This week’s Shot of the Week is an excuse to link to Michael Goetz’ gallery of skate photos from his ongoing residence in South Africa. He’s been there for about five months. Aside from visiting family, he’s working on planning the first bowl in Cape Town. Check out his South Africa gallery, or head on down to the Shot of the Week.

The BBC has a slideshow of some images from the Uganda Skateboard Union. People have been donating boards to the cause. The Tony Hawk Foundation has made some sizable material donations. Someone else even went to the trouble of donating a Mountain Dew shirt so the locals could get extreme! At this point in the post I’d like to point out that Uganda Skateboard Union first came to the attention of S&A back in 2007! If you’re in the mood for a good natured giggle, check out their awesome video, Boardmaster, from 2008. – Thanks to Paul Fujita for the tip.

It’s old news, but it’s good news. Tony Hawk was in South Africa skating with the locals, and I mean the Zulu locals, which was coincidentally an early name for the Ramp Locals in a working version of the Thrashin’ script. Tony was there in conjunction with Laureus World Sports Academy in order to attend a launch for an Indigo Youth Movement project, whose goal is to “to help young people in rural communities develop life skills and confidence through skateboarding.” Who started the IYM? Why, our old friend Dallas Oberholzer. This isn’t Tony’s first involvement with youth skateboarding in Africa. Birdhouse and the Tony Hawk Foundation have sent boxes of product to the Uganda Skateboard Union, including skateboards and shoes. It’s true. I’ve seen the pictures on the Interwebs™. I just can’t find them. [Photo: Patrick Royal for Laureus]

Yeah it’s the same joke I used the last time I talked about the Uganda Skateboard Union about a year ago. It looks like they have a new blog running, and one of the best things on it, aside from all the helping humanity and everything, is the preview for the video documentary. The preview itself rivals any GVK, and even manages to one up it with the addition of video effects. The Doctor has some stiff competition from the Boardmaster, who is hell bent on eradicating the twin evils of idleness and chess, from the looks of the video.

John Aguilar’s sister went to South Africa and all she brought him was a lousy newspaper. There’s an article from the December 1st 2007 edition of the Weekend Argus titled Flying high on the vision of one man. It’s about Dallas Oberholzer’s mission to bring skateboarding to rural South Africa. Our interview with Dallas was published in 2005. Looks like he’s still at it. Unfortunately, you need a subscription to read the article online. It’s a very positive story. You can read the scan after the jump. Hey James… Stuff it! I think I heard that goat just yell “Draa-aa-aa-aa-aapping in!”

This is for motorcycles, but why not skateboarders? I smell a potential Misfits Fiend Club marketing tie in. Why not? Jerry Only has whored out the name diversified themselves to shoes, purses, lunch boxes, pencils, Japanese bands and god (excuse me, Satan) knows what else. If you close your eyes you can almost see a scrawny kid with his black jeans (spray painted on) working on his flyouts in one of these. Check out the skull helmet at Santiago Chopper. [Source: Boing Boing]

Maputo city in Mozambique has a little scene going there with their own web site called Maputo Skate. I don’t know diddly about Mozambique, but the Wikipedia primer says Mozambique was a former colony of Portugal that gained independence in 1975 after years of war and a Military coup. A one party state aligned with the Soviet bloc was formed and a long civil war followed. Since 1990 they’ve had democratic elections. I can’t make heads or tails of African politics, it can be one messed up place. The point of this sub-par history lesson is to point out that even with all the economic and political strife, skateboarding somehow found its way to Mozambique. Not only that, but the tricks are the same. Maputo Skate has photos and video, and while the equipment is not all to notch (like that sketchy grind rail in the photo above) the fun looks like any other group of kids you might find in the Midwest somewhere, posting pictures and video to MySpace.