begin a series of episodes which are clouded by a fine bloody mist, and a fog of confusion. We're going to look at the amaXhosa Cattle Killings of 1856-57 and then the Zulu's most bloody civil war clash, the Battle of Ndondukasuka. One was a millenarian movement gone hopelessly wrong, the other was the old story of a young prince seizing power from the heir apparent. Both epics are an exploration of human consciousness and both changed South African history. Cetshway kaMpande of the amaZulu was amassing great power under the very nose of his dad, King Mpande. Hold on, Before we head off to Zululand in forthcoming episodes, we're going to peruse southern Transkei. Alongside a magical river called the Gxarha. The little river is about 20 kilometers long, a tiny snakes' tail, a meandering whispering essence, slithering through deep ravines and splashing in splended mini-waterfalls. This is a case of dynamite in small packages because the river harboured dark secrets. It was to bare witness to a catastrophe. The twists and turns of this saga are echoed in the twists and turns of the river, it's a squiggle of a sprint for those tiny twenty kilometers. Cliffs and thick forest, more a jungle, make it impossible to walk along its bank for very far, and giant shadows are cast at dusk and dawn from the strelitzia and the reeds. A sand bar blocks its final sprint to the sea which bursts open in summer, a blend of bush, cliffs, forest and water. It was a day in April 1856, the exact day is lost in time, when two youngsters, Nongqawuse who was an orphan of 15 and Nombanda, who was about 8 or maybe 10, left their homestead on the Gxarha river. Nongqawuse's uncle, Mhlakaza, asked them to chase birds away from cultivated fields. As they shooed the birds away in the early morning of that April day, Nongqawuse heard voices. She turned and standing inside a nearby bush were two men. They gave her a message which she was to relay to Mhlakaza when she and Nombanda returned. “Tell that the whole community will rise from the dead, and that all cattle now living must be slaughtered for they have been reared by contaminated hands because there are people about who deal in witchcraft…” The fusion of faiths and the belief in shades were intersecting in this youngsters' mind. She had heard the stories about previous prophecies as she grew up, about Mlanjeni the Riverman and Nxele the wardoctor. The violence and upheavals of the Frontier Wars were paralleled by a huge spiritual upheaval which resulted in a clash of Xhosa and Christian religious ideas. During the next thirteen months of this cattle killing between April 1856 and May 1857, about 85 per cent of all Xhosa adult men killed their cattle and destroyed their corn in obedience to Nongqawuse's prophecies. It is estimated that 400,OOO cattle were slaughtered and 40,000 Xhosa died of starvation. At least another 40,000 left their homes in search of food. But it was to have another effect. After a dogged 80 years of resistance to colonial expansion, the amaXhosa struggle collapsed by their own actions - and almost all their remaining lands were given away to white settlers or black clients of the Cape government.

Episode 199, cognitive dissonance, desiccated hags, a Trail of Tears and Ssehura Baartman — Almost two hundred episodes exploring a land rich with some of the earliest examples of human habitation. We need to assess what has happened — standing back a bit to view the scene from where we've arrived - 1853 in the main with a smattering of 1854. The amaXhosa had lost a great deal of land to the English Settlers, the Coloureds, Khoe and Boers, as well as the amaMfengu refugees who were allies of the colonists. The coloureds and Khoekhoe had then lost some of their land to the colonists post 8th Frontier War. Each epoch saw a tussle over the territory. AmaXhosa chiefs realised by the mid-Nineteenth century that they were fighting for survival. A semblance of joint understanding was starting to spread out from southern AFrica into the interior, but not in the sense of any co-ordinated response to a colonial threat. The vast majority of African chiefdoms facing expanding settler frontiers were still responding locally, their response fragmented because the vast majority of African chiefs still regarded each other as more dangerous enemies - so their joint response to this growing threat was haphazard. AS the first people's faced annhilation, what distinguished the amaXhosa in a kind of historical contradiction, is that they did not diminish the numbers after each pushback — their numbers actually increased. This is not what happened to the Khoe and San who were pushed off their land by the new arrivals, the Nguni, then the next arrivals, the Europeans. The First people's of south Africa almost disappeared from the landscape as they were defeated. Not so the amaXhosa. Last episode I spoke of the historical Doppler Effect, and how folks approach the past, and this episode it's Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance theory. A simple example of this is that when people smoke, and they know smoking causes cancer, they are in a state of cognitive dissonance. The behaviour is smoking, and knowing it causes cancer is the cognitive dissonance bit when they continue to puff away. When Individuals form a group try to avoid disharmony by seeking consistency in beliefs. This is a central tenant to being human. However, it was this basic principle that was going to lead to the coming Cattle Killing extravaganza. Mlanjeni's prophecy continued — despite the fact that he had failed in his mission, he had not failed in his message. It is not a surprise therefore to hear that the next complex prophet in our tale of magic and mystery hailed from southern Transkei, and lived alongside the Gxara River which is just north of the Great Kei River Mouth. This is a place I know well, having regularly hiked from the Kei mouth Ferry along the beach to a nearby place called Qholora near the Ngogwane River in the mid-1980s. The riverine bush here is thick, mysterious, ancient and haunting. It seeps into your consciousness like the fingers of God, prodding your imagination, assailing your senses with sight and sound — and smell. The reason for spending time on the flora is because the next character to emerge in this saga who is going to alter South African history was a young Xhosa girl, Nongqawuse. It is these sights and sounds, this landscape that etched into her mind because it was from inside this landscape from bushes growing near her village, two strangers would appear in a bush and tell her that salvation for the Xhosa lay in killing all their cattle.

Episode 199, cognitive dissonance, desiccated hags, a Trail of Tears and Ssehura Baartman — Almost two hundred episodes exploring a land rich with some of the earliest examples of human habitation. We need to assess what has happened — standing back a bit to view the scene from where we've arrived - 1853 in the main with a smattering of 1854. The amaXhosa had lost a great deal of land to the English Settlers, the Coloureds, Khoe and Boers, as well as the amaMfengu refugees who were allies of the colonists. The coloureds and Khoekhoe had then lost some of their land to the colonists post 8th Frontier War. Each epoch saw a tussle over the territory. AmaXhosa chiefs realised by the mid-Nineteenth century that they were fighting for survival. A semblance of joint understanding was starting to spread out from southern AFrica into the interior, but not in the sense of any co-ordinated response to a colonial threat. The vast majority of African chiefdoms facing expanding settler frontiers were still responding locally, their response fragmented because the vast majority of African chiefs still regarded each other as more dangerous enemies - so their joint response to this growing threat was haphazard. AS the first people's faced annhilation, what distinguished the amaXhosa in a kind of historical contradiction, is that they did not diminish the numbers after each pushback — their numbers actually increased. This is not what happened to the Khoe and San who were pushed off their land by the new arrivals, the Nguni, then the next arrivals, the Europeans. The First people's of south Africa almost disappeared from the landscape as they were defeated. Not so the amaXhosa. Last episode I spoke of the historical Doppler Effect, and how folks approach the past, and this episode it's Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance theory. A simple example of this is that when people smoke, and they know smoking causes cancer, they are in a state of cognitive dissonance. The behaviour is smoking, and knowing it causes cancer is the cognitive dissonance bit when they continue to puff away. When Individuals form a group try to avoid disharmony by seeking consistency in beliefs. This is a central tenant to being human. However, it was this basic principle that was going to lead to the coming Cattle Killing extravaganza. Mlanjeni's prophecy continued — despite the fact that he had failed in his mission, he had not failed in his message. It is not a surprise therefore to hear that the next complex prophet in our tale of magic and mystery hailed from southern Transkei, and lived alongside the Gxara River which is just north of the Great Kei River Mouth. This is a place I know well, having regularly hiked from the Kei mouth Ferry along the beach to a nearby place called Qholora near the Ngogwane River in the mid-1980s. The riverine bush here is thick, mysterious, ancient and haunting. It seeps into your consciousness like the fingers of God, prodding your imagination, assailing your senses with sight and sound — and smell. The reason for spending time on the flora is because the next character to emerge in this saga who is going to alter South African history was a young Xhosa girl, Nongqawuse. It is these sights and sounds, this landscape that etched into her mind because it was from inside this landscape from bushes growing near her village, two strangers would appear in a bush and tell her that salvation for the Xhosa lay in killing all their cattle.

fWotD Episode 2762: Heptamegacanthus Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Tuesday, 26 November 2024 is Heptamegacanthus.Heptamegacanthus is a genus of acanthocephalans (thorny-headed or spiny-headed parasitic worms) containing a single species, Heptamegacanthus niekerki, that is a parasite of the endangered giant golden mole. It is found only in isolated forests in the Transkei and near East London, both in South Africa. The worms are about 4 mm long and 2 mm wide with minimal sexual dimorphism. Its body consists of a short, wide trunk and a tubular feeding and sucking organ called the proboscis which is covered with hooks. The hooks are used to pierce and hold the rectal wall of its host. There are 40 to 45 of these hooks arranged in rings surrounding the proboscis. They are not radially symmetrical. There are seven large anterior hooks; the hooks in the anterior ring are twice as large as those in the second ring and the remaining hooks decrease progressively in size posteriorly.The life cycle of H. niekerki remains unknown; however, like other acanthocephalans, it likely involves complex life cycles with at least two hosts. Although the intermediate host for Heptamegacanthus is not definitively identified, it is presumed to be an arthropod such as an insect. In this host, the larvae develop into an infectious stage known as a cystacanth. These are then ingested by the definitive host, where they mature and reproduce sexually within the intestines. The resulting eggs are expelled and hatch into new larvae.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:38 UTC on Tuesday, 26 November 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Heptamegacanthus on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Emma.

This is episode 174. First off, a big thank you to all the folks who've supported me and for sharing so many personal stories of your ancestry. Particularly Jane who is a font of knowledge about the Williams family, and John who's been communicating about the Transkei. Please also sign up for the weekly newsletter by heading off to desmondlatham.blog - you can also email me from that site. When we left off episode 173, King Mswati the first was running out of patience with his elder brother Somcuba. Voortrekker leader Hendrick Potgieter had also left the area north of the Swazi territory, settling in the Zoutpansberg. It was his last trek. He'd signed a treaty with Bapedi chief Sekwati, which had precluded any proper agreement with the other Voortrekkers around Lydenburg. With Potgieter gone, however, things were about to change. We need to swing back across the vast land to the region south of the Vaal River because dramatic events were taking place in 1848 - clashes between the British empire and the trekkers. By now, the area between the Orange and the Vaal was an imbroglio, elements of every type of society that existed in southern Africa for millennia could be found scattered across the region. Hunters and gatherers, pastoralists, farmers, San, Khoesan, Khoekhoe, BaSotho, Afrikaners, Boers, mixed race Griqua and Koranna, and British settlers could be found here. In some cases different combinations of these peoples lived together cheek by jowel, many combinations of cultures, languages and political systems. A classic frontier situation, with intermingling and very little structured relationship charactersing the mingling. Some of the San, Khoekhoe and even Basotho were now incorporated as servants of the Boers, and each of those groups were divided into rival political commuties. Bands of San still hunted through this area, despite attempts to eradicate them, a kind of ethnic cleansing you've heard about. In the south east, on either side of the Caledon River, rival Sotho states existed, under Moshoeshoe, Moletsane, Sikonyela, and Moroka — each of these had their own tame missionary living alongside as an insurance policy against each other and the British and Boers. By 1848 the new Governor of the Cape, Sir Harry Smith, had begun to experiment with British expansionism that he'd observed in India, assuming British culture and traditions, the empire's institutions, were superior to all other. Smith loved to oversimplify complex problems, and the made him a natural expansionist and a man likely to make big mistakes. Within two months of arriving in Cape Town in December 1847, he had extended the frontiers of the Cape Colony to the Orange River in the arid north west of the Cape. This was between the area known as Ramah and the Atlantic Ocean. He'd annexed the land between the Keiskamma River and the Kraai River Basin in the east, booted out the amaXhosa, and annexed two contiguous areas as seperate British colonies — British Caffraria between the Keiskamma and the Kei River, and a second area that became known as the Orange River Sovereignty between the Orange and Vaal Rivers. Pretorius was so incensed that he began fanning the flames of anti-British opposition, or probably to be more accurate, anti-Smith opposition. This resentment boiled over in July 1848 when Pretorius with commandants Stander, Kock and Mocke led a powerful force of 200 Transvalers and about 800 Free Staters along with a 3 pounder artillery gun into Bloemfontein. The preamble to the Battle of Boomplaats had begun.

