Lucky Packet: 10 Stories from South Africa This Week

It was a crazy week, where sanity prevailed in the end. Pravin Gordhan rose, #ZumaMustFall protesters marched, the minister of education promised action against abusers of the school system, and a court ruled that SAA could not cover up a report exposing its financial woes. In all this excitement, it was easy to miss some stories, so we’ve collected a few of them for you.

1. Heads Up! Cheetahs on Guard 

This week, two cheetahs attacked an officer at the Makhado Air Force Base after they wandered into a hangar on the base. The cats actually belong on the base, and were put there earlier this month as part of a program started in the 1990s deploying cheetahs on military bases for animal-control purposes.

The big cats roam the base freely, hunting small game that might run onto airplane runways from nearby nature reserves and pose risks to flight safety. Wim and Tobie, aged six and seven, were born in captivity at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC). The officer was not seriously injured, and was treated for minor wounds on her shoulders and the back of her head.

Some reports said that while people were trying to chase the cheetahs out of the hangar, the officer got too close to them, trying to take pictures, when the attack happened. The HESC Team told SAPeople: “At this point, we do not have an updated release as we wait for the findings of the AFB Makhado’s investigation.”

2. That Funny-Looking Fruit and What It’s Used For

It was reported that many women in the Free State are turning to the shrivelled, prune-looking punani fruit to tighten their vaginas. As one newspaper said, the craze might say as much about our understanding of basic anatomy as it does about the times we live in. In China, the fruit is a traditional snack and is allegedly used by some as an old remedy for motion sickness and nausea. First used in India, in the Kama Sutra the word is used to refer to the female genitalia.

3. Anti-ANC Tutu Video Makes Comeback

After a tumultuous week for the government, which precipitated the #ZumaMustFall protests on Wednesday, one of which was addressed by Reverend Mpho Tutu, people have started reposting a video from April 2015 in which her father, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, says that the ANC government is worse than the apartheid government.

https://youtu.be/eAkY-KQqCM0

4. “The New Cool Capital of the Southern Hemisphere”

That would be Johannesburg, according to the latest GQ magazine. “What South Africa’s first city lacks in beaches it more than makes up up for with a seriously buzzing urban landscape packed with superb bars, inventive restaurants, cool hotels and one of the world’s most exciting theatre, art and music scenes,” author Nick Carvell says, before taking a tour of pretty much everything, from Peech Hotel to Salvation Cafe, from the Lilliesleaf Farm to a walking tour of the city, to much more. Lots of the places we mentioned in our story, At Least 20 Reasons Why Joburg Sizzles, so check the article for more info.

5. Flights between SA and Madrid Resume in 2016

The Spanish carrier Iberia announced that it will resume flights between Madrid and Johannesburg in August 2016. Iberia, which suspended its service to Johannesburg in 2012, flies to other cities in Africa, although Luanda is its only destination now that is south of Accra and Lagos.

6. Strange Times, Stranger Places

GroundUp carried a moving story of two totally different people on very similar missions walking a very small stretch of Cape Town. Theresa Fisher was born in what was then Rhodesia in 1950. Simon Jacobs was born in what was then Transkei, in 1957. Both of them have ended up, in 2015, begging on the same street corner in Rondebosch. Fisher, whose father was a tobacco farmer, says she begs to supplement her old age pension of R1,420 a month, which she says is not enough to pay her rent and feed herself and her two pets. Jacbos begs to supplement the money from the gardening work he does for three regular customers and other small jobs. He says that on a good day he makes R30 on the street and on a bad day R16. Read the article “Old and on the Street”. 

7. Zapiro Does a King Kong with Zuma 

8. “Hard” Talk by Malema in the UK

During his trip to Britain earlier this month, where he addressed the esteemed Oxford Union, EFF leader Julius Malema appeared on the BBC’s “Hard Talk”, where he said that companies in South Africa should surrender 51 percent of their shares to the workers. “Our workers don’t have the money to buy those shares,” he said.

9. Happy Birthday Steve Biko

Bantu Stephen Biko, who died in police custody when he was only 31, would have turned 67 today. Here’s a valuable thought from the anti-apartheid activist:

10. Aerial View to Lion’s Head

South African expats started heading home for the Christmas holidays. Celia Barry, who now lives in Australia, captured this awesome photo (on her ipad) from a helicopter flight looking back up the beaches to Lion’s Head.