On Thursday I witnessed three kite-surfers risk their lives to save a dog that was caught by the waves and no longer able to paddle back to the shore in Big Bay, South Africa… This beautiful Border Collie had swum out, realised he couldn’t get back to shore, and then managed – after a long struggle in these […]

Whether you live in South Africa’s most dynamic metropolis, or you’re just passing through, here – with kind permission – is renowned South African writer Gus Silber’s take on how you can make the most of it… Learn to appreciate the dawn chorus of the hadedah, for the touch of the bushveld it brings to […]

South African opera singer Pumeza Matshikiza stunned the audience at the 2014 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Glasgow this week with her rendition of “Freedom Come All Ye” (watch video below). Pumeza’s performance of the 1960’s Scottish protest song was significant to the people of Glasgow, who have a strong connection with South Africa. Glasgow gave Mandela […]

Here’s another one of those emails – with a compilation of old and new photos from Africa – doing the rounds at the moment…showing that Plato was right when he said necessity is the mother of innovation.

Penny Heyns did not know she had just made history. Standing on the podium at the Atlanta Olympic Games with the gold medal around her neck she was oblivious to the fact that she had won South Africa’s first Olympic gold medal in 44 years. It was 23 July 1996; Heyns had already broken the […]

Wow – he did it! South African salvage master Nick Sloane – with the help of an international expert team – has successfully raised the Costa Concordia in the Mediterranean. The 52-year-old, who was born in Zambia, said this was his most challenging task to date – and he knows challenging! Sloane has previously rescued an […]

For many decades, the little village of Nieu-Bethesda in the Sneeuberg Mountains of the Eastern Cape Karoo was a dead-quiet place where very little happened. The spring-fed water furrows (leiwater) gurgled through Nieu-Bethesda, there were lots of donkey carts and survival was hard for most of the villagers. Then playwright Athol Fugard wrote The Road […]

As a travel journalist, you can wander the world, see all its peoples, taste 105 different kinds of ice cream and stomp through a thousand museums – but you know you’re always skating on the surface of experience. You’ve only had one layer of Life’s Onion. What a privilege it was then, for my wife […]

Here are three of our favourite Mandela Day moments from today: 1. These fantastically colourful photos of the guys from the DMG team doing their thing for Madiba Day in Moruleng, North West: 2. “A 67 Second Read” – by Kwenzokuhle Maphumulo “I stand here,before you not as a prophet,but as a humble servant of you,the people.Your tireless […]

My girlfriend and I were born about 20 minutes apart.

Search engine giant Google is honouring Nelson Mandela today with an interactive doodle on its home page. The doodle celebrates different stages in the life of Mandela – from the village he grew up in, to his prison cell and his ultimate role as the first black President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. […]

Today is the first International Mandela Day that the world will celebrate without the man that inspired this day, Nelson Mandela. But judging from the outpouring of love and efforts that South Africans around the world are making today – he would be so proud that his legacy lives on in a new generation. “The greatest free […]

One of South Africa’s toughest endurance races is the Berg River Canoe Marathon, which starts in mid-July. It’s tough because paddlers sit in their boats for some 60 gruelling kilometres each day of the four-day race, paddling in the middle of winter in a river that is at times blocked by trees and requires paddlers […]

South African playwright Athol Fugard, the creator of anti-apartheid masterpieces such as Blood Knot, The Island and Master Harold … and the Boys, has been named as the first African recipient of a Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award, Japan’s highest honour in the arts. The five winners of the 2014 awards – Fugard in the […]

There is a common misconception that feminists are hysterical, man-hating women who burn their bras. But the reality is far different; in fact, one of the world’s greatest leaders, Nelson Mandela, was a passionate feminist. He believed fervently in the ideology’s core commitment to the social, economic and political equality of women. When Mandela became […]

Here’s an interesting video from a UK-based organisation which brings a new perspective to the belief that the world generously aids ‘helpless’ Africa. According to their report, it is the rest of the world that benefits from and is aided by Africa more than the continent is aided by the world. The organisation, Health Poverty Action, works […]

Fatherland is sure to be one of the more controversial films screened at this year’s Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), which kicks off tomorrow. The 71-minute documentary follows a group of Afrikaans boys during a 9-day military-style camp where they train in the SADF-apartheid spirt of their fathers before them. This is not a Hollywood […]

It is an extraordinary dream come true. Like music to Mandla Maseko’s ears, this part-time DJ will blast off into space, literally. No-one in Maseko’s family has ever stepped outside South Africa, but now the 25-year-old is preparing to rocket into space in 2015. Maseko won the global Axe Apollo Space Academy competition for an […]

Text and Photographs by Chris Marais We marched up the hill early one morning and settled into the old British blockhouse. Down below, the N1 highway between Jo’burg and Cape Town was churning with freight trucks and the Free State mists were dissipating. The blockhouse – one of 8 000 erected all around the country […]

TRIBUTE FROM SAPEOPLE: “I happened to be thinking of Nadine Gordimer on the day she passed away. I was sitting in a movie theater in London, watching ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ in which teenage cancer victim Hazel is on a quest to find out from the author of her favourite book what became of the […]

Everyone has a memory bank of images: Nelson Mandela, fist clenched, walking to freedom from Victor Verster Prison; the limp and lifeless body of Hector Pieterson being carried by a fellow pupil; the queues of South Africans waiting to vote in 1994. For sports mad South Africans there is the picture of Mandela handing the […]

A wonderful story of the spirit of ubuntu has emerged in South Africa over the last couple of days, involving a thoughtful taxi driver, his passenger who was witness to the events, and a job applicant who was the recipient of the driver’s kindness. It all started on Wednesday 9 July when columnist and author […]

For many of us the only safari we get to go on is Apple’s browser. So…knowing that we don’t all have the budget or time to enjoy an incredible South African safari, some very kind SAPeople members have sent in the following wildlife photos for the rest of us to sit back and enjoy. Expat Jarryd […]

The J-Bay Open started yesterday in great 4-6 foot surf with South Africa’s hopes stacked on Jordy Smith who won the event three years ago.  And Jordy did not disappoint… Jeffrey’s Bay was taken off the ASP tour for the last 3 years but it’s back on. Jordy said he was so “stoked” when he heard it […]

Lately a lot of South Africans abroad (and expats who’ve moved back) have woken up to discover that without even knowing it, they’ve relinquished their South African citizenship. Dylan Hainsworth, who now lives in the UK, phoned the South African High Commission in London to find out more. This is what she was advised… “The […]