How about some good news?  It’s not hard to believe that the shock value of bad news grabs our attention and spurs us to action more than news that reports positive events.  Just take a look at some of the past postings on this blog alone.  South Africa has the 4^th worst educational system in the world!  Over a quarter of the country’s schools don’t have running water!  South Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV in the world!  The exclamation points are legitimate – this is real news, serious news.  These stories deserve not only attention, but action.  Yet too much emphasis on the suffering of the people of South Africa can also have a jading effect.  We may become numb to these stories, hopeless that the magnitude of the problems of an entire country, an entire continent, is too great for our generation.   We may forget that South Africa shines brightly with hope.  And in the end, it is perhaps this hope – not only the tragic stories – that will propel us forward, to continue our work, to fulfill our mission.  So how about some good news?

These facts come from Why Go South Africa,  although I’ve seen them elsewhere on the web.  Another uplifting site to read about all of the good things happening in South Africa is  South Africa: The Good News, where you can get daily updates on the country’s positive developments.

• The only street in the world to housetwo Nobel Peace prize winners is in Soweto, South Africa.  Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street in Soweto.
• Dr. Christiaan Barnard, at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, performed the world’s first human heart transplant in the world in 1967. He was also the first to do a “piggyback” transplant in 1971, and the first to do a heart-lung transplant.
• South Africa’s Dr Percy Amolis invented the Retinal Cryoprobe used successfully on former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to repair a detached retina. He also removed a cataract from Nelson Mandela’s eye that enabled the former president to, for the first time, read a speech without glasses.
• South Africa is the only country in the world to voluntarily abandon its nuclear weapons program.
• There are only 12 countries in the world that supply tap water that is fit to drink, and South Africa is one of them. The country’s tap water quality is third best overall in the world.
• South Africa has the world’s most progressive and admired water legislation, and it is making a real difference on the ground. Since 1998 when the so-called “Blue Revolution” began, four million more poor people have access to clean water.
• Where else is an entirely new species being recreated from scratch? The Quagga vanished in a frenzy of hunting in the 1800s, but after finding that the DNA is almost identical to the common Burchell’s zebra; the species is being brought back from beyond the brink by careful breeding of stripe-challenged zebras.
• South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are tearing down fences between the countries’ game parks to create a 35 000km2 game park which will become the largest conservation area in the world. It will be bigger than Switzerland, Belgium or Taiwan.
• Four of the five fastest land animals live in Africa – the cheetah (100 km per hour), wildebeest, lion, and Thomson’s gazelle (all about 80 kph).
• Therapsids are the true ancestors of mammals, and lived over 200 million years ago, long before the upstart dinosaurs of the Jurassic Age (which ended abruptly 65 million years ago). Most of the world’s proto-mammalian fossils are found in the Karoo – along with a 280 million year old fossilized shark.
• The country’s Coastal Management policy is one of the best in the world with the country being the first outside Europe to gain Blue Flag status for its coastal management.
• South Africa is ranked number one in the world for its floral kingdom.
• South Africa has the third highest level of biodiversity in the world.
• South African grasslands have 30 species per square kilometer, greater than the biodiversity of rainforests.
• There are 18 000 indigenous vascular plant species in South Africa of which 80% are found only in this country.
• The country is home to the world’s smallest succulent plants (less than 10 mm) and the largest (the baobab).
• Scientific studies from South Africa and Japan corroborate findings of potent antioxidants in an indigenous herb tea from the country’s Southwestern Cape region. Called Rooibos (roy-boss), this red tea is the only other tea in the world which undergoes a fermentation process like black tea. Fermentation turns the leaves of Rooibos from green to a deep red color and gives it a slightly sweet note with a deep body. Rooibos, unlike black and green tea is completely caffeine-free.
• This part of the world has some of the most generously endowed geographic solar hotspots on Earth, soaking up just over half of the world’s highest category of solar wattage per square meter of land.
• Blyde River Canyon is the third largest canyon in the world – and the largest green one. The Grand Canyon in the US is the biggest, and the Fish River Canyon in Namibia the second, but both are dry as bones.
• Walt Disney serves South African wine exclusively at its 73-acre Animal Kingdom Lodge in the United States.
• South Africa has the longest wine route in the world, the R62 wine route
• South Africa is the world’s largest producer of macadamia nuts and the nuts and oils are exported to countries across the world.
• South Africa is the second largest exporter of fruit in the world.
• Gauteng (the province that houses Johannesburg) has the most advanced infrastructure in Africa.
• South Africa was the world’s best performing tourist destination in 2002.
• The Lost City Resort Hotel at Sun City is the largest theme resort hotel in the world.
• South Africa is the sole producer of the Mercedes Benz, C Class, right hand drive vehicles
• South Africans are natural inventors, giving the world those breakwater dolosse and the automatic pool cleaner.
• South Africans also came up with the first, largest and most viable oil-from-coal refinery (which supplies 40% of the country’s petrol). And did you know that a South African physicist co-developed the CAT-scan, that South Africa makes the seats for Concorde, and also designs and creates flight control technology for Britain’s fighter jets?
• The largest defeat ever suffered by a modern army at the hands of ‘native’ troops was Isandlwana in Southern Africa in the year 1879. The British army was fighting the Zulu empire and, during a battle between 1,400 British colonial forces armed with cannon and rifles and 30,000 Zulus armedwith spears, the British lost. Deaths on the British side were estimated to be approximately 1,000 soldiers mainly from the 24th Regiment (Foot) and 300 native allies. Zulu losses were thought to be about 3,000.
• More than 50% of the Paragliding world records have been set in South Africa.
• There are about 280 000 windmills on farms across South Africa, second in number only to Australia.
• South Africa has the oldest meteor scar in the world, just across the Vaal River near Parys, called the Vredefort Dome. The meteor plummeted to Earth nearly two billion years ago (Earth is said to be 4.5 billion years old), pre-dating the heady days of oxygen and multi-celled life. The Vredefort Dome was recently declared a World Heritage Site.
• The rocks around Barberton in Mpumalanga are some of the most ancient in the world – over three billion years old. Because they are also the most accessible such formations, NASA scientists go there to gain an idea of how life might form on distant planets.
• The Tugela Falls is the second highest waterfall in the world, where the water tumbles down 850 meters. First place goes to the Angel Falls in Venezuela at 979 meters.
• Lake Fundudzi in Venda is possibly the world’s only inland freshwater lake formed by a landslide.
• South Africa has deserts, mountains, escarpments, plateaus, grasslands, bush, wetlands and subtropical forests.
• Germiston in the East Rand of Gauteng is South Africa’s sixth largest city with 70% of the western world’s gold passing through its gold refinery. It has South Africa’s biggest railway junction and the busiest civil airport, Rand Airport.
• The world’s largest diamond was the Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut. It was cut into the Great Star of Africa, weighing 530.2 carats, the Lesser Star of Africa, which weighs 317.40 carats, and 104 other diamonds of nearly flawless color and clarity. They now form part of the British crown jewels.

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