It was the last leg of my journey back to Johannesburg. I had lived there for only two months but it already felt like I was returning home. I breathed a sigh of relief when I located my window seat, and squeezed past a kind eyed woman in her late 60s who greeted me in the rolling, rich Afrikaans accent I’d grown familiar with. I smiled, conservative with eye contact, keen to soon settle into my book and a glass of red wine. When the air hostess arrived, my seat companion ordered a Bloody Mary. I congratulated her on her choice and matched her order. She laughed gently and introduced herself as Lola. ‘Like the showgirl’, I replied provoking another radiating laugh. My book spine weakened on my knee as we spoke about our reasons for travelling and life so far, both enjoying the shared sense of purpose, and intimacy gifted by anonymity. ‘Two more Bloody Marys please.’ Born and raised in apartheid South Africa to an Afrikaans middle class family in Pretoria, Lola married young and had two boys ‘now all grown up with their own children’. She divorced her husband after she admitted she had never felt love like it was supposed to be felt. It broke his heart and neither of them married again: ‘for some people, it just doesn’t happen’, she stated with liberated resolve. She spoke about her new career in care giving for European elderly patients as a means to finally pursue her vocation and travel the world. I spoke about my observations of South Africa so far. I loved the country, a unique frontier; distinctly African combined with western conveniences, ‘exotic enough to be interesting, developed enough to be easy.’ I bought a car as soon as I had the opportunity and thought nothing of driving the seven hours from Pretoria to the coastline of Durban for a weekend by the sea. In a country so vast, distance soon becomes relative and the thrill of seeing four completely different climates and terrains effortlessly roll into each other is all the reward required. It is, however, incredibly complex and living there requires constant vigilance against one of the world’s highest violent crime rates. As beautiful as it is, there’s a regretfully high immigration rate, especially in white South Africa. and a guilt that couples I’d already been exposed to many conversations about the current state of affairs and most were consistent in their pessimism and nostalgia for how things used to be. Lola listened to my enthusiasm sceptically before beginning to share memories of her favourite places with a sense of relief. Having spoken for a few hours, I asked her of her experiences during apartheid. This was not an easy question to ask without appearing accusatory or provoking a defence. Lola was silent for a while, her face showered in sadness peering down into her plastic cup as she responded, ‘we just didn’t know it was happening.’ Without trusting Lola’s kindness, I might have too easy dismissed this response as privilege’s gift. Our conversation continued into the early hours, giggling as we pushed the call button before being aggressively woken with a plastic covered croissant and weak coffee. We parted ways with a hug after too many Bloody Marys, not enough sleep but grateful for the poignant exchange. She thanked me for the ‘refreshing insight’ on South Africa and the space to remember the many positives. I thanked her for her wisdom and the generosity in her insights of a country we both loved. Having reflected on our conversation regularly, with almost two years experience living and working in South Africa, the conversation exposed me to how systemic apartheid truly was, and how successful an information war can be to convince almost all that this was the only normal. Combined with voracious racial fear tactics, that South Africa is still recovering from, this strategy was able to hide the true terrible costs and sustain a system that benefitted so few. I travel frequently and when on a long haul flight, I always smile when ordering my Bloody Mary, not so conservative with eye contact since, remembering the woman still creating ripples.