This is episode 174. First off, a big thank you to all the folks who've supported me and for sharing so many personal stories of your ancestry. Particularly Jane who is a font of knowledge about the Williams family, and John who's been communicating about the Transkei. Please also sign up for the weekly newsletter by heading off to desmondlatham.blog - you can also email me from that site. When we left off episode 173, King Mswati the first was running out of patience with his elder brother Somcuba. Voortrekker leader Hendrick Potgieter had also left the area north of the Swazi territory, settling in the Zoutpansberg. It was his last trek. He'd signed a treaty with Bapedi chief Sekwati, which had precluded any proper agreement with the other Voortrekkers around Lydenburg. With Potgieter gone, however, things were about to change. We need to swing back across the vast land to the region south of the Vaal River because dramatic events were taking place in 1848 - clashes between the British empire and the trekkers. By now, the area between the Orange and the Vaal was an imbroglio, elements of every type of society that existed in southern Africa for millennia could be found scattered across the region. Hunters and gatherers, pastoralists, farmers, San, Khoesan, Khoekhoe, BaSotho, Afrikaners, Boers, mixed race Griqua and Koranna, and British settlers could be found here. In some cases different combinations of these peoples lived together cheek by jowel, many combinations of cultures, languages and political systems. A classic frontier situation, with intermingling and very little structured relationship charactersing the mingling. Some of the San, Khoekhoe and even Basotho were now incorporated as servants of the Boers, and each of those groups were divided into rival political commuties. Bands of San still hunted through this area, despite attempts to eradicate them, a kind of ethnic cleansing you've heard about. In the south east, on either side of the Caledon River, rival Sotho states existed, under Moshoeshoe, Moletsane, Sikonyela, and Moroka — each of these had their own tame missionary living alongside as an insurance policy against each other and the British and Boers. By 1848 the new Governor of the Cape, Sir Harry Smith, had begun to experiment with British expansionism that he'd observed in India, assuming British culture and traditions, the empire's institutions, were superior to all other. Smith loved to oversimplify complex problems, and the made him a natural expansionist and a man likely to make big mistakes. Within two months of arriving in Cape Town in December 1847, he had extended the frontiers of the Cape Colony to the Orange River in the arid north west of the Cape. This was between the area known as Ramah and the Atlantic Ocean. He'd annexed the land between the Keiskamma River and the Kraai River Basin in the east, booted out the amaXhosa, and annexed two contiguous areas as seperate British colonies — British Caffraria between the Keiskamma and the Kei River, and a second area that became known as the Orange River Sovereignty between the Orange and Vaal Rivers. Pretorius was so incensed that he began fanning the flames of anti-British opposition, or probably to be more accurate, anti-Smith opposition. This resentment boiled over in July 1848 when Pretorius with commandants Stander, Kock and Mocke led a powerful force of 200 Transvalers and about 800 Free Staters along with a 3 pounder artillery gun into Bloemfontein. The preamble to the Battle of Boomplaats had begun.

This is episode 167 and the British army is clumping along towards the Amathola fastnesses, the deep ravines and steep riverine environment not the most ideal for an army that dragged everything around on wagons. Leading this army were officers steeped in the traditions of empire, and marching under their command were men from across Great Britain and beyond. They were poor, some with debts to pay back home, many were recruited from the haunts of dissipation and inebriation as historian Noel Mostert notes one officer saying in a somewhat sneering tone. But that's a bit harsh, because when we read the journals of these soldiers, they're full of character and intelligence, adventurers of their time whatever your political view. Half of these British soldiers were actually from Scotland and Ireland, they weren't even English. It was the officers who'd neered at the colonials, openly, and it was the officers who symbolised the rotten core of this empire with it's rampant class lunacy. It was only on rare occasions that rank and file soldiers made it to the heady ranks of the officer corps, and promotion was painfully slow. The officer class was notorious - it took the Crimean War before the British Army was dragged into the 19th Century. Up to the Seventh Frontier War it functioned as it had for hundreds of years — a place where the chinless wonders of the Empire could seek fame and fortune while retaining their artificial edifice of class. Then there was the South African bush which was a frightening experience for the British soldiers, it's alien succulents a bizarre sight for the British. At night, as they soldiers lay in this bush, they could not light their pipes or a fire. At the first sign of a glimmer, the amaXhosa would open fire from several directions and while their aim was not good, the British didn't take a chance and spent most of their time in their camp lying down out of sight. Sir Peregrine Maitland's large army mobilised in June 1846, and lumbered into the Amathola's looking for Rharhabe chief Sandile. They were also trying to corner Phato of the Gqunukhwebe closer to the ocean, along with Mhala of the Ndlambe — both were lurking somewhere between the Keiskamma and Kei Rivers. Colonel Henry Somerset swept the coastal regions, as Colonel Hare and Andries Stockenstrom scouted the Amatholas. On the 11th August 1846 Maitland made his decision. This was an exact copy of the decision made by Harry Smith in the previous Frontier War, who told then Governor Sir Benjamin D'Urban that a strike across the Kei River was required — a decisive strike. That's because Harry Smith was a man of action, fully believing in the power of power. In the previous war, the Sixth Frontier War of 1834 to 1836, Smith wanted to strike Hintsa. That highly regarded amaXhosa chief had been killed by the very same Smith. Now here was Hintsa's heir and his son, Sarhili, facing another British veteran of the war against Napoleon.

This is episode 167 and the British army is clumping along towards the Amathola fastnesses, the deep ravines and steep riverine environment not the most ideal for an army that dragged everything around on wagons. Leading this army were officers steeped in the traditions of empire, and marching under their command were men from across Great Britain and beyond. They were poor, some with debts to pay back home, many were recruited from the haunts of dissipation and inebriation as historian Noel Mostert notes one officer saying in a somewhat sneering tone. But that's a bit harsh, because when we read the journals of these soldiers, they're full of character and intelligence, adventurers of their time whatever your political view. Half of these British soldiers were actually from Scotland and Ireland, they weren't even English. It was the officers who'd neered at the colonials, openly, and it was the officers who symbolised the rotten core of this empire with it's rampant class lunacy. It was only on rare occasions that rank and file soldiers made it to the heady ranks of the officer corps, and promotion was painfully slow. The officer class was notorious - it took the Crimean War before the British Army was dragged into the 19th Century. Up to the Seventh Frontier War it functioned as it had for hundreds of years — a place where the chinless wonders of the Empire could seek fame and fortune while retaining their artificial edifice of class. Then there was the South African bush which was a frightening experience for the British soldiers, it's alien succulents a bizarre sight for the British. At night, as they soldiers lay in this bush, they could not light their pipes or a fire. At the first sign of a glimmer, the amaXhosa would open fire from several directions and while their aim was not good, the British didn't take a chance and spent most of their time in their camp lying down out of sight. Sir Peregrine Maitland's large army mobilised in June 1846, and lumbered into the Amathola's looking for Rharhabe chief Sandile. They were also trying to corner Phato of the Gqunukhwebe closer to the ocean, along with Mhala of the Ndlambe — both were lurking somewhere between the Keiskamma and Kei Rivers. Colonel Henry Somerset swept the coastal regions, as Colonel Hare and Andries Stockenstrom scouted the Amatholas. On the 11th August 1846 Maitland made his decision. This was an exact copy of the decision made by Harry Smith in the previous Frontier War, who told then Governor Sir Benjamin D'Urban that a strike across the Kei River was required — a decisive strike. That's because Harry Smith was a man of action, fully believing in the power of power. In the previous war, the Sixth Frontier War of 1834 to 1836, Smith wanted to strike Hintsa. That highly regarded amaXhosa chief had been killed by the very same Smith. Now here was Hintsa's heir and his son, Sarhili, facing another British veteran of the war against Napoleon.

Umjelo Non-Profit Organisation, has taken on the Herculean task of turning the impoverished Mamolweni village, on the coast in the former Transkei, into a flourishing community. In this episode, Ted Keenan chats Templeton “Pinkie” Yoba about Umjelo's objectives. Yoba was born in the former Transkei, worked as an agriculture extension officer, was a regional manager of Tracor (Transkei Agriculture Co-operative) and a director in the office of the national director of the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. He retired in 2021.

This is episode 142. It would be remiss of me not to say Congratulations Bokke on a gritty win over the All Blacks to become world champions for a record fourth time. With that said, picture the scene. We are standing on the western slopes of the Drakensberg, looking out across the Caledon Valley. The rivers we see here flow westward, into the Atlantic Ocean. Far to the south east lie the villages of the amaThembu on the slopes of the mountains that are now part of the Transkei. This is a follow up episode of a sort from episode 141, because last week we spoke about the Orange River, and the Caledon River is a tributary of the Orange. It rises in the Drakensberg, on the Lesotho–South Africa border, and flows generally southwest, forming most of the boundary between Lesotho and Free State province. The Caledon flows through southeastern Free State to join the Orange River near Bethulie after a course of 480 km. Its valley has one of the greatest temperature ranges in South Africa and is an excellent place to grow maize or other grains. But in April 1835 Moshoeshoe was eyeing the equally verdant land to his south, amaThembu land and led a powerful and large expedition of more than 700 men along with a hundred pack-oxen loaded with food south easterly over the Maloti mountains towards these people. At first his raid went according to plan, he seized a rich booty of cattle. The amaThembu were also facing raids from the other direction, the British who were conducting their Sixth Frontier War so they were in a rather invidious position. Moshoeshoe was blooding his sons Letsie and Molapo in battle. They had become restless back at his Morija headquarters and their frustration grew when Moshoeshoe denied them permission to attack the Kora who'd setup camp nearby. As the Basotho withdrew after the raid, they were ambushed by the amaThembu and lost most of their livestock. Worse, Moshoeshoe's brother Makhabane was killed and he suffered heavy casualties. Moshoeshoe would never again send another full-scale expedition into amaXhosa or amaThembu territory. This change of strategy was fully supported by the missionaries who had begun living with Moshoeshoe's people. What followed would be a remarkable partnership which is still hotly debated today and the interests of the missionaries would be further expanded or extended by the interests of the Basotho leader. Another interesting change was taking place for the people of this mountain territory, driven by missionaries both the French and the English. This is because the religion of the 19th-century Sotho speakers was defined chiefly by its outward manifestation, the signs on the land, the animals, things going on that you can hear, smell, touch, see. Religion, as the Sotho term ‘borapeli' illustrates, was what people did and not what they believed. This is a fundamental foundational difference that stymied the first missionaries at first. The translation of molimo as God inaugurated a new era where there was a fixation on linear progression in an age of evolutionary thinking, where Protestantism was the theology. How did Molimo interlink with Tlatla-Mochilo? For the missionaries, this was an immense philosophical wrestling match. This is where Tsapi, a man described as Moshoeshoe's advisor and diviner re-enters our story for a moment. Thanks to one of my listeners who is a descendent of Tsapi by the name of Seanaphoka for providing some more background. Tsapi was actually the first son of the Bafokeng Tribal Chief Seephephe. Tsapi had a sister called Mabela, who was Moshoeshoe's first wife and as Queen Consort she took the name MmaMohato. Tsapi became Advisor and Senior Council member of Moshoeshoe.

This is episode 142. It would be remiss of me not to say Congratulations Bokke on a gritty win over the All Blacks to become world champions for a record fourth time. With that said, picture the scene. We are standing on the western slopes of the Drakensberg, looking out across the Caledon Valley. The rivers we see here flow westward, into the Atlantic Ocean. Far to the south east lie the villages of the amaThembu on the slopes of the mountains that are now part of the Transkei. This is a follow up episode of a sort from episode 141, because last week we spoke about the Orange River, and the Caledon River is a tributary of the Orange. It rises in the Drakensberg, on the Lesotho–South Africa border, and flows generally southwest, forming most of the boundary between Lesotho and Free State province. The Caledon flows through southeastern Free State to join the Orange River near Bethulie after a course of 480 km. Its valley has one of the greatest temperature ranges in South Africa and is an excellent place to grow maize or other grains. But in April 1835 Moshoeshoe was eyeing the equally verdant land to his south, amaThembu land and led a powerful and large expedition of more than 700 men along with a hundred pack-oxen loaded with food south easterly over the Maloti mountains towards these people. At first his raid went according to plan, he seized a rich booty of cattle. The amaThembu were also facing raids from the other direction, the British who were conducting their Sixth Frontier War so they were in a rather invidious position. Moshoeshoe was blooding his sons Letsie and Molapo in battle. They had become restless back at his Morija headquarters and their frustration grew when Moshoeshoe denied them permission to attack the Kora who'd setup camp nearby. As the Basotho withdrew after the raid, they were ambushed by the amaThembu and lost most of their livestock. Worse, Moshoeshoe's brother Makhabane was killed and he suffered heavy casualties. Moshoeshoe would never again send another full-scale expedition into amaXhosa or amaThembu territory. This change of strategy was fully supported by the missionaries who had begun living with Moshoeshoe's people. What followed would be a remarkable partnership which is still hotly debated today and the interests of the missionaries would be further expanded or extended by the interests of the Basotho leader. Another interesting change was taking place for the people of this mountain territory, driven by missionaries both the French and the English. This is because the religion of the 19th-century Sotho speakers was defined chiefly by its outward manifestation, the signs on the land, the animals, things going on that you can hear, smell, touch, see. Religion, as the Sotho term ‘borapeli' illustrates, was what people did and not what they believed. This is a fundamental foundational difference that stymied the first missionaries at first. The translation of molimo as God inaugurated a new era where there was a fixation on linear progression in an age of evolutionary thinking, where Protestantism was the theology. How did Molimo interlink with Tlatla-Mochilo? For the missionaries, this was an immense philosophical wrestling match. This is where Tsapi, a man described as Moshoeshoe's advisor and diviner re-enters our story for a moment. Thanks to one of my listeners who is a descendent of Tsapi by the name of Seanaphoka for providing some more background. Tsapi was actually the first son of the Bafokeng Tribal Chief Seephephe. Tsapi had a sister called Mabela, who was Moshoeshoe's first wife and as Queen Consort she took the name MmaMohato. Tsapi became Advisor and Senior Council member of Moshoeshoe.

