Signs of the time

I take great delight in wacky and quirky road signs and murals. Roadside semiotics is one of the great joys of travel. Like when I’m deep in rural Limpopo, for example, and encounter the sign for a tombstone business that advertises Free Erections. Or when I am on a remote island in Lake Malawi and I see the Honolulu Bottle Store. It’s not just about the signs themselves, it’s about the time and the place too. Here are some of my recent favourites:

Swazi gold I'm cruising down the King's Highway from Mbabane to Ezulwini in Swaziland, destination the delicious Afro-Gaudi-esque House on Fire. I stop for a tequila in a dodgy bar - as one does - and I am rewarded shortly afterwards by this gem outside the official Swazi parliamentary buildings. www.house-on-fire.com

Complete Somebody I feel a strange sadness when I pass this sign near the University of Limpopo on the R71 between Polokwane and Tzaneen in Limpopo province. The name apparently comes from the days of Forced Removals under apartheid when the victims who were re-settled here called their barren new wasteland Nobody. Does anyone know more about the story of this name, I wonder? www.golimpopo.com

Which way? “Do you think all roads out here lead to Vhutuwangadzebu?” I ask my traveling friend. “Or is it a circular drive?" “When you see a fork in the road,” he says, “take it”. So being from the Robert Frost School of Roads Less Traveled By (read his famous poem The Road Not Taken) I turn right to Vhutuwangazebu, and as Frost himself would have said, that has made all the difference. Can you spot the difference? www.golimpopo.com

A clear message There’s no real subtlety to this mural on the road near Makhado in northern Limpopo but there’s no mistaking the clarity of the message. I love the fact that it’s on someone’s house. I have to stop and shoot it, but being a fair-weather vegetarian I don’t knock on the door to find out more. Poor Piggy and Chicken. www.golimpopo.com/vhembe

The search for happiness ends here How can one not feel instant joy at the sight of the Happy Cigarettes Shop & Hair Cut Salon? For some reason we are in Mpumalanga’s grasslands and wetlands region and we stop for whisky and gwaai in Ermelo. Later there’s a big, wild storm and we are happy to be indoors with our happy cigarettes and happy whisky too. www.mpumalanga.com

Dreamy lion I have an inordinate fondness for hand painted murals and I fall instantly in love with Dreamy Lion. We are at a bar called Boa Vista which is on the edge of Manica, an edgy, restless market town in western Mozambique. We drink cold Dosh-Em, the local beer, and gaze happily down on the Incomati River snaking its way through the flatlands beyond. www.mozambiquetourism.co.za

What’s in a name I leave Tzaneen, in Mopani district, for Elim in Vhembe district. I take the R36, then the R81 to Giyani, and then on a whim I decide to go via Lemondokop which will lead me to the R578 which is were I want to be led. I am somewhere in between Sephukhubje and Ximausa and am thrilled to find the Dotcom Hair Salon. It’s washing day here, and it’s also down the road from the Jealous Supermarket. www.shiluvari.com

Shoot me I just love this mural for a photographic studio in rural southern Mocambique. To be honest I’m not really sure where we are – just barreling along some lonesome dust road between Bilene and the next cold beer... www.mozambiquetourism.co.za

Terra da boa gente The Mozambicans have their own wonderful style of murals, with a seventies feel and interesting colour. I really like this guy and his wine bottles. We are at a little restaurant in the shade in Maracuene for the annual Gweza Muthini festival, it’s only 9 in the morning and already 42 degrees. The festival marks those who died resisting colonial rule in the 1895 Battle of Marracuene. The festival is supposed to involve the killing of a hippo and the kuphalha (invocation of the ancestors) but the hippos have fucked off and these days some poor goat is sacrificed instead.

Winter warmer, Limpopo style

I return to Limpopo in winter. To Magoebaskloof and to Agatha, my ancestral home. I am struck by the sheer beauty of it all. Ancient trees, autumn colours and golden light. And I am struck by the loving spirit of the funky new eateries and fabulous farm cafes in the area. Here are my highlights:

This gorgeous red head I am enchanted by this tree on the edge of the dam at Sequoia Garden Retreat. This once regal garden was started yonks ago by the Holloway family who planted the first sequoia trees in Magoebaskloof. Now, under new owners, Guy and Nina van Heerden, the garden has been restored, redefined and gotten all sexy again. Go in autumn for a spectacle of red and gold; go in spring for the pink and purple number. Just go. It’s beautiful.  www.sequoiastay.com

