by Leastone

Created on: February 25, 2007   Last Updated: March 28, 2007

My home is in Africa, and, Africa is in my heart.

My home is as open as the African sky, as wide as the deserts, as warm as the southern sun; it is as deep as the blue mystery and majesty of the mountains. My environment both defines me, and makes me feel at home. I am an African, at home.

I live on the high, grassy plains of the continent, known as the savanna, or high veld. I'm near to the Maluti mountains, though, about 90 km (55 miles) West of the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. The mountains form a continuous ridge, known as the escarpment, and if you travel east over them you descend into the lowlands, the thousand hills of KwaZulu. This is "the place of the Zulu", also known as Natal, named so because some brave Portuguese souls explored the Eastern coastline some centuries ago and passed by here on Christmas day (natal=birth). I am only six hours away from the Indian Ocean, and the beautiful beaches of the eastern shore.

My home is in the Free State, where most people are Sesotho-speaking. I am an Afrikaner and I have lived here on various farms, in the coldest part of our country, for the past eighteen years. This past winter brought a rather severe cold front that left quite a bit of snow on the mountains; so, in the very week northern Americans were suffering from a heat wave, we we enduring some icy weather. But that cold front also brought the first rains and soon signs of new, green life started. Nature's great rest was slowly, reluctantly, drawing to an end, to allow spring to come and usher in this glorious summer.

Home for me is a farmhouse, a very large, old sandstone mansion, built at the beginning of the previous century. It was constructed back then by a family who had built up something great from nothing-yet two or three generations later, all their land was lost to them. It seems to me that's how the cycle of life works for some. The current owner of the farm uses it as part of his larger operations, so that it is not the center of any activity. There are some camps for cattle, but not near the house, so that I rarely see anybody connected to the farm. This suits me just fine.

I live here alone. I did not always, for I moved here six years ago (from another farm nearby) when my children were still with me, in their final years of high school. I do not really want to go there, so let's just say they were my responsibility. I have been a single parent (via divorce) for more than a decade. Of course, sometimes they're back for a visit, or when

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