Kids from South Africa

• Continent: Southern Africa
School:
• Children ages 7 through 15 are required to attend school. Parents must pay fees for their children to attend school, even public schools. All students wear uniforms.
• Schools in South Africa are packed with kids. In fact, some schools have two or three sessions to accommodate all the kids.
Play:
• Soccer is the most popular sport in South Africa. In 2010, South Africa will become the first African country to host the men’s World Cup tournament.
• South Africans of all ages play mankala, one of the oldest games in the world. It is a counting game played with a board, usually two rows of up to 12 cups, and seeds or stones.
Family:
• South Africa has a large black and a smaller white population. Many of the blacks live in rural areas. Most black South Africans live in extended families, either within the same home or in separate homes clustered close together. Women usually have traditional roles.
• Most of the country’s white population lives in cities.
Signature foods:
• Pap is a staple of South Africa. Made from maize, which is like corn meal, it is eaten in the form of rice or noodles, for breakfast with milk and sugar and as a stew with sauce and meat.
• Did you know? In 1993, South Africa repealed apartheid, a policy that legalized the separation of blacks and whites. During apartheid, whites ruled the country and discriminated against the black population.

For more information, go to the Fact Monster page about South Africa.