SOUTH AFRICA: Elderly group cheer, sing for Mandela

. JOHANNESBURG (Daily Dispatch), September 6, 2008: A GROUP of 18 elderly South Africans, including a 134-year-old woman from Limpopo, met former president Nelson Mandela at his offices in Johannesburg yesterday. “Koko” Moloko Temo, from Mohadi ga Manthata village, was accompanied by her 89-year-old daughter Eveline . Temo, who was born on July 4, 1874, found it more comfortable to sit on the floor rather than in her wheelchair and sang a special birthday song she had composed for Mandela, who turned 90 on July 18. The South Africa Old Persons’ Forum’s visit was the idea of Masindi Wilson Mufamadi from Vhembe District, in Limpopo. “I am so happy, I will sleep nicely. It is my day today. It’s all right, I can die today, I don’t care,” said Mufamadi, who lived in Alexandra in the 1950s and first met Mandela when he was a lawyer at Chancellor House . The 18 cheered, ululated and sang for Mandela, then presented him with gifts including a portrait of himself painted on the skin of a goat from Ethiopia “because he trained to be a guerilla in Ethiopia”, said Tom Boya, an executive member of the forum. Sapa © Avusa Media Limited