Tag archives for South Africa
Posted by BOOK NAME: The White Giraffe
AUTHOR: Lauren St. John
Martine is your average eleven year old girl living in England. But that all changes the night she loses her parents in a house fire. She has no other place to go but her grandmother’s home on a wildlife reserve in South Africa. Now she’s expected to live with this woman who is a stranger to her. Her grandmother turns out to be a kindly lady, but she seems to be hiding something. Martine is especially worried that the kids at her new school won’t accept her and that her traditions will be too different. Fortunately, she meets a boy named Ben with whom she confides her adventures with. He always has a kind ear for listening and helps Martine face challenges that she is intimidated by. Despite all her adjustment troubles, the thing that keeps her motivated is her secret friend, the white giraffe, who is only rumored to exist. The animal lives safely in the reserve, but Martine gets worried when she and her grandmother are finding more and more poacher traps. Do they know of her friend and if so, how can she protect her sacred secret?
The first thing that drew me to this book was the beautifully illustrated cover. The author uses such beautiful descriptive language that it definitely makes the book live up to its cover. I found it compelling, so it was really hard to put down until I got to the end. It has simple black and white illustrations throughout the book too. I recommend this book for almost anyone, but especially if you like adventure books or ones about different countries. This book was fast paced but also had nice sweet slow parts and is a great read for almost everyone.
Posted by The black rhinoceros is a critically endangered animal. To try to protect the remaining rhinos, some of them have been moved to a new location inside a reserve as part of the WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project. The rhinos will be safer from poachers in their new location in Limpopo Province.
One new technique involves airlifting 19 rhinoceroses by helicopter after they had been tranquilized! This is a fast and easy way to move the animals to transport vehicles. “It is also so simple a concept that we are all kicking ourselves that we didn’t do it long ago,” said project leader Jacques Flamand.
Read more about the rhino airlift on National Geographic News.
Get the facts on rhinoceroses on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph courtesy Green Renaissance/WWF
William at the 2011 Explorers Symposium
Posted by Ever since I went to South Africa as a part of the 2007 team, there isn’t a single moment that doesn’t make me long for just on more dance of the local kids of the Sam Nzima School (now the Ezweni School) or just to be two feet away from an African elephant (that isn’t in a zoo). Of course when I got the call saying that I was among the fifteen winners who were offered the amazing opportunity, it all seemed somewhat surreal. It wasn’t until we got off the airplane that I realized that we were actually in South Africa! Though the scenery was utterly and completely amazing, it was in Africa that I discovered my love for people. While being able to just breathe in the crisp African air was just breath-taking, what I really loved was being amongst the people of the village township. Just being able to talk and laugh with them when they were living in buildings with tin roofs was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Thanks to them I realized that I wanted to be a social anthropologist and devote my life to studying people. Whether it be a homeless person on the street corner or a mother in a Swiss village–everyone has a story worth telling. Why not spend my life hearing as many as I can?
By attending the 2011 Explorer Symposium this week and hearing the members of the panel talk about their lives’ work, I was motivated to follow my dreams (cliche but true). I couldn’t help but hear the passion in their voices. It was inspiring. Many people spend their lives searching for what it is that they actually want to do. Well, I’m not one of them. I have found my passion and I have National Geographic to thank for it.
Becca at the 2009 Explorers Symposium
Hi, everyone! This is Becca, here to tell you all about the Explorers’ Symposium ’09 at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, on Thursday the 11th! I drove down from Pennsylvania and arrived at the symposium at 5 o’clock.
Before going into the hors d’oeuvres party, I walked around National Geographic’s really cool sculpture garden with my dad. It had statues of lots of different bugs, my favorite being a group of leaf-cutter ants carrying the greenery on their backs. That reminded me a lot of the trip to Peru and how much I miss all of the fabulous people on it.