In this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing Professor Shabir Moosa, to ask him all about the NHI and how it might feasibly work to fund quality healthcare in South Africa. Professor Moosa is a Family Physician in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits)). He has a Diploma in Primary Health Care Service Management, A Masters in Family Medicine (MEDUNSA-Limpopo), a Masters in Business Administration (Wits Business School) (2011) and a PhD from Ghent University) (2015). He is focused on practice in Chiawelo Community Practice in Soweto. Professor Moosa has a history of general practice, community and political activism in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal and Eastern Cape Provinces (the old Transkei region) having lived in Kokstad from 1990 to 2004. He moved to Johannesburg in 2004 and has been deeply involved in development, service, training, and research of Family Medicine in Johannesburg and Gauteng. He is actively involved in developing best practice models of Family Medicine, including creating community practices in Soweto as a contracting model for the emerging national health insurance system in South Africa. Thank you to our sponsors on this episode: IndemniMed - https://www.indemnimed.co.za/ V Professional Services - https://vprofservices.com/ Philips Future of Health Index Report - https://www.philips.com/a-w/about/news/future-health-index For more, visit our Linktree URL at https://linktr.ee/drcoffeeza, or email us at drcoffeeza@gmail.com

The SATBVC Pensions Committee will institute legal action against the government for outstanding pension monies of former civil servants and military veterans from the Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei - known as TBVC States. The committee says Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana who was tasked by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate the whereabouts of the money during the State of the Nation address has not done anything to address the matter. The committee's General Bantu Holomisa says R9.6 billion was transferred into the Government Employees Pension Fund in 1996 and is still to be accounted for. To further discuss this Elvis Presslin spoke to UDM Leader and SATBVC Pensions Committee member, General Bantu Holomisa, who is spearheading the legal review process

Today's episode is an odyssey through Mili's own journey through ancestral ties, personal identity, and relationships. She walks us through the process of engaging our ancestors in our everyday lives. We explore the necessity for connection and healing between Africans and African Americans. And we delve into the lessons one learns by simply sitting with questions that may never be answered. Tell us what you think about today's episode. Don't be shy, share your favorite moment with us on Twitter and Instagram at @blackimagination. Remember, you can view this episode and others on our YouTube channel The Institute of Black Imagination. If you're interested in getting lost in what else we have going on, visit us on IBI Digital at blackimagination.com where this and other content live. Things MentionedTranskei - Officially the Republic of Transkei, was an unrecognized State in the Southeastern Region of South Africa from 1976 to 1994Apartheid in South Africa - a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s.Bantu - a general term for over 400 different ethnic groups in Africa, from Cameroon to South AfricaShockoe Bottom African Burial Ground - It was the first municipal burial ground of the city of Richmond, VA. It was historically known as the "Burial Ground for Negroes".Milisuthando - Sundance Film Festival 2023What to ReadSouth Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid by Nancy L. Clark, William H. WorgerThe Bantu, Past and Present; an Ethnographical and Historical Study of the Native Races of South Africa by Sm MolemaThe Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning by Eve FairbanksWhat to listen toGrandma's Hands by Bill WithersSounds From The Ancestors by Kenny GarrettIt's Wrong (Apartheid) by Stevie WonderAfrican Secret Society by Hugh MasekelaWho to followFollow Milisuthando Bongela on IG @msmillib and by visiting...

Today's episode is an odyssey through Mili's own journey through ancestral ties, personal identity, and relationships. She walks us through the process of engaging our ancestors in our everyday lives. We explore the necessity for connection and healing between Africans and African Americans. And we delve into the lessons one learns by simply sitting with questions that may never be answered. Tell us what you think about today's episode. Don't be shy, share your favorite moment with us on Twitter and Instagram at @blackimagination. Remember, you can view this episode and others on our YouTube channel The Institute of Black Imagination. If you're interested in getting lost in what else we have going on, visit us on IBI Digital at blackimagination.com where this and other content live. Things MentionedTranskei - Officially the Republic of Transkei, was an unrecognized State in the Southeastern Region of South Africa from 1976 to 1994Apartheid in South Africa - a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s.Bantu - a general term for over 400 different ethnic groups in Africa, from Cameroon to South AfricaShockoe Bottom African Burial Ground - It was the first municipal burial ground of the city of Richmond, VA. It was historically known as the "Burial Ground for Negroes".Milisuthando - Sundance Film Festival 2023What to ReadSouth Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid by Nancy L. Clark, William H. WorgerThe Bantu, Past and Present; an Ethnographical and Historical Study of the Native Races of South Africa by Sm MolemaThe Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning by Eve FairbanksWhat to listen toGrandma's Hands by Bill WithersSounds From The Ancestors by Kenny GarrettIt's Wrong (Apartheid) by Stevie WonderAfrican Secret Society by Hugh MasekelaWho to followFollow Milisuthando Bongela on IG @dossevia and

April 1835 is passing swiftly, and still no sign of the 75 000 head of cattle demanded by the British of the amaXhosa - Hintsa remains a hostage of Benjamin D'Urban, although it was Colonel Harry Smith who was looking after the king, as well as his son Sarhili and the king's brother Bhuru. D'Urban had summarily annexed the troublesome region around the Stormberg mountains and all the way to the Kraai River in the north where 150 Boer families lived - they were now automatically members of the empire. They did not want to be and many would join a Great Trek being planned out of the Cape Colony. D'Urban had also decided to annex the territory extending all the way to the Kei River for the British - and to allow the Mfengu to settle on some of this land as a buffer zone against the amaXhosa. By advancing the Cape Colony's to the Kei, Sir Benjamin D'Urban was making himself responsible for a huge chunk of southern African territory. At the time, his decision was welcomed by all settlers as well as the military. The dark ravines of the Kei, these high redoubts where the amaXhosa had led the British army on a goose chase, were now within his control, so too the Amatola mountains, where Maqoma and Thyali the Xhosa chiefs had led him on a frustrating slow dance of frustration and angst. The folks who were much more uneasy about all of this was the British political establishment back home - wars cost money and the Frontier War was very expensive. The Mfengu were granted safe passage from Hintsa's TransKei into the Colony. Dozens of wagons trailed him, then came the 16 000 Mfengu on foot, driving 22 000 head of cattle and thousands more goats. Those sitting on the west bank of the Kei would have heard them first, because the mist was thick down along the river, and the Mfengu emerged from the cold dank whiteness, the dawn spectacle complete. Men ahead with the cattle, followed by the young boys who were shoeing the goats along, behind them the women and girls carrying their possessions on their heads - they crossed the river using long sticks to balance, and as they went they were singing a new song called Siya Emlungweni, “We are going to the land of the right people…” they sang, most believing they were going to be as independent as they had been before in northern Zululand before Zwide and Shaka's violence drove them away almost two decades earlier. Watching this jaw-dropping scene was British officer, Captain James Alexander, who wrote that as far as he was concerned, “Nothing like this has been seen, perhaps, since the days of Moses…” Colonel Smith headed off eastwards with his men, and with Hintsa, the king was supposed to direct the British soldiers to where the Settlers cattle could be found. Of course he was going to do nothing of the sort. By daylight of the 12th May, Smith was beginning to smell a rat. Hintsa had been closely watched by the Corps of Guides, led by one of the more veld aware English settlers called George Southey - at one point another guide called Cesar Andrews had drawn his gun because Hintsa suddenly dismounted his horse and walked up a hill.

April 1835 is passing swiftly, and still no sign of the 75 000 head of cattle demanded by the British of the amaXhosa - Hintsa remains a hostage of Benjamin D'Urban, although it was Colonel Harry Smith who was looking after the king, as well as his son Sarhili and the king's brother Bhuru. D'Urban had summarily annexed the troublesome region around the Stormberg mountains and all the way to the Kraai River in the north where 150 Boer families lived - they were now automatically members of the empire. They did not want to be and many would join a Great Trek being planned out of the Cape Colony. D'Urban had also decided to annex the territory extending all the way to the Kei River for the British - and to allow the Mfengu to settle on some of this land as a buffer zone against the amaXhosa. By advancing the Cape Colony's to the Kei, Sir Benjamin D'Urban was making himself responsible for a huge chunk of southern African territory. At the time, his decision was welcomed by all settlers as well as the military. The dark ravines of the Kei, these high redoubts where the amaXhosa had led the British army on a goose chase, were now within his control, so too the Amatola mountains, where Maqoma and Thyali the Xhosa chiefs had led him on a frustrating slow dance of frustration and angst. The folks who were much more uneasy about all of this was the British political establishment back home - wars cost money and the Frontier War was very expensive. The Mfengu were granted safe passage from Hintsa's TransKei into the Colony. Dozens of wagons trailed him, then came the 16 000 Mfengu on foot, driving 22 000 head of cattle and thousands more goats. Those sitting on the west bank of the Kei would have heard them first, because the mist was thick down along the river, and the Mfengu emerged from the cold dank whiteness, the dawn spectacle complete. Men ahead with the cattle, followed by the young boys who were shoeing the goats along, behind them the women and girls carrying their possessions on their heads - they crossed the river using long sticks to balance, and as they went they were singing a new song called Siya Emlungweni, “We are going to the land of the right people…” they sang, most believing they were going to be as independent as they had been before in northern Zululand before Zwide and Shaka's violence drove them away almost two decades earlier. Watching this jaw-dropping scene was British officer, Captain James Alexander, who wrote that as far as he was concerned, “Nothing like this has been seen, perhaps, since the days of Moses…” Colonel Smith headed off eastwards with his men, and with Hintsa, the king was supposed to direct the British soldiers to where the Settlers cattle could be found. Of course he was going to do nothing of the sort. By daylight of the 12th May, Smith was beginning to smell a rat. Hintsa had been closely watched by the Corps of Guides, led by one of the more veld aware English settlers called George Southey - at one point another guide called Cesar Andrews had drawn his gun because Hintsa suddenly dismounted his horse and walked up a hill.

Chris Hani's assassination in 1993 gave rise to one of South Africa's greatest political questions: if he had survived, what impact would he have had on the ANC government? On the 30th anniversary of his murder by right-wing fanatics, this updated version of the best-selling Hani: A Life Too Short reevaluates his legacy and traces his life from his childhood in rural Transkei to the crisis in the ANC camps in Angola in the 1980s and the heady dawn of South Africa's freedom. Drawing on interviews and the recollections of those who knew him, this vividly written book provides a detailed account of the life of a hero of South Africa's liberation, a communist party leader and Umkhonto we Sizwe chief of staff, who was both an intellectual and a fighter. In this episode of Pagecast, CapeTalk presenter and journalist Lester Kiewit chats with Janet and Beauregard regarding this best-seller. About the authors: JANET SMITH is a former newspaper editor and the author of Patrice Motsepe. She was also a co-author of The Coming Revolution: Julius Malema and the Fight for Economic Freedom and The Black Consciousness Reader. Award-winning journalist BEAUREGARD TROMP is the Africa editor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. He has also worked for the Mail & Guardian and The Star newspaper.

