Blooming as fountains to Hartenbos

by Thandolwethu Gulwa (South Africa)

Making a local connection South Africa

I've always known that I'd answer when the water calls and on that cold Hartenbos night, I did. On that night, when the skies were black like Nigella seeds and the milky-way was shimmering as glitter, gemstones, silver and gold, I knew that those tides were low and lonely so I ran to the ocean. I ran to the water that gives birth and took my ancestors. I ran to the water that has brought colonial disasters and diseases from across the globe; I ran to the house of my soul. My mother and I had travelled a long journey from Bloemfontein, Free State, where the fields are green and gold and the cattle is as brown as the skin of the People. Black, melanated in different shades of brown. And oh, so healthy. It would be my first trip that my mind would independently recall to the sea. On our way there, we saw the world from the heavens of a truck. High up, seated, glancing at nature. Our pockets were low, our hearts were full. My mind was energised for the public speaking nationals I had been invited to. Somewhere along the way I might have forgotten what the purpose of our trip was. The road to the Southern Cape was very scenic and therapeutic to my eyes. I saw buds and blossoms that opened up as hearts. Aloe plants and cactises in the the Klein Karoo of Oudtshoorn stood tall as green arms with long green fingers and thorny nails. Long-legged black and white ostriches crowned the atmosphere with their heads wandering in the sky. Looking further than the eye meets. It is on that day that I learned that cattle and poultry could drink from the same stream of water; from the same source of life. Living in the city is all fun and games when you can hop on a taxi, get your change, hop off at your local centripetal taxi rank, avoiding a few whistles before you escape the CBD, until you realise there is a wild, wild life out there. There is a mall of nature with all the flowers your local florist sells. The peachy pink proteas, the daunting yellow daisies and the blood red roses all decorate the brown soils with the colours of the earth. It is as though the road to Hartenbos was showing me the different departments of this mall. The flowers became wilder and brighter, and in some areas scarcer. The hues and saturations of the greens decreased. Limes became olives. Cornfields became grain fields until the altitude of the bergs and the mountains hid everything like a blodspot. Although my hindsight was filled with beauty and nostalgia, I knew that more awaited me. It was the showers of rain that had fell from heavens so far, yet so close, that reminded me that me and my mother's 809 kilometers of seven and three quarter hours had come to an end. A beginning. Our brown skins were too intimidating. Imagine wearing skin as fertile as the soil; the home to all the sprouts. I remember the white women and men, in their cars, tight lipped, avoiding to even look in our direction to give us mere directions to the ATKV resort. I knew and got reminded that I was in the blue and orange part of South Africa. The rainbow had not reached its heights yet. We looked like criminals. We looked like poverty walking in a town made with the tar laid by so many brown ancestors. Our skins were much muddy for anyone's liking. Yet, like soldiers, we camouflaged through the blue wet earth until we reached our home. Yes, for those three days, Hartenbos was home to my mother and I. The white sands like the rinds of our feet, the skies as blue as inflammated brown skin werr a sharp horizon to meet our eyes. Endless, on the edges of the Southern hemispheres, golden like mines, the stones paved our ways beautiful and endless