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http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-wn-joyful-crowds-mandelas-birthday-20130718,0,4046124.story
PRETORIA, South Africa -- The singing washed like waves over the crowd gathered Thursday, Mandela Day, to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday outside the Pretoria hospital where he is being treated.
Wave after musical wave rang out, as choirs, political groups, schoolchildren and onlookers arrived one after another, dancing, gyrating and laughing, each with their own loud musical tribute to the man they see as the one who brought them freedom.
And it wouldn't have been South Africa without the deafening vuvuzelas, blown at full blast, to wish Mandela back home.
Crowds thronged the wall of tribute outside the hospital, which sprang up spontaneously soon after Mandela was admitted with a lung infection on June 8. Since then, the heaps of flowers, artwork, posters and written tributes have spread along the wall and spilled down a nearby hill.......
Thursday was also Mandela's wedding anniversary. He married his third wife, Graca Machel, on his 80th birthday. She has been at his side throughout his health crisis, the latest in a series of lung infections.
Around the nation, South Africans contributed 67 minutes of community service to honor Mandela's 67 years of public service. Members of the Mandela family visited schools and hospitals. Other South Africans distributed food to the homeless, picked up rubbish, cycled to collect money for charity, cleaned hospitals or did work in homes for the elderly, disabled or orphans.
More at link....
PRETORIA, South Africa -- The singing washed like waves over the crowd gathered Thursday, Mandela Day, to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday outside the Pretoria hospital where he is being treated.
Wave after musical wave rang out, as choirs, political groups, schoolchildren and onlookers arrived one after another, dancing, gyrating and laughing, each with their own loud musical tribute to the man they see as the one who brought them freedom.
And it wouldn't have been South Africa without the deafening vuvuzelas, blown at full blast, to wish Mandela back home.
Crowds thronged the wall of tribute outside the hospital, which sprang up spontaneously soon after Mandela was admitted with a lung infection on June 8. Since then, the heaps of flowers, artwork, posters and written tributes have spread along the wall and spilled down a nearby hill.......
Thursday was also Mandela's wedding anniversary. He married his third wife, Graca Machel, on his 80th birthday. She has been at his side throughout his health crisis, the latest in a series of lung infections.
Around the nation, South Africans contributed 67 minutes of community service to honor Mandela's 67 years of public service. Members of the Mandela family visited schools and hospitals. Other South Africans distributed food to the homeless, picked up rubbish, cycled to collect money for charity, cleaned hospitals or did work in homes for the elderly, disabled or orphans.
More at link....