Last weekend, Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish was at the True/False Film Festival: an annual documentary festival in Columbia, Missouri that has, over the years, become an exciting site to discover the latest developments in nonfiction cinema. This year, a prominent trend in the lineup was personal filmmaking—films in which directors drew upon on their memories, families, and relationships to craft something universal or even political. Two films in particular exemplified this trend, though in different ways. Forms of Forgetting, by the filmmaker Burak Çevik, turns conversations between two of the filmmaker's friends about their memories of their relationship into a broader reflection on the link between remembrance and one's sense of place, the city, and the nation. In Milisuthando, the artist Milisuthando Bongela combines archival footage, recollections, and interviews with friends and family to reflect on her childhood in the Transkei, which was an all-Black, segregationist South African state sanctioned by the apartheid regime. On today's podcast, Burak, Milisuthando, and Jonathan Ali, a programmer for True/False, joined to delve into the making of these films and the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of personal filmmaking.

South Africa's history is peppered with chaos and warfare, perhaps more so than is apparent in the modern period. It is fairly difficult to explain how our past intermeshes with the present without focusing on moments of extreme violence, these incidents are part of our psychological make-up without most of us being aware of just how we were forged out of the sound of gunfire and the smell of blood. With that slightly theatrical introduction, let's delve into one of these moments during the period of the Mfecane - a battle that has taken on various forms in the telling based on what your political persuasion may be. This is the battle of Mbholompo. The battle of what? many listeners would muse. Yes folks, this rumpled sounding clash, the word conjuring up images of wordplay, Mbholompo, has as its main player a man called Matiwane of the Ngwane. We have met him in passing but now we'll spend time telling at his tale and he has some significant storytellers backing him up. One is Albert Hlongwane who published a book in 1938 called “history of Matiwane and the amaNgwane Tribe, as told by Mzebenzi to his Kinsman, Albert Hlongwane”. Landdrost of Albany, Major WB Dundas, was growing more concerned. Drawing on his experience he first led a commando against Matiwane which was to end in bloodshed - but his main reason to head off into the Transkei was to secure labourers for the settlers of Albany. The British soldiers and Khoekhoe gunmen were joined by the Thembu warriors who then moved east of Mbashe surrounding the Ngwane before dawn on the 27th August 1828.

South Africa's history is peppered with chaos and warfare, perhaps more so than is apparent in the modern period. It is fairly difficult to explain how our past intermeshes with the present without focusing on moments of extreme violence, these incidents are part of our psychological make-up without most of us being aware of just how we were forged out of the sound of gunfire and the smell of blood. With that slightly theatrical introduction, let's delve into one of these moments during the period of the Mfecane - a battle that has taken on various forms in the telling based on what your political persuasion may be. This is the battle of Mbholompo. The battle of what? many listeners would muse. Yes folks, this rumpled sounding clash, the word conjuring up images of wordplay, Mbholompo, has as its main player a man called Matiwane of the Ngwane. We have met him in passing but now we'll spend time telling at his tale and he has some significant storytellers backing him up. One is Albert Hlongwane who published a book in 1938 called “history of Matiwane and the amaNgwane Tribe, as told by Mzebenzi to his Kinsman, Albert Hlongwane”. Landdrost of Albany, Major WB Dundas, was growing more concerned. Drawing on his experience he first led a commando against Matiwane which was to end in bloodshed - but his main reason to head off into the Transkei was to secure labourers for the settlers of Albany. The British soldiers and Khoekhoe gunmen were joined by the Thembu warriors who then moved east of Mbashe surrounding the Ngwane before dawn on the 27th August 1828.

South Africa's history is peppered with chaos and warfare, perhaps more so than is apparent in the modern period. It is fairly difficult to explain how our past intermeshes with the present without focusing on moments of extreme violence, these incidents are part of our psychological make-up without most of us being aware of just how we were forged out of the sound of gunfire and the smell of blood. With that slightly theatrical introduction, let's delve into one of these moments during the period of the Mfecane - a battle that has taken on various forms in the telling based on what your political persuasion may be. This is the battle of Mbholompo. The battle of what? many listeners would muse. Yes folks, this rumpled sounding clash, the word conjuring up images of wordplay, Mbholompo, has as its main player a man called Matiwane of the Ngwane. We have met him in passing but now we'll spend time telling at his tale and he has some significant storytellers backing him up. One is Albert Hlongwane who published a book in 1938 called “history of Matiwane and the amaNgwane Tribe, as told by Mzebenzi to his Kinsman, Albert Hlongwane”. Landdrost of Albany, Major WB Dundas, was growing more concerned. Drawing on his experience he first led a commando against Matiwane which was to end in bloodshed - but his main reason to head off into the Transkei was to secure labourers for the settlers of Albany. The British soldiers and Khoekhoe gunmen were joined by the Thembu warriors who then moved east of Mbashe surrounding the Ngwane before dawn on the 27th August 1828.

In this episode of the Solutions With David Ansara podcast, I speak with former oil and gas executive, Niall Kramer, about energy security in South Africa. This conversation was prompted by the recent closure of South Africa's largest fuel refinery, Sapref. While SA can still import fuel into the country, what will the decline of our local refining capability mean for the cost and quality of fuel at the pump? Niall and I also explore the broader energy regulatory framework in SA, and whether it is fit for purpose. Recent gas discoveries at Brulpadda and off the coast of the Transkei have the potential to radically transform our energy mix in South Africa, Niall says. However, activism from environmentalists is holding up this exploration activity, and our policy framework is also inhibiting our ability to harness these natural endowments. We also discuss whether SA ought to be moving towards renewable energy and what role natural gas could play in alleviating our chronic electricity shortages. TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Introduction (00:44) Niall Kramer on the closure of the Sapref refinery (04:26) Niall Kramer on the cost and quality of fuel in SA (08:48) Niall Kramer on harnessing SA's local gas resources (16:36) Niall Kramer on energy policy in SA (20:53) Niall Kramer on global energy prices (23:11) Niall Kramer on fixed vs. flexible fuel pricing (24:51) Niall Kramer on PetroSA (26:36) Niall Kramer on the future of energy in SA (28:53) Niall Kramer on renewable energy (34:10) Conclusion

F. W. DeKlerk, the last White President of South Africa. The Logic of Apartheid, and how De Klerk's perspective evolved F. W. De Klerk died in November of 2021.  He came out of the very heart of the Afrikaaner establishment, and was firmly entrenched in the secret society known as the Broederbund (brotherhood).   Whites were about 15% of the South African population and the Afrikaaners (of Dutch heritage) were about 60% of the white population.  They controlled all the major positions of power in the Republic.  And yet by the 1980s many Afrikaaners  could see that the reality was changing, and they would have to change with it, or be swept away.  F. W. De Klerk became the instrument of that change.  This may well be the only place where you will ever hear a sympathetic discussion of the logic of apartheid, which was widely condemned in America, especially among those of us who had studied the South African political system. Remember that there are other podcasts on Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela. And one called Thoughts of a Former Terrorist, discussing my activism on this issue. Names:  Botha, Mulder, Terms used:  apartheid, Stellenbosch,  verligte, verkrampte, Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Ndebele, Swazi. Transkei, Zululand, Professor Jeppe, 

Heading out of East London on the N2 takes you towards the old homeland territory of The Transkei. The bridge over the Kei river was once a border post, and is now a small rest stop and fuel station. Years ago you would have had to show your passport - but the Transkei was reincorporated into South Africa post the 1994 elections.This is rural Africa - rolling grassy hills, dotted everywhere with colourful homesteads. This is also the country of Nelson Mandela. He went to school in Qunu, and the old parliament building in Mthatha is now a museum dedicated to Mandela. Crossing the old border again there is Kokstad - we covered that in episode 10 - the history and story of Adam Kok III. The N2 then heads to the coast again and our story in this episode ends in Isipingo - just south of Durban - and the burial place of Dick King - whose story dots this entire region.The Road Trip SA app is available for downloadDo you want to visit and explore South Africa? Touch Africa SafarisThis is a recording of a radio show - Radio Ecohealth

Heading out of East London on the N2 takes you towards the old homeland territory of The Transkei. The bridge over the Kei river was once a border post, and is now a small rest stop and fuel station. Years ago you would have had to show your passport - but the Transkei was reincorporated into South Africa post the 1994 elections.This is rural Africa - rolling grassy hills, dotted everywhere with colourful homesteads. This is also the country of Nelson Mandela. He went to school in Qunu, and the old parliament building in Mthatha is now a museum dedicated to Mandela. Crossing the old border again there is Kokstad - we covered that in episode 10 - the history and story of Adam Kok III. The N2 then heads to the coast again and our story in this episode ends in Isipingo - just south of Durban - and the burial place of Dick King - whose story dots this entire region.The Road Trip SA app is available for downloadDo you want to visit and explore South Africa? Touch Africa SafarisThis is a recording of a radio show - Radio Ecohealth

Meer as 'n honderdduisend mense het reeds 'n petisie onderteken, wat eis dat 'n beplande seismiese opname aan die Oos-Kaapse kus gestop word. Die opname, wat plaasvind oor 'n grond-oppervlak van 6-duisend hektaar, probeer bepaal of petroleum en gas in die Transkei-omgewing ontgin kan word. Nóg 'n projek wat 'n groter gebied dek, word boonop in 'n ander gebied beplan. Die nie-regeringsorganisasie 'Oceans Not Oil' waarsku dat dié planne verreikende gevolge inhou vir die mariene omgewing, asook die vissery en toerismebedryf. Marlinée Fouché het meer besonderhede.

Guest:  Treive Nicholas, to discuss his recent work, 'A Nun and the Pig: Tales from South Africa'. In 1980, while Nelson Mandela languished in jail, an enthusiastic and hopelessly naïve British teenager arrived at a local school in Mandela's home state of Transkei. Wide-eyed and faced with an unfamiliar world, Treive Nicholas was about to embark on an adventure he would never forget. Looking back on this year forty years later, A Nun and the Pig offers a remarkable insight into this politically charged but little-known part of Africa and a lived experience ranging from the surreal to the heart-warming; the wonderful to the tragic. One minute Nicholas could be entertaining local Thembu chiefs or coaching the Transkei paraplegic sports team for a rare non-racial sporting competition, the next he could be witnessing the terrible death of an infant in a neglected Umtata township. Scrapes with law enforcement agencies increased in frequency and risk as Nicholas railed against the injustices of the apartheid system, and at one point found himself smuggling Communist black liberation literature across South Africa's borders. Armed only with a camera and bag of dried apricots, his hitchhiking adventures took him thousands of kilometres north to Zambian bush, where events took a dangerous turn near one of Robert Mugabe's camps. Fear, shock, joy and self-discovery were a daily experience in this forgotten corner of South Africa, where humour and kindness flourished amid grinding poverty and brutal racism. The friendship of a wise and feisty nun kept Treive Nicholas on course, opening his eyes to a side of life unfamiliar to a former milkman from suburban England. Her car, ‘the Pig', was a trusty but temperamental companion. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation. Playlist 0′00″ Refrain (A Whisper, An Alarm) by Lea Bertucci on A Visible Length of Light (Cibachrome Editions) 1′15″ No Expectations by Remotif on The Sound of Hope Played Backwards (Pleasant Life) 8′00″ The Antidote by Sweatson Klank on Jewels from the Sun EP (Friends Of Friends) 12′40″ Now More Than Ever by Eddie C on On the Shore (Endless Flight) 17′45″ Paul's Place by Redinho on Finally We're Alone (self released) 21′04″ Twist Club by Jad & The on Twist Club (FINA Records) 25′18″ Last Exit to Transkei by Abel Ray on Last Exit to Transkei (PRAH Recordings) 30′17″ Misplaced Ceiling by Motoko & Myers on Colocate (Soda Gong) 35′00″ Atmos by Alien House on Playground (self released) 36′47″ Nu World by Max Wyatt on 00Am003 (00:AM) 41′35″ Hocus Pocus by Iñigo Vontier & Simple Symmetry on Multi Culti Equinox I (Multi Culti) 47′25″ Toucan by Clive From Accounts on Cooking the Books - EP (Dirt Crew Recordings) 51′35″ Piece of Paradise by Silence Path & Emotional Tourist on Piece of Paradise (When We Dip XYZ) 59′45″ Due North by Glo Phase on Early Moments (100% Silk) 64′00″ Iasos 79 'til Infinity by Carlos Niño & Friends on More Energy Fields, Current (International Anthem) 65′12″ Blue Sky Unravel by Tom VR on Please Keep Shimmering (all my thoughts) 70′55″ Seeing is Forgetting by Jared Wilson on Seeing is Forgetting (self released) 78′02″ Botanica (CK & Central Remix) by Lattice on Body of Water (air miles) 83′42″ Gravel by Longhair on Ja Wie? (Permanent Vacation) 89′00″ Ctairs by Christian Engh on Ctairs (Full Pupp) 95′08″ Invercargirl by Eden Burns on Big Beat Manifesto Vol. II (Public Possession) 100′27″ Peace & Tranquility by E00 on Peace & Tranquility (Radiant Love) 108′20″ Optimist by Marc Brauner on Patience (Shall Not Fade LTD) Check out the full archives on the website.

