I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.
My body has frozen in our frosts and in our latter day snows. It has thawed in the warmth of our sunshine and melted in the heat of the midday sun. The crack and the rumble of the summer thunders, lashed by startling lightening, have been a cause both of trembling and of hope.
The fragrances of nature have been as pleasant to us as the sight of the wild blooms of the citizens of the veld.
The dramatic shapes of the Drakensberg, the soil-coloured waters of the Lekoa, iGqili noThukela, and the sands of the Kgalagadi, have all been panels of the set on the natural stage on which we act out the foolish deeds of the theatre of our day.
At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito.
A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say – I am an African!
Africa. Part of the reason Mozambique was so important for me is that it was my first opportunity to see some more of the continent I love. It is a home, but so much more than the simple notion of home. Sitting on a particularly dodgy bus watching tiny, poor rural settlement after tiny, poor rural settlement pass by, scattered between palm-trees and sub-tropical forests, I was filled, again, with wonder. Strange that sites of poverty would incite such joy. But these are my people. Actually, that statement is probably misleading. They are not my people. My people are the Xhosa people in homesteads where their cattle rest in kraals and their wattle-and-daub huts are thatched with the flowing, wind-swept grass of the wide open African hillsides. My people are the Afrikaaners who cherish a history of defeat and bitter oppression, both against them and by them, and survive to drink another beer and cheer at another rugby match, whose spirits cannot be broken. My people are the urgent, young, white liberals who fight so hard for those who don’t really care. They are the successes of Africa – the academics and business people who will put our continent on the map and bring our uniquely South African brand to life to the world. But these poor people, these rural subsistence farmers in Mozambique are part of my world, part of Africa, too.
Africa. Mozambique was an opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about how much this continent is home. And also how much this continent is different to my experience of it. In many ways that excites me. The similarities between South African and Mozambique are in the fundamental things – the need, the strength, the perfect smiles of innocent children. The differences are in structures and strategies of development. While these are the things that interest me and occupy my mind, and travelling in Mozambique has crystalised many aspects of these, the fundamentals are what make me smile and laugh and feel that I am among my own.
I long to see more of Africa. I long to be a part of a solution and an answer. I long to roam the plains of Africa and watch the children play.It makes it very difficult, sometimes, to be reasonable about things. It’s sometimes difficult to accept that jumping off a cliff is dangerous when all you can see is the beautiful blue water below. Especially when it’s hot and you’ve been travelling for a while.
I’m back on the job-search. There is so much I want to say, so much I need to say. I will get there now that I am back home and power has been restored. Today, however, I am filled with the urge to take a huge risk, to jump off a cliff and to commit to spending a year in another African country. I shouldn’t because of the wars and the government and the islamism. I shouldn’t because there are rocks in the sea. But I want to. I want to because it’s something and it’s now. But I want it more because it is Africa.
Years of responsibility and the (particularly-gendered) politics of fear have taught me never to take risks like that. Not even for a year in Africa.