Saturday, October 11, 2008

prayer for the ones we love

One morning this week, an elderly neighbour was murdered on his farm in, to use the now commonplace South African phrase, "a hail of bullets".

The killers fled across country and, I believe, set a fire in the veld on one of the only windless days we've had for weeks. A column of dense black smoke like that from burning tyres or petrol rose as I drove to town that morning. I recall thinking how totally unwarranted this seemed since nothing remains in our winter weary veld to burn so ugly and black. Farmers raced from all sides to fight what became huge fire across acres of precious grazing, effectively reducing the manhunt.

With visibility down to nothing, a head-on collision on the only access road to the farms on that route killed two people and caused a three hour delay that backed up trucks and traffic from the Bethlehem intersection all the way to the Sterkfontein turn off.

My father was stuck on one side of the back-up trying to get around the mountain to help fight the fire, I on the other trying to get back to the farm so my mother would not be alone. What came to me was a fierce pride in the men who came from every direction bringing their fire teams and bakkies and water pumps. Actual, real men who work hard and stand their ground and yes, wear khaki and have sun burnt arms and no smooth moves. I'd rather have a real man like this at my shoulder any day than one who can glide and tiptoe his way around a slippery stock exchange floor.

Eventually, a figure in a fireproof suit, welding gloves and goggles, waved me through the metal of car wreckage.

By the end of that day, after the smoke and the blood and the screaming, the fire was stopped, the dead were carried off. Somewhere, the people who love them felt around the ragged holes of lives most terribly altered. Familiar stars crept out above the now quiet mountain. I called my cats home a little earlier than usual.

And because this is Africa, and because we are farmers, and because none of this is new, we somehow absorb it. So when dawn comes, we throw up a prayer for the ones we love and rise and let the dogs in and put the kettle on for tea and go to the veranda and scan the sky and go forward into another day.