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He is ________
OR
He is a(n) _________person.
| LO 1.3 | |
| LO 5.2 | |
| LO 6.8 |
Activity 2
Your educator will read out a passage for you to write down from the above text, as dictation. Exchange passages with one of your classmates and check whether it has been written correctly. If you have made any mistakes, check the words carefully so that you will know how to write them in future.
| LO 4.6 |
On 25 April 2002 Mark Shuttleworth became the first South African – in fact, the first African – in space and in so doing realized his dream. President Thabo Mbeki had this to say about Mark’s great venture:
By realizing his childhood dream, he showed
us the possibility of achieving the impossible.
He is the embodiment of the optimism and trust
of a nation for whom not even the stars are the limit.
(Freely translated from Rapport , 28 April 2002.)
In South Africa, Freedom Day (27 April 2002) was celebrated with a “space conversation”. In his first conversation from space, Mark Shuttleworth spoke directly from the international space station with President Mbeki, who was attending Freedom Day celebrations in Bloemfontein.
Source: Die Burger , 27 April 2002.
“I hope you will all be looking up at the African sky and smiling when we come flying overhead,” were Mark’s words as he spoke to the president during a video link-up between the International Space Station and the Free State rugby stadium. He went on: “I had moments of terror; moments of sheer upliftment and exhilaration. I have truly never seen anything as beautiful as the Earth from space and I can’t imagine anything that could surpass that.”
Shuttleworth was wearing a Bafana Bafana jersey as he spoke. “I was able to see a magnificent sunset and sunrise over central Africa over the last day.” He jokingly said that he would have worn a Springbok rugby jersey if he had known that the president would be speaking to him from a rugby stadium.
A proud President Mbeki said that the whole continent “will be proud that at last we have one of our own people, from Africa, up in space, taking part in cutting-edge developments with regard to science and technology”.
This was a moment of great patriotism, but also of pride in being an African. Small wonder that it did not take the media long to coin the phrase: “Shuttleworth - the first Afronaut”.
Another interesting word that was coined, was printed in the Burger of 2 May 2002. The headlines of a report about Shuttleworth’s intention of bringing a replica of the spacecraft back to South Africa with him, read: “Boeranof bring eie Sojoes terug.” Don’t you think it is quite clever?
Source: Rapport , 28 April 2002
Activity 3
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