This Is What Makes Me South African

This is what makes me South African

This place, South Africa, how can I describe what she means to me? There are days when my thoughts turn to people who have left, all for different reasons they justify in this ever- changing land. When questioned, mostly by my own fears, I find myself thinking of Her. My country. My Home.
One can’t help but hear your sprit calling out; ‘Mother Africa’ I’ve felt my feet burn on her soil, I’ve experienced her pain.
South Africa holds me tight and sometimes as hard as I try, I cannot fully understand why. Is it the boerewors, or braai, or maybe even our luscious rays of sunshine? When at the height of my confusion, She opens and lets me in for a moment to witness her delights, and again I am hooked. Perhaps it is just being able to take myself to a place close by where I can witness the magnificence of the end of the day, the glorious sun sets, and then to be able to believe that this spectacle is ALL for me.I am romantic about my country. Sometimes all I can see is her beauty, it constantly lingers with me. The horrific statistics of AIDS, the images of Death, crime and violence seen daily are enough to permanently crush the sole... Yet we can manage to look past that. For it is the beauty that holds me. It is the beauty that moves me. Through all her trials and tribulations, I see her journey, her history and her Altered Destiny! Sometimes it seems too much of her to ask her to contain all the violence. I urge her to. For our people are greater than that, we can move ahead, we can be at peace. I have come to understand that time moves slowly in Africa. And that it is I that needs to be patient. So I forgive her all violence, and I learn to abundantly love.

Images of her people are constantly on my mind. It is often something as simple as the petrol attendant who always cleans your window with a smile on their face. They do it with pleasure, not just because it is their job. It is a smile that is so freely given. Then when...