African Art

Africa's history is rich with different types of art.  They used mostly sculpture, painting, pottery, rock art, textiles, masks, personal decoration, and jewelry.  During my research on Britannica.com, they say that it is hard to give just a simple summary of the main characteristics of sub-Saharan African art because there is such a wide variety of details that changed between tribes and regions.  Some of their art has value as entertainment while some has political or ideological significance.  Others are made for instrumental purposes in a ritual context and other works have aesthetic value.  Often times, we find that their art work fits into the category of several of those characteristics.

When you go West, that is when you would find art work such as masks, and very little of anything else.  In this region, things like textiles and pottery were viewed as craft work rather than art work.  People in Africa did not do much painting to any significant extent, mostly becasue it was found on the skins of human bodies, the walls of houses, and on rock faces.  None of those items were collectible, so that is why they did not pursue that form of art.

Elephants in Africa

In Africa there are two types of subspecies of elephants.  There are the Savanna and the Forest elephants.  The savanna elephants are larger and their tusks curve outward.  Not only are forest elephants smaller, but they are also darker and their tusks are straight and point downward.  When you dig even further into the animal, you would find differences in their skeleton and the size and shape of their skull. 

Forest elephants like you can guess are found in the forest of the Congo Basin.  However, their population is rapidly declining in number because of poaching for the international ivory trade.  Hunters with to harvest their tusks and sell them for a profit.  They estimate that about one third to one quarter of total elephants in Africa are forest elephants. 

Elephants are more than just magnificent animals that wander around.  They also help maintain suitable habitats for quite a few other species.  In central African forests, up to thirty percent of tree species require elephants to help with dispersal and germination. 

At one point, the population of African elephants was between three and five million, however that number came down significantly.  Because of hunting and natural causes, in the 1980s, an estimated 100,000 elephants were killed every year and as many as 80% of herds were lost in some regions.  In the recent years, as the demand for ivory, especially in Asia has increased, the desire for elephant tusks has also increased.  In southern and eastern Africa, elephant populations that once showed signs of recovering are at risk because of this recent surge in poaching for illegal ivory trade.

History of Johannesberg

Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa.  When it first came about, it was just a small village that was controlled by a health committee in 1866.  They had located themselves there because they had discovered a gold reef on the farm Langlaagte.  From there, the population of the city kept growing rapidly, becoming a municipality in 1897.  In 1928, it became a city, and is when it became the largest city in South Africa.  In 2002, it joined ten other municipalities to form the city of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.  Today, it is the center for learning and entertaining for all of Africa.  It is also the capital city of Gauteng. 

After the Great Trek, Europeans also started to settle in the Transvaal.  Each citizen was entitled to at least one farm, which was about 3,100 acres.  The first discovery of gold was made in June 1884.  Soon after that, other farms started to discover gold, and became famous as well.  George Harrison is known as the man who discovered an outcrop of the main Reef of gold on the farm of Langlaagte in February, 1886.  To this day, more than half of the worlds gold comes from South Africa.

The use of Sugar Cane

         If you were to ever drive around Africa, you would notice that there are quite a few sugar cane fields.  There are in South Africa at least.  That is because it is an important crop for food and energy production.  Worldwide, sugarcane accounts for about 80% of the sugar produced.  The remaining is sugar beet.  To my surprise, only about 5% of this comes from Africa.  Even though it is such a small percent, it has a huge impact on some communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.  

          You see, because of its capacity to accumulate high levels of sugar in its stems and its typical high-biomass yield, is why it is such an important crop.  Energy is in a high demand in these villages in Africa, so this also provides jobs to some of the people in the community.  

     A couple of facts about Sugarcane that are listed on this website are:

• Sugarcane is considered one of the best converters of solar energy into biomass and sugar, with a conversion efficiency of 2.21-2.29%, compared to maize at 0.2%.
• Africa contributes only 5% of the current global sugarcane production, and 83% of this is in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The Sub-Saharan African region, with its tropical and subtropical climate, is well-suited in many ways to expanding the production of sugarcane.
• Despite sugarcane's economic importance and significant efforts made by several international research groups, a reference genome is still unavailable today.

http://ipbo.vib-ugent.be/publications/fact-series/sugarcane-in-africa

Diamond Diggers Risk Death

In a small diamond mine in Western Liberia, at least twenty five people and at most fifty have been trapped in their mine.  According to BBC news, this article is live and more information is being discovered as I write this.  The people that were mining were just going along their business searching for diamonds when in an instant, their lives could come to an end.  They are fearing death as a hole that they had dug collapsed.  Aaron Vincent, superintendent of Grand Cape Count County said on the phone that it is a serious matter and he needed to get there first to know what the actual situation is.  A relief worker told BBC news that there were about twenty five people trapped, as well as three bodies have been recovered.  The search operation is currently on going.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-africa-47639452?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5eb158ff8fc6dd066fb1ca40%26Diamond%20diggers%20trapped%20after%20Liberia%20mine%20collapse%262020-05-05T12%3A26%3A53.848Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:9ea90700-a6fa-407d-8027-fd159d7b292d&pinned_post_asset_id=5eb158ff8fc6dd066fb1ca40&pinned_post_type=share

Isn't the Swarm of Locust From Bible Times?

