Our Barefoot Compassion Journey

It is a beautiful African morning, soft gentle rain fell throughout the night, the soft morning air belies the problems facing our country, our Botshabelo.  We finish our year with a huge sigh of relief, wonderful benefactors saving us for another day.  Our government, our Rainbow Nation, in a wobble.  This rhetoric  would amuse all my friends from Apartheid when my family and I were thrown out of more than one function or family meeting, because of our undying belief that the truth is the truth and a lie is a lie.  We defended the change of our country to the destruction of lineage relations, which remain broken to this day.  Leigh, Nicole and Shanna having grown up in a new culture, new environment, imagine, from  a private school in uptown Sandton, surrounded by first world aesthetics, music and dance, to a deserted farm with ‘under a tree’ education, observed by chickens and pigs,  teachers lacking adequate training.   Now we have new leaders, why do I have the distinct sniff of Apartheid in my nostrils!!!

The shame is that I now have my indelible image of Apartheid back, that of a huge Alsatian police dog pinning me up against the university walls sniffing my crotch, to the bully cops’ amusement.  I have the sorrow of beginning to have that’ pinned up against the wall’ sensation again with different comrades laughing at my discomfort and terror.

So I have decided to have a rhino rating system; an Apartheid Rhino award and a Rainbow Nation Rhino award.  This will make it easier to share with you.

During Apartheid all stolen land and assets were divided reasonably fairly, a lot less if English speaking, but nevertheless access to good education, optimum health, safety, housing,  good jobs, excellent opportunities, available on some proviso’s; that you did not  cross the government,  were Caucasian, did not watch porn, [that included all sex education – considered porn, I kid you not] one was safe to  live off  all the ill-gotten advantages.   I can talk because all my families’ health, living standards, and education came from the stolen loot.

 You can imagine why we walked away from it and went to live on a farm, if only to assist  a few hundred families that were caught in the social holocaust of Apartheid that our  lineages had been participating in for over 400 years.  We did not want our daughters to continue the process for one more moment thus walked away into the bush.  I call it our ‘Barefoot Compassion Journey’.  Con and I took such a huge risk with our daughters and they did not achieve the university degrees that were expected  after their high school diplomas but their legacy of compassion and our grandchildren’s capacity for compassion makes my pity and fear  for the greedy individual’s in the present and past government palatable.

 It is Shanna’s birthday today, she turns 30. I want to thank her , our baby daughter whom we dragged into the bush at the age of  8 turning 9.  She embraced all her new friends like the ones  she had just left behind, the privileged friends with parents with several cars in the family, ballet lessons, psychologists’, educated teachers,  family holidays, never starved or raped, never beaten,  running water, electricity,  own bedrooms,  numerous meals a day, entertainment, to children with no shoes, more than six to eight people living in one room, had never been to a movie house, no holidays, at a push a survival diet, but the meeting between Shanna and her sisters with these children as if nothing was wrong in the society says something for the pure hearts of children and shame to governments’ terrorist attacks on normal citizens.  So, happy birthday to a courageous  daughter who writes poetry that tears the heart out of ones’ chest at its beauty while doing  service work for the planet.  Obviously a Rainbow Nation Rhino for you, our darling.

The wonderful feeding scheme that the government has for poor school children has been wonderful and gets a Rainbow Nation Award, many thousands of children depend on the supplement provided free once a day, it has aided in improving most  children s’ school behaviour and marks.