Dr. Lwazi Lushaba has a BA (Hons) from the University of Transkei, an MA in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan, an MPhil from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata, and a Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand. He has taught at Fort Hare and Wits, and he has held a Visiting Fellowship at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, and at Harvard in the USA. ---- Guest Links ----- http://www.politics.uct.ac.za/lwazi-lushaba WorldView is a media company that delivers in-depth conversations, debates, round-table discussions, and general entertainment to inevitably broaden your WorldView. ---- Links ----- https://twitter.com/Broadworldview https://web.facebook.com/BroadWorldView You can donate at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46136545&fan_landing=true Music: https://www.bensound.com​​​​​

Major General Bantu Holomisa was the Commander of the Transkei Defence Force and Head of the Transkei Government from 1987 to 1994. In 1994, Mr. Holomisa led the Transkei delegation to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) negotiations. After being expelled in 1996 for testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about issues in the Transkei, he co-founded the United Democratic Movement, a party that he has represented since 1999. The general has addressed many international forums, like the United Nations Security Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. ---- Guest Links ----- https://web.facebook.com/bantu.holomisa https://twitter.com/BantuHolomisa?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor WorldView is a media company that delivers in-depth conversations, debates, round-table discussions, and general entertainment to inevitably broaden your WorldView. ---- Links ----- https://twitter.com/Broadworldview https://web.facebook.com/BroadWorldView You can donate at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46136545&fan_landing=true Music: https://www.bensound.com​

This is episode 11 and it's all about Jan van Riebeeck arrival in 1652 and the amaXhosa/KhoeKhoe relationship. South Africa's modern community is a melting pot of people and part of that melting story started when the Dutch company the VOC decided to build a refreshment station in Table Bay. But it took quite some time to convince the Heeren 17 to agree to this plan. Van Riebeeck's landing was also extremely well documented – the logs he kept and those maintained by the VOC is a vast repository of the past. We need to talk a little about van Riebeeck. I mentioned a few things last episode, but now we must understand the short, fiery and energetic person more completely. He was lionised as the man who had vision leading the arrival of Europeans who came to live in south Africa – but the tale is not as it seems. The real distinction for running a proper colony fell to later men such as Simon van der Stel and Hendryk van Rheede whereas van Riebeeck never wanted to remain in Africa. In the mid-1600s the amaXhosa were still living in the vicinity of the Mbashe River in the modern Transkei and were going through a process of major segmentation as several chiefdoms hived off from the paramountcy. Some of their history was noted in 1554 after Portuguese ship São Bento ran aground at the mouth of the Mbhashe River.

This is episode 11 and it's all about Jan van Riebeeck arrival in 1652 and the amaXhosa/KhoeKhoe relationship. South Africa's modern community is a melting pot of people and part of that melting story started when the Dutch company the VOC decided to build a refreshment station in Table Bay. But it took quite some time to convince the Heeren 17 to agree to this plan. Van Riebeeck's landing was also extremely well documented – the logs he kept and those maintained by the VOC is a vast repository of the past. We need to talk a little about van Riebeeck. I mentioned a few things last episode, but now we must understand the short, fiery and energetic person more completely. He was lionised as the man who had vision leading the arrival of Europeans who came to live in south Africa – but the tale is not as it seems. The real distinction for running a proper colony fell to later men such as Simon van der Stel and Hendryk van Rheede whereas van Riebeeck never wanted to remain in Africa. In the mid-1600s the amaXhosa were still living in the vicinity of the Mbashe River in the modern Transkei and were going through a process of major segmentation as several chiefdoms hived off from the paramountcy. Some of their history was noted in 1554 after Portuguese ship São Bento ran aground at the mouth of the Mbhashe River.

This is episode 11 and it's all about Jan van Riebeeck arrival in 1652 and the amaXhosa/KhoeKhoe relationship. South Africa's modern community is a melting pot of people and part of that melting story started when the Dutch company the VOC decided to build a refreshment station in Table Bay. But it took quite some time to convince the Heeren 17 to agree to this plan. Van Riebeeck's landing was also extremely well documented – the logs he kept and those maintained by the VOC is a vast repository of the past. We need to talk a little about van Riebeeck. I mentioned a few things last episode, but now we must understand the short, fiery and energetic person more completely. He was lionised as the man who had vision leading the arrival of Europeans who came to live in south Africa – but the tale is not as it seems. The real distinction for running a proper colony fell to later men such as Simon van der Stel and Hendryk van Rheede whereas van Riebeeck never wanted to remain in Africa. In the mid-1600s the amaXhosa were still living in the vicinity of the Mbashe River in the modern Transkei and were going through a process of major segmentation as several chiefdoms hived off from the paramountcy. Some of their history was noted in 1554 after Portuguese ship São Bento ran aground at the mouth of the Mbhashe River.

This is episode 11 and it's all about Jan van Riebeeck arrival in 1652 and the amaXhosa/KhoeKhoe relationship. South Africa's modern community is a melting pot of people and part of that melting story started when the Dutch company the VOC decided to build a refreshment station in Table Bay. But it took quite some time to convince the Heeren 17 to agree to this plan. Van Riebeeck's landing was also extremely well documented – the logs he kept and those maintained by the VOC is a vast repository of the past. We need to talk a little about van Riebeeck. I mentioned a few things last episode, but now we must understand the short, fiery and energetic person more completely. He was lionised as the man who had vision leading the arrival of Europeans who came to live in south Africa – but the tale is not as it seems. The real distinction for running a proper colony fell to later men such as Simon van der Stel and Hendryk van Rheede whereas van Riebeeck never wanted to remain in Africa. In the mid-1600s the amaXhosa were still living in the vicinity of the Mbashe River in the modern Transkei and were going through a process of major segmentation as several chiefdoms hived off from the paramountcy. Some of their history was noted in 1554 after Portuguese ship São Bento ran aground at the mouth of the Mbhashe River.

La leona blanca. Cap. El hombre de Transkei, 8-2, 9 y 10-1

La leona blanca. Cap. El hombre de Transkei, 12-2, 13 y 14

La leona blanca. Cap. La mujer de Ystad, 7-2, y Cap. El hombre de Transkei, 8-1

La leona blanca. Cap. El hombre de Transkei, 10-2, 11 y 12-1

Nelson Mandela Político sudafricano (Umtata, Transkei, 1918 - 2013). Renunciando a su derecho hereditario a ser jefe de una tribu xosa, Nelson Mandela se hizo abogado en 1942. En 1944 ingresó en el Congreso Nacional Africano (ANC), un movimiento de lucha contra la opresión de los negros sudafricanos. Mandela fue uno de los líderes de la Liga de la Juventud del Congreso, que llegaría a constituir el grupo dominante del ANC; su ideología era un socialismo africano: nacionalista, antirracista y antiimperialista.

Kweku Mandela is a film producer most well-known for Inescapable (2012). He was born in Transkei, South Africa, and grew up in America, returning to his homeland in 1993. He attended APA International Film School in Sydney and is very active in the South African Film and Entertainment industries. He is dedicated to honoring his grandfather Nelson Mandela’s legacy by being heavily involved in both the entertainment and activist industries. He is a partner and President in one of South Africa’s largest Film and TV production companies, Out of Africa Entertainment and co-founder of the Africa Rising Foundation. Along with his cousin Ndaba, he is also the Global Ambassador for UNAIDS Global HIV/AIDS campaign called “Protect the Goal,” and is a founding member and ambassador for GenEndIt, which is aimed to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He also sits on the board of the Global Citizen Festival where he champions youth activism. He has worked with and supported Oxfam Australia and Make Poverty History. He supports the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety and the Long Short Walk, a world walk for road safety, in memory of his 13-year old cousin Zenani Mandela who was killed in a crash 2 years ago.

Diese Woche zu Gast im EUROPA Radio: Food-Experte Andrew Fordyce. Und bei so einem Fachmann liegen das Thema Kulinarik und die Küche Europas natürlich auf der Hand, denn Andrew hat nicht nur ein Gespür für hochwertige Lebensmittel, sondern auch für Trends und Strategien: wie wär's zum Beispiel mit einem Insektenburger? Wenn du offen für neues bist, dann bist du hier genau richtig! In dem Sinne: Guten Appetit. Masande bringt Ihre kulinarischen Produkte und gastronomischen Konzepte strategisch – national und international – auf den Markt: https://masande.de/ Rund um die Uhr die neuesten Infos hört ihr im EUROPA Radio: https://europa.radio/

