In the French Mediterranean port of Séte I climb a farewell to the Sailors Graveyard and look down on the harbour. A ferry from Morocco steams in. After working in Europe for seven weeks I take a last photograph. I want to place it next to the first one I take in Africa on our return. On our flight back to South Africa my photographic assistant and wife, after seven weeks of working in Europe, slowly starts to transform back into her self, not like Jackie changed into Heidi, but back to being the powerful Lou Rommel. (Mrs. Rommel, wife of the famous Field Marshall, was an autocratic person and a strict disciplinarian.).
After landing at Oliver Tambo International, I grab a newspaper and read that Julius Malema is becoming more popular than our dear President Jacob Zuma. Malema (president of the ANC Youth League) wants to nationalize property without compensation. I want to turn around and fly back to France. Then suddenly my vision blurs and a grotesque image of Robert Mugabe slowly floats past my right eye and then the left one. Luckily the nightmare is quickly erased when I hear 3 rather large Xhosa cleaning ladies having such a happy, animated discussion, that their voices echo around the arrival hall, making all the foreigners cringe and the Beagle sniffer dogs stop sniffing. I am back in my wonderful HappySadLand. Wow —- it feels good to be back!
Driving back to Natures Valley, I quickly remember that here in South Africa nobody really adheres to any traffic rules. It takes me a few minutes to adapt. A taxi passes me around a bend on a solid line. A tanned arm at the back throws out an empty can of beer. It whirls, spins across the tar and lands in a large brown rain puddle on the side of the road. I smile and Lynn says —– “They must have had good rains down here in Africa”. In Natures Valley, I walk down to the beach and shoot the last of the sun catching the waves of the Indian Ocean. There are beautiful but ominous dark storm clouds on the horizon. More rains and something else down here in Africa.
