MJ Eco Tours - Motivation, Adventure and Leadership Tours

MJ Eco Tours specializes in unique Eco and Adventure experiences in South Africa for those who love nature and the outdoors.

We have an amazing country that is just waiting to be explored, appreciated and enjoyed. We keep this in mind when planning your trips so that it is an experience you will never forget...taking you through some of teh most scenic parts of the Republic of South Africa.

More information on South Africa can be found below.

The people behind MJ Eco Tours are:

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER - LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN P. SMITH

Twenty years experience in the training and leadership field.
Extensive experience in Infantry Special Forces work during the bush war in Northern Namibia and Southern Angola.
Expertly trained in Bush Craft, Tracking and Survival.
Five years experience as an NCO and fifteen years experience as an officer in the SA Army, ranging from middle to top management. John has always served command and instructional positions, and often deployed to problem units to turn non productive and poorly disciplined units into functioning, disciplined and efficient units.
Qualified with a B. Proc. (legal) degree majoring in psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand.

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR - THYS J SCHEEPERS
(Activities, Planning and Hospitality)

Twelve years experience in Hospitality covering food preparation, banqueting, menu setting, customer care and front desk management.
Two years experience in Events Coordination including:
Invitations, venue hire, décor and transportation.
Nine years experience in Human Resources and staffing.
Twelve years experience in General Office Administration.
Tertiary diplomas in Customer Sense Training, 1st Line Management, Customer Service Training and
Food Preparation.

AGENTS

MARKETING AGENT (RSA and Canada): Yvonne van Dijk (South Africa)

MARKETING MANAGER (USA): Steve Mc Cully (Los Angeles)

South Africa, a Society in Transition

Numerous population groups with different languages, cultural backgrounds and origins all coexist in South Africa. The bigger groups are Zulus (21 %), Xhosas (17 %) and the Sotho (15%). Next are smaller minorities, such as the Tswana, Venda, Ndebele, Swazi, Pedi and others. The province of Natal is home to about one million Indians, whose forefathers came to South Africa to work on the sugarcane plantations. And there are three million people of mixed race, the so-called "coloureds", mainly living in the Cape region. They are descendants of the first Dutch settlers and the native population of the Cape (Khoikhoi) or the Malays, who were taken to South Africa as slaves from East India in the 18th century. The "coloureds" have a cultural heritage of their own.

The portion of the relatively prosperous white part of the South African population amounts to 8% (4 million) of the national population. Most of them derive from Dutch, German or French immigrants. They are called Afrikaners and speak Afrikaans, which is closely related to the Dutch language. The English speaking part of the white population is concentrated in the Western and Eastern Cape province and in Natal.

The apartheid regime over-emphasised the differences among the various ethnic groups, mainly between whites and non-whites, but also for example between Xhosas and Zulus, to turn them against each other rather than against the government. The policy of racial segregation served to guarantee the political and economic power of the white minority. To this day, South Africa has to deal with the consequences of this disastrous policy. A large part of the fast growing black majority lives in oppressive poverty. In the outer districts of the cities, spread vast miserable settlements of tin and carton shacks, lacking sufficient sanitation, electricity and water. Many of the residents are illiterate. The enormous poverty problem in South Africa is the major reason for the high crime rates.

South Africa is still far from the ideal of a multi-cultural society. There is still a deep trench going through the population. Black and white people lead largely separate lives with few points of contact.

Nevertheless, the society's democratisation is steadily progressing. A milestone on the way to a new national consciousness was the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission". It had a mandate to uncover the crimes of apartheid, let them be publicly confessed with the aim of forgiveness. The Commission was headed by Desmond Tutu, the highly esteemed former arch bishop of the Anglican Church in Cape Town and holder of the Nobel Peace Price. South Africa is, in respect of overcoming racism, in the spotlight of the world like no other country. The future of the state largely depends upon its ability to create equal opportunities for all people, so that the formerly disadvantaged population groups can have their share of the national wealth.

The Xhosa People

At the time of white settlement of the Cape, Xhosa groups were living far inland, into the area between Bushman's River and the Kei River. Since around 1770, they had been confronted with the Trek Boers who approached from the west. Both the Boers and the Xhosa were stock-farmers. The competition for grazing land led first to quarrels between the two groups, and eventually it came to a number of wars.

The politics of the colonial government attempted to enforce the separation of white and black settlement areas with the Fish River as the border. But the more the colony developed into a modern state with a strong military organization, the more the whites tended towards a policy of land annexing and the subjugation of the black population. In the middle of the 19th century, all the land formerly inhabited by Xhosa was in the hands of white settlers.

With the founding of the South African Union in 1910, the British colony and the independent Boer Republics were united. A modern "democratic" state was formed. in which only the white population could execute the right to vote.
The black people were subjected to a policy of concealed expatriation. Through the Native-Land Law of 1913, first 7.5 per cent, and later 13 per cent of the land in South Africa was declared reservations for blacks. No white person was allowed to purchase land there and, vice versa, no black was allowed to buy land in the remaining 87 per cent of the territory of the Union. So the foundation of the disastrous policy of Apartheid was laid. In the sixties, the black settlement areas were declared autonomous Homelands. For the Xhosa people these were the Homelands of Ciskei and Transkei. Only after the first really free elections in South Africa in 1994 was the Homeland policy abolished, after which the areas were integrated into the new provinces.

The Zulu Kingdom

Towards the end of the 18th century, all over southern Africa small tribal groups were amalgamating into larger communities. This was by no means a peaceful process, but the result of protracted wars. The rise of the Zulu Kingdom falls into this period. Through incredible atrocities and cruelties the infamous Zulu warrior Shaka gained control over a number of Zulu clans. He expanded his territory systematically. Shaka's warriors raided Zulu villages and burnt them down. Women and children were gored to death; young men were called up and chiefs tortured and forced into allegiance.

Shaka was the illegitimate son of the Zulu chief Senzangakhona and the young girl Nandi, a member of the Langeni clan. As a young man, Shaka joined the army of Dingiswayo and soon became its highest commander. With the support of Dingiswayo he gained supremacy over the Zulu clan, enforcing his claim against his opponents with the most ferocious brutality. Under Shaka the Zulu territory expanded phenomenally. All the clans had to subject themselves to the one leader. At the beginning of the 19th century, Shaka had created the most powerful kingdom in the whole of southern Africa. Towards the end of his reign, Shaka used his power even more destructively.

He chased his army from one battle to the next, and the cruelties against his enemies became more outrageous. Eventually Shaka was assassinated by his half-brother Dingane in 1828.

For southern Africa an irreversible process of restructuring came to an end with Shaka's death. Thousands of people had become refugees, fights between settlers and refugees broke out everywhere, and all these disturbances led to regroupings. At the end of this period, the small and widespread chief-led clans had disappeared and were replaced by bigger communities which had come together merely for reasons of safety and self-defence.