The Daily Dispatch In East London

The building of the ' Daily Dispatch", a South African newspaper published in East London in the province of the Eastern Cape. It was founded in 1872 as the East London Dispatch. According to the Wikipedia, the Dispatch is today the Eastern Cape's best selling daily with a circulation of about 33,000 copies. The newspaper covers areas such as local news, sports, business, jobs, and community events. Published in English also includes a supplement in Xhosa.

 

 The newspaper is internationally known for its editor from 1965 to 1977, Donald Woods.

Woods became a friend of Steve Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, and provided support to Biko through his editorials.

After Biko's death in police custody, Woods went into exile to expose the truth surrounding Biko's death in his book Biko.

The Orangery in Karlsruhe - A Princely Pleasure Garden

I wanted to write this post a while ago about a very unique and beautiful place, the Orangery in Karlsruhe, Germany - a city where I lived for a while. The Orangery with its many greenhouses hosts the famous Botanical Gardens of Karlsruhe. The Botanical Gardens were established in their current location in 1808, during the reign of Karl Friedrich of Baden (1728-1811). The origins of this extraordinary collection of plants date back to Margrave Karl Wilhem of Baden(1679-1738).

Between the two wings of the palace he ordered a " princely pleasure garden" to be laid out with magnificient orangeries, greenhouses and aviaries. At the end of the 18th century, the Margrave had his residence, gardens and palace grounds remodelled in the English style and established the Botanical Gardens on their present site.

The Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden were plant afiocionados, amassing an impressive collection of exotic greenery. The greenhouses built to display these treasures are today home to a unique and rich plant life.  A number of rare trees from a collection dating back to the 19th century have survived until today in the park grounds.

The combination of rich growth, amazing colours and the rarity of plants is blinding the eyes of the visitor. 

This building with its amazing dome is a part of the State Art Gallery. Here you find the more modern art works from the end of the 19th century up to today. You can see a wide spectrum of works including Cezanne, Gaugin, Kandinsky, Miro and also some contemporary artists.

 

Visitors from all over the world come to see the flowers and exotic plants. When I visited the garden last year with my aunt the were great numbes of Japanese tourists discovering the beauty of the green houses and the State Gallery.

Today I am showing you only the outside are and the buildings of the gardens. The inside deserves a guided photographic tour on its own!

In 1863 the wooden glasshouses were replaced by grand ornamental cast iron structures putting Karlsruhe at the fore front of garden architecture. And more building were added, designed by the architect Heinrich Huebsch, to accomodate more plants.

Princely it is !

Old Lorenco Marques - The City Of Acacias

Then Called Polana Beach, Maputo, Mozambique

Something new and a little bit of old every day of your life. Seems like a good philosophy to me.

In this picture a view of Polana Beach in Maputo in the 1950's, also known as Lourenco Marques, capital of Mozambique.

Maputo is known as the City of Acacias in reference to the many acacia trees commonly found along its avenues. Another name given to it is the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its municipal building.

In this picture we see a partial view of Lourenco Marques commercial zone in the 1950's

Old Lourenco Marques - because it does really not look as sleepy as this anymore. Today it is a port city on the Indian ocean with its economy centered around the harbour and an estimated 9 % annual growth rate. 

Close to 1 800.000 million people live in Maputo. It is estimated that 80% of the city's population lives in slums without running water or electricity but the city has little money to invest in infrastructure.

Inequality in Maputo has grown considerably.

Pictures Of Freedom

Yesterday was Freedom day.

16 years ago on the 27.th of April South-Africa became a free and democratic country. Today The sky had dressed up for that special occasion in a gown of white and azure blue ruffles. 

Often, when the sky get dramatic like this, I feel extremely seduced by it and I have to leave the house and drive around to look at the play of ligh above me.

So I got into my old VW-Beetle with my camera to take some shots of freedom.

For many it was black and white with a few shades of grey at the side 16 years ago.

Today we got all the color this beautiful country deserves.

With the colors,roaming free, comes the right and delight to enjoy freedom in many different ways.

The way YOU like it.

Everybody enjoys freedom in a different way. High in the sky..

or very grounded.

Freedom is sometimes best enjoyed in good company.

to be able to share and enjoy beautiful things and moments together.

or to do what you absolutely love doing the most. That's freedom

with no restrictions and boundaries

And when the freedom gets a little bit too much from time to time you have someone you can always return too. THAT'S A PERFECT FREEDOM 

I simply like how free the wind is and just lifts that little pink skirt.

Or when you are in love. It feels like freedom but sometimes is not.

But when you want to be in love it makes you free as well.