Day 108: Kalahari travel stone

In Maruping, on the outskirts of Kuruman, I experienced my first Kalahari rainstorm while staying with Agnes, who made her son sleep on a mattress on the kitchen floor so that we women could have more privacy. The rain pelted down on the corrugated iron roof. The storm raged. The sound of thunder boom-boomeranged across the land, and the air became alive with aromas – an awakening, as each arid grain of sand rejoiced at the visitation from the heavenly wetness. It was the sweetest lullaby imaginable.

Agnes says I remind her of her friend, Angie. She is convinced we should meet. So, after staying with Agnes for one night I am on the bus from Maruping to Kuruman, where Angie is expecting me.

A young school girl asks me to sit next to her. She would like me to read, in my good English, from Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country. I allow the book to fall open to the message it wants to share. It’s chapter five.

The white man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief – and again I ask your pardon – that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are the tragic things. That is why children break the law, and old white people are robbed and beaten.

It is a statement made by Msimangu.

The girl and I make eye contact. We take our time to really look at each other. I see the smile in her soul. She sees mine. She knows. She can see that I am reaching out to the Msimangus. As is she. Right there on the bus, without a word being spoken or written, we are rewriting our day.

We reach Kuruman and there is an instant connection between Angie and me. I tag along to her meeting with representatives of the Skills Education Training Authorities (SETA) about training young environmentalists. An environmental consultant herself, Angie is passionate about the Kalahari and about educating some of the local youths to become conservationists.

In the course of my two-day stay with her, her fiancé, Jaco, and their two children, Ashley and Zac, Angie takes me crystal hunting in the Kalahari. She says that I need a crystal for my journey. Amid the bontebok, scrub hares and martial eagles we come across a crystal deposit in the desert – the sun lights up this mineral oasis showing us the earth’s richness. How lucky we are!

I find a crystal that seems to sparkle just for me. It outshines all the others. Angie picks another, saying, ‘This one has your name’.

Back at home, Ashley gives me a third crystal from her collection. She’s only a little girl and this is a huge honour. From here onwards, whenever I think of Kuruman, I will think of crystals.

That night Ashley and Zac decide to make their favourite dish: Dung Beetle Delights to go with the rest of the meal. I delight in watching them work as a team and smile at Zac who manages to get flour all over his face.

In the morning the time to leave arrives unannounced, as it always does when the road pulls me. Angie packs me a mother of a lunchbox. Food for the road and for that night, because I’m heading to a cave she has told me about. I can see some Dung Beetle Delights squashed against the side of the container.

Angie hangs something around my neck. It is a beaded leather pouch on a string and I can feel that it carries something of great importance. The rose quartz feels cool and warm all at the same time. Angie explains that this is their ‘travel stone’ that has been all over the world with them. And now she gives it to me, to safeguard me on the remainder of my journey. When it’s over, she says, I will find my way back to reunite their stone with them and their life’s journey.