I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. RL Stevenson

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare? Welsh poet, William Henry Davies

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela


18 JULY 2011
JOHANNESBURG
MADIBA’S BIRTHDAY
Staying a couple of nights back at Sunbury House, its now easy to make my way out to Sandton and to Nelson Mandela Square.
Nelson Mandela was the 11th president of South Africa and today is his birthday. Nelson Mandela has asked for all South Africans to contribute 67 minutes of volunteer actions within communities, and the newspapers are full of suggestions. There is a clever display of lots of cups of coffee put together to make a picture of Madiba, as he is affectionately known here.  I spend an afternoon walking about the huge Sandton shopping mall but alas I don’t need or want for anything other than a sandwich for lunch!. LOL I admire the plans for more expansion and building but I have to wonder who is buying all this stuff because the stores do not seem well patronised!
Returning back to Johannesburg’s MTN taxi rank I search out the long distance taxi rank at Park Station – along with turning down offers to walk me there because it may be dangerous. NO, not dangerous, just a dogs breakfast in terms of organisation! 
But I find the place the Maseru  taxi parks and head back to Melville for a fab pizza from Ants.
Made up of cups of coffee
While there I thoroughly enjoyed eavesdropping on a very stimulating conversation in English, at another table. They were discussing philosophy! The deepest conversation I have heard in all my time here in Africa and just as enthralling. I was very hard restraining myself and not add my 20c worth. Off to Lesotho tomorrow yah
FACT: Did you know that there are more than 6.5 million search results for ‘Nelson Mandela’ on Google and over 10 million results for ‘Mandela’? Did you know that Madiba’s Xhosa name, Rolihlahla means ‘troublemaker’ and the literal meaning is ‘pulling the branch of a tree’? And did you know that Madiba’s great grandfather was a Thembu King, who was renowned for his skill in bringing stability to diverse Thembu clans in the early 19th Century?


Gandhi Sq and Johannesburg skyline

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