Day 320: Dirkiesdorp

I spent a whole week in Sabie, before the road called me to Komatipoort. But there was a definite tug south as I experienced the wild horses in Kaapsehoop before a misty hitchhike to Amsterdam, through Piet Retief and towards a predominantly German farming community en route to Dirkiesdorp. It felt as if my home province of KwaZulu-Natal was reeling me in.

I am walking slowly. My feet are dragging through a nostalgia of churning butter, shooting at (and fortunately missing) birds with a .22, climbing the peach trees, and the smell and smile of my Ouma Anna. My grandparents had a smallholding here in Dirkiesdorp, and the place swirls with childhood memories and with longing. So, it takes a while until I hear the kids’ shouts and register what they are shouting at me from their school yard. ‘MLUNGU! MLUNGU!’

And then the stones arc over the fence and plonk down around me. They’re just kids, I remind myself, but I pack the nostalgia away and change my body shape from a comma to an exclama-tion mark. I resolve not to flinch should a stone touch me. Meanwhile I want to shout, ‘WHAT HAVE I DONE?’

As these things sometimes happen, the headmaster phones me that afternoon. He has heard about this uBuntu Girl. Am I still in town? And he invites me to come and speak to the children the following day. They are holding a funeral service for one of their pupils, who passed away.

I arrive too early the next morning, but already there is a buzz of activity. Between classes the teachers are making sandwiches for the expected mourners. I am offered coffee and receive apologies every few minutes that nobody has the time to sit with me. When I offer my help they seem shocked. In the ensuing debate I take a loaf of bread, pick up a butter knife and get to work. And after some initial uncertainty there are big grins all round.

It is touching to see how many children from other schools have come to pay their respects. The headmaster sidles up to me and tells me that there might not be enough time for me to speak after all, unless I can spend the whole day here.

The children first saw me outside their school. An outsider. A target for their stones. Then they saw me inside their school, helping with the funeral service. Nothing more needs to be said.