There's a set of safety videos you're supposed to watch before you take Sani Pass. South Africa as a country is rather sloped. Johannesburg, in the center, towers several thousand feet above Cape Town, out on the coast. And rising high above the rest of South Africa, plopped Vatican-like in the middle of the surrounding country, is a tiny nation called Lesotho. If you want to drive from Durban up through Lesotho en route to Joburg, as was our intention, you have to ascend the Drakensberg range and take Sani Pass. And if you intend to take Sani Pass, you really ought to watch the videos.Sani Pass is notable for its treachery. The weekend before we'd planned to go to Lesotho (pronounced: "Le-soo-too") it had snowed on Sani Pass and two convoys had crashed. The passengers had sustained injury. The Pass is the last stretch of the demilitarized zone between South Africa and Lesotho in the Drakensberg mountains. It features sixteen consecutive hairpin switchbacks right before you hit the top, at a steep enough angle to send you scrambling after a bag of dropped marbles. People die on Sani Pass. Every year. All it takes is a little incompetence or a moment of lapsed attention. Should you survive the journey to the top, you can commemorate the accomplishment with a stop at Africa's highest pub. Can't say the same for Kilimanjaro.The videos, it should be said, don't offer much in the way of helpful insight. The gist of their advice is "be careful." Even so, they make it patently clear that the driver needs to pay very close attention to negotiating the road at hand.I finished watching the videos as the rest of the crew pulled up in our four-wheel-drive rental car. My job was to take notes on the safety instructions and get our Airbnb ready for check out while everyone else went to acquire the wheels. So it was with an elevated level of curiosity that I discovered they had gotten a flat while attempting park in front of our house. I wasn't there for the event, but I imagine them careening up to our Airbnb like an out of control space craft disgorged from a wormhole onto a barren and craggy red planet. Whatever the case, the car apparently struck the curb and upon impact the driver side tire burst. I looked on as the team hefted the jack out of the trunk and put on the spare.Our party was four strong. There was myself, my girlfriend, Haily; her friend from college, Dave Blackwood; and his colleague from work, Munesu (Muni for short). Blackwood is an American working in Zimbabwe. He's tall, lanky, and painfully caucasian with a plop of curly, unkempt hair. Muni is a Zambian working in Zimbabwe. He's short, black, and speaks with an American accent. They'd come down to Durban to bum around with us on our way to Joburg and to take the Pass.But first we had to make a stop in Pietermaritzburg, about an hour outside of Durban, to trade in our car for one with four tires.Pietermaritzburg is a city named for two men: one Mr. Pieter and one Mr. Maritz. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the contemporary land to which Piet and Maritz laid claim is a veritable wealth of rental car companies on offer in the town's regional airport. We exchanged our car without hassle -- upgraded to a superior 4x4, if anything -- and stocked up on supplies. I picked up a bottle of spiced rum from the Seychelles, which I'd been coveting on trips to other liquor stores in the country. The others got food, or some such provisions. Our destination for the evening, just on the South Africa side of the Lesotho border, was about four hours out, longer if we took the scenic route.Our first stop after Pietermaritzburg was the Mandela Capture Site, so called because it was where Nelson Mandela was captured before being throw in prison for twenty-seven years. That morning I'd reread the passage in Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, where he recounts the capture. He was on his way from Durban to Johannesburg, same as us. He was driving the N3 outside of Pietermaritzburg, same as us. He was on a fugitive on the run from the authorities, same as us. As we rolled up to the Capture Site on our left was the ditch that Mandela had prudently noted right before getting thrown in the slammer.From the N3, the monument looks a sapling forest of black iron poles. We turned off the road by the pole forest and went someways into an adjacent field. Without knowing any better, the scene looks like any other pokey field off any other highway in which nothing exciting has ever transpired. On the far end of the field is a parking lot. The trees around the lot were infested with monkeys bounding from branch to ground and back. (This is one of the primary differences between parking lots in Africa and parking lots in America.) You walk from the parking lot past a barn, a souvenir shop, and approach the monument down a long, straight paved sidewalk. At intervals along the sidewalk stand markers of milestones in Mandela's life. His birth, his start in politics, his circumcision (he devotes a very long passage in his autobiography to this event). The milestones are spaced to represent the passage of time between them. Mandela is famous around the world for what he did after his release from prison, being elected as the South African head of state, winning the Nobel Peace Prize. What is less recognized is how vigorously engaged the man was before his arrest. To give some idea, he doesn't get to Robben Island, where he spent the majority of his time in prison, until page 379 of his autobiography. The first four hundred pages aren't filler either. They're strewn page after page with the kind of accomplishments that would make chapter titles in anyone else's life story. What is striking, moving even, about the markers is that it gives a tangible weight to what twenty-seven years in prison takes from a life. It is a literal laying out of Mandela's long walk.At the end of the sidewalk, the path descends into a corridor opening up into the teardrop landscape in which the black poles stand. At the apex of the tear is a plaque on the ground. It says something to the effect of "stand here and look up at the thing." Upon looking up one sees that what was until now a morass of shifting iron assembles itself into the visage of the man himself, Madiba. It is as if you were looking at a chalkboard etched with his face, in profile, wise and weathered. Move to the left or the right and the scene disassembles. Shift back and there he is. Once you've taken in the monument you're left with the long walk back to the car.The route through the heart of the KwaZulu-Natal province forks. We had the option to either stay on the highway or opt for the Midlands Meander. We took the Meander. The small roads of the Meander skirt about the hills, whereas the N3 highway blusters right through them. The Meander is named in the spirit of overzealous marketing. The route takes longer, but the landscape is as inconsequential as it would be through any other road. Frequently the Meander splits, allowing one to adjust the journey for their own appetite for meandering. Blackwood was driving. Muni's job was to call the splits. As we came to our first turnoff, Blackwood inquired, "Muni, left or right?" There was a brief silence. Blackwood turned right. Muni: "left." Blackwood shot a glance toward the passenger's seat.Everything on the road was unexpected, at least to Blackwood, who reacted as if each hair pin turn or cow in the road was something totally misplaced, as it would be on a freeway in Los Angeles. Haily and I sloshed to and fro in the back seat, as on a winding roller coaster, with each yank of the wheel from Blackwood. There were many pedestrians walking the side of the road, and we imperiled each of them as we shot past. Periodically we would hit a rumble strip, and Blackwood would slam the breaks, throwing the rest of us forward as we took the strip at an ambitious 100 kilometers per hour. The road became dirt as we neared the mountains.Blackwood engaged in a number of extracurricular diversions in addition to his primary responsibility of driving. Arising out of the silence of the car, "Is that a grain silo?" Equipped with his own answer, Blackwood replied, "I think it's a grain silo." Blackwood is an economist. He is well-suited to it. "This road seems expensive. Lots of Bridges." We waded through the dirt road into flaxen plains drifting off into a deep purple haze. "Some serious soil erosion on the right." In the distance, wedges of mountains were set in receding rows. "Are those the Drakensburg in the distance? I'm convinced those are the Draks. Hi Draks." Blackwood tugged on the wheel to avoid a herd of sheep, acquainting my cheek with the cool, moist window. "This is a windy road, guys." Every three minutes or so, Blackwood would ask, "Muni, left or right?" He performed this ritual with a devoted constancy, no matter how obviously subsidiary the left turn in question might be. Muni, not necessarily invested in the navigational success of our journey, could never be counted on for a timely answer. Blackwood, for his part, could be relied upon to pierce any silence lingering in our car as it wove through the Transkei."It's crazy. Someone, like, invested in making this fancy-ass bridge.""Oh, look! An ice waterfall! I love ice waterfalls, guys.""Look at those pinnacles! They've got to be something. The Draks!""Cows!""It's funny. Sometimes the dust stays for a long time and sometimes it doesn't."At length, the road resumed its paving. Blackwood: "Imagine living out here." Muni: "Turn right." The only turn was to the left, as Blackwood noted. "I meant left." We took another rumble strip at full tilt, Blackwood slamming on the brakes once the impediment was felt. We made our way through the layer cake of a landscape. In the foreground the dark green of poorly lit fields, in temporary recess from the sun's jurisdiction, the light green of the fields still touched by daylight, the blue of the closest mountains, the purple of furthest mountains, orange fading into the purple of dusk. "Those mountains look so craggily. Must be the Drakensburgs."At no obvious landmark the road turned to dirt again and rocks ricocheted below our car like a pinball machine. "Are those ostriches? They are! Oh wait, those are cows." We passed a 'beware of blasting' sign.Blackwood: "How?"Muni: "Straight." Blackwood: "Right or straight?" Muni: "Right and then straight is what I mean."The sun went down, and we made our way into the mountains. "So clearly those are not the whole Drakensburgs," intoned Blackwood.It was dark when we got to our destination for the evening. After hours of being subjected to Blackwood's sudden jerks of the wheel as last second responses to imminent danger, I felt as though I'd spent the afternoon in a cocktail shaker. I was eager to stretch my legs after a day sealed in the car. It was cold outside, mountain cold. We stayed the night at a bed and breakfast. The only other occupants were a fleet of Dutch high school students. There were scores of them. Our party and theirs dined on a hearty meal of bread and stew provided by the lodge. At dinner, I leaned over to one of the adults in their number and struck up a conversation. They intended to take the Pass, as did we. I asked if he had watched the safety videos. "Of course," the man said. "It's important to pay close attention to the road, you know?" As I was about to respond, I couldn't help but overhear Blackwood contribute to a separate conversation:"Sani Pass tomorrow! I bet we'll see lots of ice waterfalls."In the early morning we took leave of South Africa and crossed into the DMZ. Before we got going we let some air out from the tires for the rough terrain. "You ready, Blackwood?" I asked. The best he could offer was an empirically-based "I don't know."The road up Sani Pass was dirt all the way, except when it was rocks. The route took three hours in total. An hour of that was stopping ever 500 feet in elevation, certain that this was going to be the best lookout spot we would reach. Much of the early stages were under construction, so the path was littered with flaggers and orange cones and eight-ton Caterpillar bulldozers. When the path got bumpy it was like climbing a mountain in a car. In effect we were. There was frequently a non-negligible change in elevation from tire to tire. We didn't need four wheel drive. We needed a mountain goat.About half way up we passed a cross on the side of the road, a memorial to one who failed to take the Pass. There were also doohickies strewn about the road, like broken off car parts or something like that. It was all a bit unnerving.We spotted three ice waterfalls, close up, and stopped to take pictures at each.Blackwood, it should be said, buckled down for the final stage with the sixteen hairpin switchbacks. It wasn't snowing, mercifully. And our Nissan-cum-mountain-goat served us well. The only really perilous part came when I would look out my side of the window and gaze over the practically infinite distance we would tumble if our car should flip or apparate three feet to the right. In short, we made it.When we leveled off at the top of Sani Pass we were greeted by the vast tundra plateau of Lesotho. We had climbed a mountain and instead of finding a summit we found a plain. Expanses of yellow grass stretched off into the distance, raising up into another mountainscape beyond. Here the ground was palpably closer to the sky. In the fore were three round huts and lodge. One of the round huts was border control, where we dutifully presented ourselves. The lodge housed Africa's Highest Pub, or as we called it, the World's Highest African Pub. After marking our official entry in Lesotho we repaired to the pub to celebrate our victorious assent with a round of Maluti, the everyman's beer of Lesotho.To drive through Lesotho is to stumble upon an outcropping of the Himalayas in Southern Africa. The horizon is layered with dry mountains dusted with snow, situated beneath a cloudless sky. It is more than a little startling upon embarking across the terrain to realize that the "Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho" refers not just to the mountains which you just climbed, but the entirely novel and independently worthy set of mountains in front of you. As we arrived at the first slope coming out of the plains the car inclined to what seemed like a forty-five degree angle. Blackwood floored it. The Nissan sputtered for all it was worth. We hit thirty kilometers-per-hour, tops.The road was nice, paved and smooth. New. Blackwood was impressed. "Who paid for it, I wonder?" Yet if South Africa featured more roadside characters and livestock than seems advisable to the western driver, it was the western drivers who seemed out of place in Lesotho. The road belonged to the characters and the livestock. After our initial assent (we'd be up and down, scrawling across mountains for the rest of the day), we passed two Basotho men walking their mule up the road. The mule dragged a cart of building supplies. We slowed to overtake them. They seemed friendly. They waved. We waved back. They made the universal pantomime for 'picture' and struck engaging poses. Amused, we snapped a picture. They immediately implored us to reimburse them for their modeling services. They were savvy. We'd been snookered into it. Lesotho is a remarkably poor country, even by African standards. A man's gotta make a buck.We gave them oranges from our stash instead.What is most breathtaking about Lesotho -- ineffable, as well as uncapturable in photos -- is to take stock of whence you came and discover that you've traversed a sea of terraced mountains, piled one upon the other, as far as can be seen. We reached the highest point at 3240 meters. Highest point of what, it didn't say. Probably the World's Highest Basotho Point.From there we continued to slalom through the countryside. On our way down we passed a mule piled with straw. We never saw a driver. It looked like a mobile bush. We began to hit more Basotho villages as we went. We passed many herders and each one of them attempted the ol' picture-for-money gambit on us. They would see our car coming down the road from way off and take leave of their field of sheep to run toward the road in desperate hopes of soliciting some monetary pittance. To travel this road is to acquire minor celebrity. We were of unconscionable wealth and unimaginable circumstance to those whom we passed.Each village is sprawled across the hillside like a broken rack of billiard balls. The men and women alike are draped in colorful and festively designed blankets, a signature of Basotho culture. It's cold up there. They don the blankets to have even a semblance of a chance at warmth. Their huts are round with thatched roofs, each about the same size. A queen-size bed coerced inside would start to curl up along the walls. The hillside is spangled with handsome livestock, goats and sheep mostly. Off in the distance a larger flock of sheep or a pasture of cows graze and are watched over by a blanket-robed shepherd. I must say that it is all a beautiful sight to behold. To say as much is an incontrovertible romanticism of poverty. But it is true nonetheless.No one passed us in the other direction. We overtook no one. And no one overtook us from behind.We came across the Letseng diamond hostels. Lesotho is home to one of Southern Africa's most prolific diamond mines. (None of the wealth ends up in the hands of the average Basotho, of course.) The hostels are where the workers live. Away from their families they stay while there is work, then return home. Such hostels are common in this part of the world, for instance in Johannesburg when it was a gold boomtown. The mine was quiet when we passed. No workers to be seen at the hostels.At length we reached Afriski, where we planned to stay the night. Afriski is southern Africa's only ski resort, as well as its preeminent douchebag basecamp. It features one ski run. While it was cold up there, it was not snowing. They had a snow machine to rectify that impediment to hitting the slopes. It is a rather pathetic scene to see an otherwise barren hillside painted