Dreamy cottage Oh Meadow Cottage you stole my heart. One of the cottages at Sequoia Garden Retreat is this soul space called Meadow Cottage. Stone and wood, it looks out over a dam and is tickled by the winter grass. In the late afternoon I walk over the dam wall and savour this reflection. Meadow Cottage is a fabulous spot for a romantic weekend, writing retreat or a frisky honeymoon.  www.sequoiastay.com

A fresh new take I spend the night at the stylish new Viewpoint Eatery and Guesthouse. The rooms are calm and spacious; the decor is funky and the food is slow, gourmet, fresh, wholesome, yummy. Ninia Knott is chief cook and bottle washer here, and she's raised the style levels of the mountain with this little charmer. Stay over or go for a meal with gracious views; the restaurant is open Wednesday to Sunday. www.facebook.com/Viewpoint-Guesthouse-and-Eatery-1801176226875735/

That Tree I haven't been back to Kingwalden for months. It was once our family home and is now a hotel. I take a long slow G&T on the veranda and gaze upon the mountains and the famous lightning tree. It's an old silver blue gum which was brought out here in 1908 by my grandfather's first wife Muriel. It was struck by lightning the night his second wife, my grandmother Elsie died. It's a very long story but I have time to talk to both of them and other spirits of the tree. www.kingswalden.co.za

Garden of my Ancestors  There is still wild poetry to be had in the Kingswalden gardens even though they are forlorn and neglected due to Circumstances. The garden keeps growing and changing and I catch the magic of my mother's hand here at the Bibigar, the dam at the edge of the garden, created for the female spirits and the cats. www.kingswalden.co.za

Sarah’s Garden Sarah steps into the sunshine to say hello. This garden was designed by my mother for Sarah Cullinan, who was my brother Brett's girlfriend and who died in 1988 at the age of 28 in a car crash. I love Sarah and I love that she always comes to say hello. www.kingswalden.co.za

The Bibigar I take this photograph on the winter solstice. Yes, this is the middle of winter in the subtropics at Kingswalden gardens. I love the pink plectranthus and the acid green sword ferns all tangled together. Frenzied calm. www.kingswalden.co.za

Golden delicious I love Mina's Art Cafe and Farm Venue in the heart of Magoebaskloof. Everyone loves Mina's. Denise and Rob Tooley have made an old farmhouse into a charming venue and playground and Mina's is an icon of the soul spirit of Magoebaskloof. Mina's does weddings, parties, neighbourhood food markets, music evenings, happy gatherings. There are three self catering cottages and a campsite,. Think simple and earthy, candle light and long rivers walks. Next door is the fabulous Zwakala Brewery. www.minas.co.za

 This is my favourite bridge, at the bottom of the Magoebaskloof, as you head towards Modjadjiskloof. Goodbye for now my ancestral province, I shan't be too long.  

Keep on Walking

Fabulous Jomo en route Kenya 

Recently I’ve had the urge to walk out of my life and just keep on walking. To take a soul stroll, step by step, breath by breath, actualising Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu’s saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Just because.

And then bing bada boom I met a man who did exactly that. So now I can stay at home with Johnny Walker and live by proxy through the fabulous Jomo from New York who simply upped and left his life. He was en route Cape to Kili - from the fascinating foothills of Cape Town’s flat-topped Table Mountain to Arusha, beneath Tanzania's snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro. He was eight months into his 5000-km-plus journey, he had a stick, a small back pack, a tent, an ipod and an old-fashioned fold out paper map. He was averaging around 35 clicks a day, had no specific time of arrival in Kenya, and was debating a route change to avoid the Beira Corridor due to rumours of war, and instead walk through Zambia, which would add on another thousand kilometres... then he was going to climb Kili haha, and fly back to NYC.

My friend, delightful Debbie encountered him on Aqua Lane in Tzaneen. He was such eye candy, she admits, she felt compelled to pull over at once and speak to him. Being Debbie and delightful, she suggested he put his feet up for the weekend and arranged him a spot in the soul mountains of Magoebaskloof . Jomo agreed, being tired and skittish after a nasty incident with a racist white farmer in Mpumalanga. Jomo was born of Jamaican parents who immigrated to the USA when he was a kid.

Since he obviously didn’t have a car, it was arranged that I drive him up the mountain from Tzaneen. I picked him up at my rellies’ home in the Nut Village, Macadamia retirement home, where he sat, a bit startled, as the black housekeeper brought the tea in on a silver tray and my Alzheimer’s uncle uttered surreal comments.

“Man, this is the first car I been in for a while”, he said as we drove off. He told me he grew up in Brooklyn, became a doctor, felt essentially unfulfilled and decided to walk out and just keep on walking.  Because he could. And he wanted to. He just needed a very long walk all by himself. A very long one.

