What do you think of when you hear the words, “South Africa”? Do you think of lions and elephants or crime and poverty? Is it, “that place where you go on safari”? Describing South Africa as, “you know, here is Africa and we’re in the South” is wrong on SO many levels. That’s like saying the state of Texas is a city in North America.
North America has states, Africa has countries. In terms of size, Africa is so big that it can fit the whole of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Eastern Europe, India, China and Japan on our continent. So asking me if I know your buddy in Kenya would be equivalent to me asking you if you know my friend in Washington DC when you live in Miami.
See all these lovely colours? These are countries with their own political and justice systems, presidents and constitutions. You have a President of the USA. We have a President of South Africa. There isn’t a President of Africa. Do you get what I’m saying? Just because it’s called South Africa, doesn’t mean it is just an indication of geographical location. North Africa, for example, speaks of all the COUNTRIES located north of the Equator. North Africa isn’t a country, South Africa is. (Yes, I know it’s confusing).
Where in the World is TAZZDiscovers from?
South Africa had Nelson Mandela, apartheid and riots but it also has Table Mountain, the Kimberly diamond mine and Constitution Hill. It’s a country with the most inclusive Constitution in the world where 11 official languages are spoken. Yes, there is crime but I challenge you to find a place in the world that doesn’t have crime.
Yes, we have electricity, running water and flushing toilets. We drive cars or take public transport (buses, trains etc) to work. None of us have pet lions and riding an elephant to the mall would be traumatic, both for the elephant and everyone else behind him. We have pet dogs, cats, snakes, rats, mice, hamsters and birds just like you and we go to school, participate in chess and debate teams and earn our medical degrees at universities.
We share loads of pictures of #SouthAfrica on our Instagram accounts
I worked in a call center that offered telephonic and online support for online gaming. If names like RiverBelle and The Gaming Club mean anything to you then you probably spoke to me on the phone a few years ago. It was a pretty common occurrence for the question to come up about where I am from. (My accent doesn’t sound like what you would expect a South African to sound like – it definitely sounds nothing like Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond). Once people heard that they were actually calling Cape Town, South Africa, the first thing most would ask is, “do you guys have electricity”? Well, it would be pretty hard to talk to you on the phone and provide online gaming support if we didn’t have electricity. The next question often was, “so do you ride an elephant to work?” No, I drove my car, struggled to find parking because the office was close to the beach and I would be driving my car back to my house where I would sleep on a pocket coil mattress, not a clay hut with a mattress made of reeds.
You’d actually be surprised at how much of South Africa you’ve already seen if you’re a fan of watching movies. I’m just going to send you over here and let you read about star studded movies you may have seen, that were filmed in South Africa https://www.travelground.com/blog/20-films-shot-south-africa/ .
So I hope this has given you a bit more of an idea about where we come from. Please feel free to ask us questions. We want to encourage people to visit our beautiful country and for locals to get to know their country a bit better.
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