Open hardware groups spread across the globe: 
After our group of friends founded a small open hardware community in El Salvador a few years ago, we felt alone in the region. The open hardware movement had developed in a creative explosion of projects and (thanks to the popularization of 3D printing and digital technologies such as Arduino) under a common understanding of how to develop new physical products.
read more: Opensource.com dbsnp
Supporting Open Source.
Have you tried: Travelling to South Africa?