For those of us that grew up in Sunday school, we learned all about the ten plagues and how they affected whole regions of people.  One of those plagues was that swarms of locusts came and ate all the livestock and plants.  Well, that didn't only happen way back then, but also in February of this year.  Earlier this year, swarms the size of Manhattan were making their way through Somalia and Ethiopia eating anything they can in their way.  It is estimated that a swarm of this size could eat the same amount of food as everyone in New York and California combined.  That is a lot of food, and in countries that food is already hard to get, this was bad news.

According to Save The Children, an estimated 192 billion insects were spotted in Northeast Kenya.  Because of the magnitude of this swarm, you can't just take a fly swatter and kill them all off.  The only viable way to get the job done is to spray pesticide on them from the air, and quickly.  While this was all happening, the experts knew exactly what needed to be done, but because of a lack of resources and other reasons, they could not spray right away.  If they waited too long, then they would start to breed and create more locust.  With how the situation already is, it might have prevented farmers from planting when they needed to because the locust would have just eaten what they just planted.

https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/world-current-events/world-2-swarms-of-locusts-spread-across-east-africa/

My Time in South Africa

During the summer of 2017, I was lucky enough to be able to take a two week missions trip to Port Shepstone, South Africa.  During this time, my eyes were really opened to the culture that we saw across the ocean.  We are used to having anything that we need available to us whenever we want it, but that most definitely was not the case there.  My main purpose while I was there was to assist at a day care and after school program at a place called the Khula Creche.  We did a variety of different things such as sing songs, teach these preschoolers and kindergartners basic English, as well as simple math.  Here is a picture of me in the middle as well as a few others from my team teaching the kids the actions to one of our american songs.

We also were given the opportunity to feed nearly 200 grade school kids after school at this same location.  If it were not for this program, most of these kids might not have gotten a meal that day.  

Every day that we got to hang out with these kids and just play around with them and have fun overflowed my heart with joy.  Just reminiscing about those moments makes me really want to go back as soon as I can, and hopefully someday I can go visit them again.  

While we were there, we also visited a care centre where they had 40 patients that were infected with HIV/AIDS.  Because the percentage of this disease is so high in this area, there are so many people that go untreated because they are not able to afford the care.  It was very special that we could go in, talk to the patients, hold their hands, sing songs, and love on each other.

This is by far the best trip that I have ever taken and some of the best experiences that I might ever experience in my life.  I am beyond grateful that I had the opportunity to go, and I cannot wait to be there again.

Coronavirus in South Africa

Currently COVID-19 is affecting every part of the world, and Africa is no exception.  According to Amogelang Mbatha, an author for Bloomberg, they however have not been hit as hard as other countries or continents.  As of Sunday, April 5, 2020, there were 1,655 people that were infected with the disease, and a surprisingly low number of eleven deaths.  On this day, they were on day 10 of a three week lockdown.

Similar to a lot of other countries, the South African government expects the number of confirmed cases to go up as more tests are being administered.  I found it cool that they have nearly 10,000 field workers that are putting themselves at risk and are checking up on people in their homes and at mobile testing centers.  As of Sunday, they had already conducted 56,873 COVID-19 tests.  They are also following suit of other countries by having factories that normally do not manufacture ventilators, start making them so that they can increase the capacity of medical equipment needed.  Denel Chief Executive Officer Danie Du Toit said in a statement, "We are still in the early stages of the project, but we are optimistic that this local initiative will help to alleviate the dire need for medical ventilators that are required in great numbers at both public and private hospitals."

To me, it seems like they still have a lot coming their way.  I thought that we got hit by this virus late, relative to China and Europe at least.  Compared to the United States, they are still in the early stages of how COVID-19 is going to affect their country.  I hope that they continue to follow in the footsteps of these countries that have been dealing with it so that they will see what is needed in order to overcome it.  Based on my calculations, 0.003% of South Africa's population has been infected, while in America 0.112% have tested positive for Coronavirus.

Mbatha, A. (2020, April 5).  South Africa Coronavirus Cases Increase by 70 to 1,655.                    Retrieved from Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-                05/south-africa-coronavirus-cases-increase-by-70-to-1-655