with a single strip of white powder, like roots showing under dyed hair. Haily and I don't ski. We were mostly there for the hot tub. Which even in Africa, so we thought, they surely must understand is a critical amenity at any ski resort worth half its salt. Alas, there was no hot tub at Afriski.We dined at the resort's lone restaurant. Overpriced burgers, pasta, pizza, "salads" -- that sort of fare. On every television (and there were several visible from any vantage) was a promo video for Afriski, displayed on an endless loop. People skiing, drinking, cheering, skiing, drinking, cheering: offered for the consideration of dining patrons all evening. We split a bottle of wine between the four of us. Then Haily and I retired to our room. Blackwood and Muni went to do something else.What we anticipated when we rented a "ski chalet" was a posh little bungalow outfitted with a fireplace, a number of tacky taxidermied animals on the wall, and tall ceilings supported by hearty wooden rafters. What we got was a dinky little bunk house with a kitchenette and a temperamental space heater. Worse still it was shared between our party and another, made only slightly better by the barrier separating our bunk room from theirs. The beds, it is worth noting, were mercifully outfitted with electric blankets, as the room was otherwise more or less the same temperature as the outside world.When we got back to the room, I decided to make friends with the neighbors. I grabbed my bottle of Seychelles rum and knocked on their door. So commenced our first night at Afriski.Their crew hailed from Joburg. I introduced myself, and as each of them told me their name I foisted the the bottle of rum in their direction. We became friends very quickly. I asked them about what brought them to Lesotho. They told me they were filming a rap video. Oh, really? Yes, they told me, they had to get up at four in the morning the next day to scout a shooting location. I asked them who the rapper was. "Shane Eagle," an eminent up-and-coming South African rap artist, or so I was informed. Alright, sure.I hung out in their room for a bit then bid them adieu and went back to ours to take my leave of consciousness for the evening.In the morning we wandered down to the slope. Blackwood and Muni had come to ski. Haily and I thought about giving it a shot. But never having skied before we were overcome with a strong desire to do nothing. I'd also run out of money somewhere back in Zimbabwe some weeks before. We retired to the room.It was nine or ten in morning. Haily and I were back in bed reading when into our room walked a new fellow, who we didn't recognize, accompanied by a lady-friend. They gave us a cordial nod and went into the room next door. Shortly after they were followed by the crew from last night. That had been Mr. Eagle himself, retreating to the room for a little R&R after an early morning shoot.In the afternoon we made our way down to the ski slope. We posted up with our books at the Apres Ski Cafe, situated at the bottom of the run. We went in to order a couple hot chocolates. A rugby match played on the television. It was the Jaguars versus the Wallabies, or something like that. I watched it with academic curiosity. The thighs of rugby players have always intrigued me. They give the impression of the legs of an NFL linebacker having been glued onto the physique of soccer player. Then all of a sudden, there was an eruption from the other patrons. The Wallabies seemed suddenly heartened, for reasons I was unable to ascertain.Back outside, we sat in the cold air with our hot chocolates and listened to the Euro trash blasting on the loudspeaker. People were beginning to engage in Apres-ski activities, such as drinking from funnels and dancing on tables. They played that one song where Shakira sings, "This one is for Af-ri-ka." Everyone went f*****g crazy. The entire place was filled with white people. Probably South African white, but it was still weird to hear them worked up over the mention of Africa. Two men wandered through the crowds in gorilla suits. I overheard one conversation in which the gentleman next to us related to his colleague, "All good vibes out there, bro. All good vibes." Inside the café there hung a set of snowboard bindings from the rafters where, evidently, patrons are voluntarily strapped in and encouraged to take as many shots as possible while hanging upside down. The winner-board displayed names and tallies, the most outstanding performances from the previous evening. Mark scored twenty. David scored an heroic twenty-five. All good vibes out there, bro. Lines of neon plastic shot glasses were strewn about each table. There was an Afriski official going around pouring an unidentified liquor into people's mouths, straight from the bottle. All good vibes.Another official paraded through with a device -- an upside-down traffic cone positioned to funnel liquid into a tube which ran to a Y-junction splitting the tube into two -- and as he passed people stood back, mouthed, "oh, s**t" and gave an impressed look, apparently intrigued by this feat of plumbing. The gorillas seemed not to notice when the officials passed and kept on dancing. This apparent lack of appreciation is undoubtedly why their species has failed to contribute any advancements to the practice of HVAC or pipefitting."This next one is going to get your body moving," the DJ proclaimed and then dropped the needle on the Macarena. As it turns out, the Macarena is quite difficult to do when drunk. Lots of coordinated fine motor movements. However, one reaches a point of drunkenness where precision takes on a subsidiary role to zeal and candor. Then you get good at the Macarena again. Really good.These people all looked so dumb. Yet, I wished I could be a part of it. Perhaps if I had skied all day the whole thing would've made sense. But it just didn't. Surreptitiously I poured another dose of rum in my hot chocolate and slunk back to reading.At length we located Blackwood and Muni on the slopes. They'd put in a good session. They joined us in a round of hot chocolate and gawking at the partiers. We returned to the room and washed up. Then we went for dinner. At the restaurant we were seated at a table for four near the back. In the corner we spied a number of familiar faces. It was Shane Eagle's entourage. I went over to strike up with some of my closer mates in the group. They'd had a good day of shooting and were about to head back to Joburg. They asked me if I'd be going back that way any time soon. I told them I would. We exchanged contact information. I bid them farewell and returned to my seat. I even received a nod from Mr. Eagle himself, who sat laconically at the far corner of the table.After dinner, we returned to the room. Since the Eagle entourage flew the coop, we had new bunkmates. Two girls, about our age. We liberated the alcohol from our stash -- a few bottles of wine, the rum, and a bottle of South African brandy which we mixed with soda -- and began to consume liberally. We got to know the girls a bit. They were a lively couple. From Bloem, the same town where J.R.R. Tolkien hailed, as they made a conspicuous point to mention. After a few drinks, they drew us a map of the places we ought to visit in this, one of South Africa's all-too-easily overlooked interior cities. We asked them why they were in Lesotho. This proved to be a mistake -- both their coming to Lesotho, and our getting mixed up in it. But we wouldn't understand that fully until later.The last entry in my notes for the evening reads: "Tequila YES France [undecipherable] swift."The tequila I endorsed so enthusiastically had been obtained when we moseyed back down to the Apres Ski Café for the evening's festivities. There was supposed to be a ski burning (an ancient douchebag rite of passage, I believe). But we missed it by a couple minutes. France came into play with a young man with whom our group became acquainted. He's from there. I'm not sure what exactly it was that had transpired swiftly.Upon our arrival in the seedy nightclub that was the Apres-Ski, we had acquired a number of beers. With these beers we played beer pong, the four of us. Muni and I blew Haily and Blackwood to smithereens. Sincerely, we demolished them. I celebrated with another round of drinks for Haily and me. Shrewdly, Muni and Blackwood ceased to drink at that point. I'd attained an advanced level of amicability by now. This is when we met the French guy and his colleagues. French guy worked at Afriski. Come to think of it, he was probably the one going around with the inverted traffic cone in the afternoon.He challenged us to beer pong. Or we challenged him. I don't remember. Muni and me versus him and Haily. I drank Muni's portion. From this junction on, the night comes to me in snapshots. After the game, French guy bought a round of tequila shots for the group. It ended up being him, me, Haily, and his friend. I don't know that he was keen to buy me drinks, as I reckon he was mostly interested in Haily. After that there was dancing. By now I would likely have been very good at the Macarena, should the opportunity have presented itself.Prudently, we made our way back to our room. In tow was French guy, the two girls who were our new neighbors, and a man with whom they were affiliated. Likely some other people as well. There manifested something of a commotion between the two girls and the guy, a conflict to which the ladies had alluded earlier in the evening. They had been rather modest in retailing the magnitude of the hostility.I'll tell you what I can remember and what I was able to reconstruct from accounts the following day.There was a huge spat between the girls. The man was the husband of one of the girls. She had come to Lesotho at the behest of her friend to get away from him. He was no good for her, apparently. She wanted to reconcile with her husband, but her friend had advised against it. The man was adamant that her friend couldn't prevent the reconciliation. The reason that we were involved in this was that the man was outside the bunkhouse and had to come through our room to get to her's. The members of our party had sided with the friend and were not in favor of admitting this man onto the premises of our domicile. Staff members of Afriski were present, French guy included. There was much shouting. The husband shouted at the girl for not accommodating him. He shouted at the friend for preventing him from getting his way. The girl yelled at the friend for preventing her from acting on her wishes. The friend shouted at the girl for consistently f*****g up her life. The Afriski team stood there and did nothing. Haily maintained our delegation's moral position while Blackwood and Muni tried to keep peace as best they could.The details of this conflict were mostly lost on me -- they still are -- though I found the whole thing rather engaging at the time. In the midst of the kerfuffle French guy stuck around. I supposed at the time he was just hanging around to see how everything turned out, and so I was amicably disposed toward him. However, that changed in a matter of moments as Muni made it clear to me that the reason he was sticking around was that he was attempting to coax my girlfriend into running off to some shadowy corner of the premises to make out with him. Upon reception of this intelligence, there was a momentary lapse in my pleasant disposition. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and backed him away from our bunkhouse, excusing him with an aggressive shove in the opposing direction. This obstacle appeared to make the endeavor no longer worth his pursuing, and he began to clear off. This marked a point of escalation in the evening, and there was a consensus afterward that it was time for me to go to bed. As I stepped back into the bunkhouse my amicability was revived and I poked my head out to wave to French guy and convey that no hard feelings were felt. He seemed unmoved this sentiment and left in a minor huff. I tucked into bed and was asleep shortly thereafter.The next morning the friend (the one whose aim was to keep the husband out) came sheepishly into our room. She apologized for the whole mess. Then she lapsed into a sob story about something to which I was not in a position devote my attention. The other girl was nowhere to be found. She had gone off with her husband. As for the French guy, I asked Muni about the incident. "You don't remember?" he asked. "You told that guy to 'le f**k off.'"For the first hour of that morning I had the distinction of being the world's most hungover person. We piled in the car and took our leave from the premises of Afriski. We set off through the Basotho mountains on our way toward Johannesburg. And as we wound down the mountainside, surveying the infinitude of Basotho majesty before us, I stuck my head out the window and yorked. Laudably, not but a skosh landed on the exterior of the car. Blackwood pulled over into a turnout, and we took a moment to appreciate the scene while I finished hurling. Just like that my hangover was exorcised. We lingered for another minute to take in the beauty.Our final destination in Lesotho was the site of an ancient cave painting. The decent from the heights of Afriski to South Africa along Lesotho's north border is less precipitous than the Sani Pass route. The goats, the mules, and the villages were spaced further apart on our leisurely decent through the mountains. We pulled off at one of the auxiliary roads that links up with the main highway. We parked the car and piled out. Down a paved path we came across a wooden building, closer to the kind of wooden structure you'd expect in a rural part of a developed nation rather than the traditional circular huts. Inside we paid for a guide to take us down to see the cave paintings.The guide, a Basotho woman native to the area, took us past the barn to where the path became dirt and dropped down a canyon slope. We descended a wooden staircase implanted in the hillside. Then we crossed a bridge where the guide pointed out that if you fell off it into the crevasse you wouldn't easily get out. In fact this had happened before. Not to tourists, per se, but other varieties of out-of-place white people. A little further in, the hillside flattened out into a dried up river bed with a peculiar outcropping of rock. Immediately in front of us was a rock wall with a bent and cavernous face that looked like an overgrown half-pipe. It wrapped around out of sight. Our guide explained that a great battle took place here long ago, the details of which were lost on me. I was feeling better than before, but my head wasn't yet on straight.Then she took us over to the cave paintings. They were on a rock wall across the dried river bed from the half-pipe. We crossed a man-made boardwalk that led over to the paintings. The boardwalk fenced off the last couple feet right before the wall. The guide hopped the fence and put her finger right up to them.The cave paintings were a faint orange scrawling of stick figure persons. They weren't much in the way of an imposing visual presence, but I guess that's true of most things people wrote down a long time ago. How long does it take a newspaper to yellow, a couple decades? These had been here for hundreds and hundreds of years. Ostensibly (and by that I mean this is what the guide said), they depicted ancient Basotho hunters going after elan. My initial interpretation was that this painting was composed on a slow day of elan hunting. From the one hunter to the other: "And you see, Joe, this is what it would look like if we had in fact caught an Elan today." That's when he would've put down the drawing of the elan with a spear going through it. The guide's interpretation differed slightly. She said they were depictions of the visions that came to these Basotho hunters while in trance. They drew themselves tall and skinny, though in fact they were rather squat in figure.The rock walled canyon bottom did seem like a good place for a trance. There was an engaging acoustic effect where you could cast your voice across the river bed. It wasn't so much of an echo as a single repetition from across the way. Still recovering from a hangover, I found this simple effect fascinating. Doped up, I imagine it'd be quite riveting.And with that we hiked back up the canyon to set off for the South Africa border. There was still a ways to go from the edge of Lesotho to Johannesburg, a few hours maybe. The terrain contrasts sharply. Lesotho's endless array of mountains is engaging and beautiful. Interior South Africa is infertile plains, distant buttes, and straight roads. It's like taking leave of Nepal and finding yourself in Wyoming. The country boundaries must have been drawn along scenic borders rather than ethnic ones. We were no longer in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho.Back in Joburg we split our separate ways. Haily and I spent a night or two in the city then took off on another road trip through the country down to Cape Town. Muni and Blackwood went off to whatever their next plans were. We'd had a densely packed couple of days, from wandering Mandela's long walk to taking Sani Pass to participating in a domestic disturbance to communing with man's long-standing devotion to commemorating his conquests. We were ready for something a little less involved during our stay in Johannesburg. Thankfully, during that time, nothing would ever come to fisticuffs nor would we project unwelcome bodily contents into a vast and comely mountainscape. My only disappointment, looking back, is that we never did hit up Shane Eagle's entourage.Next Episode:Thanks for checking out Season 1 of Notes from the Field. If you’ve enjoyed it, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. I’m trying to do more of this kind of travel writing in the future. But as you can imagine, it’s hard to have these kinds of experiences while also holding down a job. Your subscription goes a long way toward helping me to do that. Use the link below, and you’ll get 50% off an annual subscription. Thanks! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

