Wind and rain swept through the dark streets of Nieuwoudtville like a highwayman claiming his sweetheart. Sheltering from the storm in the large kitchen of a stone cottage, a group of friends sat round the hearth, where a woodfire crackled. They chatted and laughed and urged Hennie O’Kennedy to sing. […]
I knew there was something special about the chiffonier when I saw it standing on auction in the once grand dining room of No 2 Richmond Road, a Victorian home in the town of Middelburg in the Karoo. […]
Some things in life are fair. Life does not distinguish between so-called good families or so-called broken families, between rich or poor, educated or uneducated, first world or third world when it comes to the black sheep or wayward soul. Black sheep are as prevalent in families in South Africa as they are in families [...]
Studying the shape, horns and colour patterns of Nguni cattle is like palm-reading the history of Africa. For Nguni cattle have always been, and will continue to be, the symbol of wealth, status, spirituality and political power in Africa. Exceptionally fertile and disease-resistant with unmistakable, multi-coloured hides, the widely beloved Nguni breed has evolved in [...]
“I can’t believe I’m seeing Saturn and the craters on the moon!” a visitor on the night sky tour at the Astronomical Observatory near Sutherland gazes through a 16-inch telescope, operated by astronomy guide Glenda Stoffels. The same visitor asks Stoffels if she is an astronaut, but it matters not in the infinite wonder of [...]
Oblivious to the precariousness of our place on the planet and on the human family tree, us ‘modern humans’ are the masters of the grandest, most misguided belief in our own invincibility. “We are tottering on the brink of extinction and still we don’t see the danger,” says Donald Johanson, one of the most eminent [...]
“I did not want to be a builder,” Hamilton Wende explained as he leapt onto the arm of the couch in his writing den and reached up to the pelmet to retrieve a photo of an Afghan soldier in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. The photo and Wende’s lack of desire to become a builder [...]
WHEN rocket scientists Denise Wilson and Prevani Kistan-Naidoo are introduced to people and asked what they do, the response is usually “No, really”, “Me, too” or “You’re joking”. “That’s why we usually just say we’re engineers,” smiles Wilson, who heads up the R1 billion A-Darter air-to-air missile programme at Denel Dynamics, the arms manufacturer based [...]
I remember filling out a job application form where I was asked whether I had ever been treated for a mental disorder. Of course I ticked ‘No’ and immediately thought about the parsley tree, which is widely used by traditional healers to treat nervous and mental disorders. Decoctions of the leaves, stems and roots are [...]