I dropped him off at Zwakala Retreat where he relaxed by going on a few hikes, and then he was returned to Tzaneen where he waved goodbye and began walking to Mussina. He planned to cross by foot, over Beit Bridge border post, southern Africa’s busiest and craziest, into Zimbabwe.

“You made these last days in South Africa really great”, was the last email he sent Debbie. “I’ve had such a wonderful time in Limpopo, a province that I was formerly dreading.  You can imagine my surprise when two English cyclists bumped into me on the N1 south of Louis Trichardt and said they had heard of me. I figured you had to be behind it. It’s awesome to think by how thin a margin I ran into them. Had I taken a slightly longer lunch break yesterday, I would have missed them altogether.  These small fortunate occurrences and the beauty in the kindness of strangers have been the highlight of my travel experience. So last night, we all laughed, ate, drank too much wine and generally were merry. Truly a wonderful night.  As it stands I am about three days walk away from the the Zimbabwe border. I’m excited but nervous. Even with all its ups and downs I have gotten used to South Africa and figured out both what to expect and how to survive.  Now I enter into the unknown”.

Both Debbie and I emailed him this weekend but we haven’t yet heard back.  Drop us a line Jomo, and keep on walking, brother.

Missing Melea

In times of mourning and healing, one misses the wise elders. Today I am missing my mogadibo (my darling) Melea Letsoalo, domestic worker for the Hilton-Barber family for almost her entire life. She held me just after I was born and I held her just before she died. She was my anchor, my grandmother, my comforter, my friend. We really adored each other – despite the rule of apartheid at the time, despite her servility in our household. Well into my forties and her nineties, her favourite thing was letting me paint her finger and toe nails post box red, while drinking sweet peach-flavoured champagne. 

Long life! 

Melea cared for me through happiness and heartbreak, through tragedy and trauma – my brother’s death, my armed robbery, me being stabbed in the head. I cared for her too, after her own daughter Carol died, and her son Harry, after her knee conked in and her eyesight faded. Melea was wise and warm, with great humour and healthy streak of anarchy. She was an irrepressible joller. She smoked, she drank. She ran a small but lively shebeen from the alley in Northumberland Avenue in Jozi where we lived for twenty years. 

When I was writing my matric (both my brothers had left home), my parents went overseas for a month and Melea and I were left alone. We had the family Peugeot – and I had a learner’s license - and Melea and I drove all around the suburb visiting my friends and hers. Almost every nearby domestic worker and gardener came to sit in the sun drinking all the stuff we’d raided from the liquor cabinet; as did my friends, but we sat near the pool.  

Colonial family photo 1947

Melea was born in ancestral Letsoalo land in Limpopo, in the green upper reaches of the Letsitele Valley, near Tzaneen. Her people were forcibly removed from there in the 50s. When the land was successfully reclaimed by the Letsoalos in the late 90s, Melea was at the handing back ceremony. “Bloody liar”, she shouted at land minister Thoko Didiza, “all governments are liars!” 

Melea’s father worked for my grandfather on Kings Walden farm in Agatha at the beginning of last century; a skilled stonemason who built the original walls of the now famous gardens. As a teenager Melea went to work on a nearby farm where the farmer tattooed all his workers in case they ran away. Which Melea of course did. I will never forget how I used to trace, with my baby fingers, the warm initials ML in Victorian cursive script on her left inner wrist. 

Not so colonial family photo 1986

Melea fled back to Kings Walden where she went from kitchen ‘girl’ to nanny for my newly born mother Tana. During this time she fell in love with the Portuguese farm foreman, Fernandez, who had come from then Lourenco Marques in Mozambique to manage Kings Walden. Melea and Fernandez lived in a little cottage (which later became mine) and were arrested several times under the Immorality Act in 1948 (no Sex across the Colour Line as it was known then) but continued as lovers ‘til his death in the late 70s. 

Melea eventually retired to a cottage my parents built her in Direpeng Sreet in Lenyenye, down the road from Kings Walden, with a couple of fabulously feisty gogos who smoked newspaper joints and hustled me for bucks to get hot stuff from the local bottle shop. I visited her often there, bearing nail polish, sweet stuff, mielie meal, chickens, eggs, clothes. I got to know her family and relatives, and maintain contact with those still alive and kicking. 

Melea and Tana testing the summer punch 

Born a few days before the Titanic sank in 1912, Melea lived to be 102. I dreamed about her the night before she died. Come quickly said her son Mickey when I phoned the next morning, she is leaving us. I raced down to CN Phathudi Hospital near Lenyenye and saw her for the last time, peaceful and paper thin on the hospital bed.

“I love you”, I said, holding her tiny old hand. “I love you”, she whispered back. 

Love you mogadibo forevah!