- Season 2, Episode 13 -

Recorded 28 May 2020 Alex Booth is a chartered accountant that has owned and flown many helicopters, fix wings, Paragliders and Ppg. He is a husband, father of 3 boys and is a very passionate and experienced pilot. Based outside East London, the eastern cape of South Africa. Google images of this place.. Use words.. Transkei, drakensberg, wild coat. An excellent podcast filled with storytelling and inspiring tales of flying. Tons of tips and insights. From learning to fly with Tristan Burrell (podcast dedicated in memory of this legend) to R44s and turbine helicopters. Extremely great advice on staying alive in flying... Wow! Helicopter so near death experience! The widow maker powerlines. Too crazy and so many lessons in there. Incredibly interesting flying stories. Safety, the coast, how he met his wife... Brilliant storytelling all round! This man has owned several planes, helicopters, turbine and piston and currently flies the company bell jet ranger and Barron. He works as a chartered accountant and pilot for his company but has several kinds of flying right on his doorstep. He instructs paragliding in a brilliant, unique way and shares a wealth of knowledge with us. Keith Pickerskill and getting powered paraglider and flying paramotor tandem with my boys from my garden. How attitude matters. Instructing paragliding after just 3 years of being back in the sport.. Students with 28 flight in after a weekend... Yet fully on the safety! A Brilliant and unique Approach to instructing. Such a great winch system. Piloting in the game capture industry.. Flying over animals and darting them.. Very difficult industry right now. Paragliding... The bottom line.. Excellent discussion on this purest form of flying.. And why we love it so much. Essential potential life saving tips. DEFINITELY SEE ALEC'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL... AMAZING! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK4QkaQcxzuK88wMGl7eygQ MORE great resources.. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Paragliding-PPG-East-London-397595020744654 Kempston: Corporate video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prGh-HinTzA&t=11s Webpage: https://kempston.co.za/ Miami Paragliding E-winch http://miamiparagliding.com/ewinch/ Alec Booth Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK4QkaQcxzuK88wMGl7eygQ Mini 500 Heli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5BMQayXq8&t=17s PPG with my boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kby-Or7gKoY&t=61s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w57OSfsVr0 Bell Jetranger that I fly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTqwEUEyRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApL__L-9bd8 Bell on WildCoast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4OYGoBSNZo Rhino dehorning with Bell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN1T7KkWqIw&t=49s

Part 2 of the short documentary on Capital Radio 604 made in 1980, shortly after the station opened.   Created by Shaun Johnson.

Part 1 of the short documentary on Capital Radio 604 made in 1980, shortly after the station opened.   Created by Shaun Johnson.

Guy Stern paints himself blue in Ibiza, while Heidi Thomas steals a pig in the Transkei. Two stories on the theme On a Whim. Stories told live at the Southern Rights & Wrongs live event at Raptor Room in Cape Town.

Guest: Siphokazi Mdlankomo, Host – Let’s Eat and Author – My Little Black Recipe BookHost: Sara-Jayne King, Late NightsTopic: The Fringe: From domestic worker to MasterChefSiphokazi grew up in the Eastern Cape in the rural areas of the former Transkei region in Tsolo Village, next to Umtata. Her love for cooking started at an early age, under the guidance of her mother and grandmother, with her fondest memories were helping and watching her mother bake scones on a three-legged pot on an open flame. Siphokazi has been a domestic worker for the past fifteen years but she always honed her cooking skills. In 2014, she decided to enter MasterChef Season 3 and ended up being the much-loved Runner-Up of that season. The experience thought her everything from patience to creativity and respect for every ingredient. She is also a brand ambassador for Pick ‘n Pay as well as Royco and has been selected as one of the SASKO Top Bakers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This was a newsy edition of Media Network in early 1982. KYOI, the SW music station in Saipan is planning to start testing November 1st. 107 people have written to support Radio New Zealand on shortwave. Tunnel Radio is launching in the US. FEBA Seychelles is faced with political problems on the island. Andy Sennitt has news about World Music Radio on 6219 kHz. Capital Radio in Transkei may resite its transmitters. Over the last 18 months we've been looking at what it is like to listen to western broadcasters in Katowice, Poland. We did a quick feature on time signal stations. We find the transmitter of CHU in Canada. Dan Robinson has some tips of African and Latin American stations he has been hearing in Washington DC. Rudy van Dalen reports that the Greek military station has become ERT-2.

Kendal McGlashan said "yes" to her boyfriend in a romantic Transkei mountain setting that she will definitely never forget. Jane gets to know the young couple. Jane's page on ECR

East Coast Radio — Kendal McGlashan said "yes" to her boyfriend in a romantic Transkei mountain setting that she will definitely never forget. Jane gets to know the young couple.

A project manager and community liaison explains the complexities and difficulties of her work in the Eastern Cape, by Nokubonga Philiswa Mjo Nokubonga Mjo (Philiswa Popi) was born Engcobo , Transkei at Eqolweni location and moved to King Williams Town , Eastern Cape as i got married with a guy from King , I started schooling in Engcobo and later on moved to Johannesburg as my mother staying there , thats where i fished up my education . After that i have work have worked at Willards Travel for a year and moved to PE Dioceses project where we were tracing the defaulters and send them back to treatment because of funding it closed buy the end of March 2014 . In October 2014 its when i started to work for Mzantsi Wakho as a research assistant where we doing home visits interviewing the participants in their homes and was promoted to liaising officer here i was keeping the good relations between the Project Stake holders and the community ,from this to being na APM still doing the same and seeing that the team has all the right information,packs, and to what i am now a Project Manager here i am seeing that all things at the office running smooth in the office looking after staff , seeing that we have all the the materials that the team uses are available and also keeping all the relations with our stake holders and community and good and reporting back to our Oxford/ORSA as our head office and making sure that everything is running smooth at the office.

TechCentral — Thank you for listening to the TechCentral podcast. In this episode, Duncan McLeod talks to Carlos Rey-Moreno of the Association for Progressive Communications about the work he and his team have done to help deliver cheap telecommunications services to the rural people of Mankosi and surrounding areas in the Eastern Cape. Mankosi, located in a deep rural region between Coffee Bay and Port St Johns in the old Transkei, has 3 500 residents spread across 12 small villages. Rey-Moreno explains how the project got its start, how it works and why he believes the model could be replicated in rural communities across South Africa. Also in the podcast, he talks about the submission made by the company behind the Mankosi project, Zenzeleni Communications, to the department of telecoms & postal services on the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill. Rey-Moreno explains what he believes government could be doing to help communities help themselves to bring down the cost of voice and data services.

Communities in Transkei in the Eastern Cape must brace themselves for more severe weather conditions this week. The South African Weather Service issued the warning after another violent storm hit the King Sabatha Dalindyebo municipality last week. Fundiswa Mhlekude looks at the prevalence of destructive weather patterns in the region...

Justice and Correctional Service Minister, Michael Masutha, says South Africa will continue to call for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide. Masutha was speaking during the exhumation of the remains of thirteen members of the PAC's former armed wing, Poqo, who were executed by the apartheid government. They were sentenced to death for killing five white people at the Mbhashe River in the then Transkei in 1963. Masutha pointed out that in present-day South Africa, the right to life is entrenched in the constitution. Maluti Obuseng reports

Eastern Cape businesses have partnered in a bid to instil a reading culture in rural schools, particularly those in Transkei. The partnership saw ten schools in Butterworth and Ngqamakwe under Mnquma Municipality receiving learning and teaching material which includes books and sporting equipment. The business sector did this under the Rally to Read Campaign which targets primary school learners. Yanga Funani has more

Marina Xaba-Mokoena fick chansen att utbilda sig till lungläkare i Sverige på 60-talet och startade senare en medicinsk fakultet i Transkei i Sydafrika som idag har utbildat tusentals läkare. Tack vare toppbetyg och ett SIDA-stipendium fick Marina Xaba-Mokoena år 1966 möjlighet att läsa till läkare vid Karolinska institutet i Stockholm. Nu är hon tillbaka i Sverige för att fira 50-års jubileum med sina gamla kursare. När jag återvände till Transkei var jag den första kvinnliga, svarta överläkaren. Men man kan inte komma ifrån att det största jag gjort för Transkei och Sydafrika var att starta den medicinska fakulteten som nu har utbildat 2000 läkare.Niklas Zachrisson niklas.zachrisson@sverigesradio.se

A true account from the late 70’s to present day, of two small groups of radio DJ’s who set up and ran the worlds loudest AM radio station in the southern hemisphere, Capital Radio 604.and its effect on apartheid-era S.Africa. It was one long party in the banana republic. of Transkei, and its closing didn’t go without a fight and plenty of tears and drama. Narrated and written by a British founder DJ, Steve Crozier.

This is a very early Media Network magazine documentary about broadcasting in Southern Africa, when apartheid South Africa had stations operating from the various "homelands". We had no internet, only cassettes - and the link to the late Frits Greveling who had presented and produced the previous DX show to this one, DX Juke Box. He returned to Johannesburg to work for several South African radio stations. Although the style is totally out of date, the information about broadcasting in Southern Africa in the early 1980's remains fascinating.  I note that there's a site dedicated to the memory of Capital 604 Transkei. You can find most of the jingles they used . You may also find the video interview with David Smith to be interesting. He also had adventures with Capital Radio which can be found .  

Suid-Afrika het 'n groot tekort aan openbare gesondheidsdienste vir mense met psigiatriese siektes of verstandelike gestremdhede, veral in plattelandse gebiede. Die Hobeni-nedersetting is in 'n afgeleë deel van die Oos-Kaap in die voormalige Transkei. Daar is 'n paar omheinde hutte bekend as Ikhaya Loxolo. Dit beteken Huis van Vrede. Vir honderde kilometer is dit die enigste plek waar verstandelik en geestelik gestremde mense hulp kan kry. Kultuur, bygelowigheid en 'n gebrek aan mediese sorg in die gebied bring oneindige lyding vir sulke mense mee.

Goeie paaie, elektrisiteit en skoon, lopende water is maar net ‘n droom in baie dele van die voormalige Transkei. In sommige gebiede is gesondheidsdienste so ver weg van waar mense bly, en so sleg toegerus, dat dit so goed is as geen dienste nie. Babas sterf aan maklik behandelbare siektes soos diaree en omdat hospitale so geisoleerd en moeilik bereikbaar is, word oordraagbare toestande soos MIV en tuberkulose dikwels nie betyds behandel nie. Die meeste mense in die voormalige Transkei het nie werk nie. Armoede is endemies en maatskaplike probleme soos alkoholisme is algemeen. Maar een gemeenskap het ongewone en daadwerklike stappe gedoen om die probleme aan te pak. In die proses is, en word, baie lewens gered. Mia Malan en Darren Taylor het ‘n week in die Bulungula-distrik aan die Oos-Kaap se Wildekus spandeer…

Starting with a brief history of the Transkei and Capital Radio 604, this 80's mix created by Adrian Horwitz contains mashups of different 604 shows and presenters throughout the 1980s.

Die gesondheidsdepartement het onlangs die Oliver Tamb-distrik in die Oos-Kaap gekies as een van sy toetsgronde vir die nuwe Nasionale Gesondheidsverskeringskema. Een van die belangrikste fasiliteite in die distrik is die Zithulele Hospitaal in die voormalige Transkei. Dit bedien 'n gebied van 'n 130-duisend mense. Baie van hulle het vigs, tuberkulose of ander oordraagbare siektes. Ten spyte daarvan sien die gemeenskap die hospitaal as 'n bron van hoop. Mia Malan het die hospitaal besoek om vas stel waarom.

A very early Media Network just a few months after being relaunched under a new name. The music from DX Juke Box has gone and we're starting to train the correspondents to write and present their own pieces. Richard Ginbey is the first to really compile features about broadcasting in Southern Africa, this time it focuses on Capital Radio 604 in the Transkei. There was also a scandal at VOA after some rather confusing statements by a politician on the station's real role. Robbert Boschart also explains the strange situation about broadcasting in Andorra, locked between Spain and France. You can hear that phone lines were kinda rough in 1981 in the calls to Andy Sennitt and Dan Robinson. Wish we had access Skype in those days. Wim van Amstel reports back on his trip to Oman.

Media Network lives on with a series of video interviews with David Smith, a lifelong shortwave enthusiast - and someone who has put it to good use in several projects un Africa. He is back again with some more great radio stories from Southern Africa. This time he explains what made him search out Capital Radio 604 while in Zimbabwe in 1983, and end up working there - twice. There is a website that looks at Capital's music years in the 80's and 90's (capital604.com), but not the project that David ran in the 90's. Perhaps it was just ahead of its time? The video can be found here.