South Africa: Country Profile

The South African Police Service has issued a set of guidelines for tourists (and locals) to make life easier, and safer. These include:

• Plan your journey before you leave your hotel and, if in any doubt, check with the hotel to ensure the route or destination is secure
• Keep valuables in the hotel safe deposit box and do not draw attention to yourself by displaying large amounts of cash, expensive jewellery, cameras etc.
• Do not take your hotel room key out with you
• Do not leave bags or anything else unattended when moving around, even on a guided tour, in a hire vehicle or taxi, and keep the doors locked and the windows closed when there are people around
• Keep an eye open at traffic intersections, when travelling at night, or in places that may not appear too salubrious
• Do not leave valuables (handbags, briefcases, cellphones) in view on the seats
• Never pick up strangers
• Park in secure areas
• If you are going to use a taxi, use a reliable service (check with your hotel), and
• Always be careful of people approaching you in the street

The police (Flying Squad) emergency number is 10111, and on a cellphone that number is 122.

All these projects, plans, initiatives and advice, from hi-tech surveillance to bobbies on horses, are designed for one thing and one thing only - to make the environment safer for South Africans and visitors. There is a crime problem in South Africa, but with a little common sense, and perhaps a little help from ever-friendly South Africans, you should be fine.

A Home Away

On a certain day in the Bo-Kaap (Upper Cape), there is unusual activity in the houses of Malay families as little girls ranging anything from three to twelve years old are dressed up in colourful silken flower dresses handed down by older sisters and cousins. The little girls are then made up.
Lipstick is applied and kohol, the traditional eyeliner worn, ironically, mostly by men in the desert. The reason for this is that the dark coal-like substance absorbs heat and tends to cool the eyelids of the nomads who range the desert. Finally, resplendent in their silk dresses, processions of young girls and women make their way towards the mosque.

They have with them boards and knives handed down from generation to generation. These will be used to slice the orange leaves. In the Bo-Kaap this is known as Rampies-sny, literally, to 'cut the mixture'. Soon the air becomes redolent with the smell of orange. The occasion is the Feast of the Orange Leaves, chosen to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet.

The sliced leaves are flavoured with expensive oils, mainly rose oil. They are then put into sachets, each one adorned with a red rose and left in the mosque. Then the day pauses and it is silent once again. But at dusk the adult men begin to make their way to the mosque.