Defyingly beautiful

One of our local schools regularly posts a new quote on their billboard. This week it reads: “Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.”

This made me think of our recent family road trip on South Africa’s backroads. We travelled on gravel and pot-hole-riddled tar roads through towns such as Wolmaransstad, Schweizer-Reneke, Coligny, Jan Kempdorp and Prieska and Carnarvon.

Forgotten towns on their last breath.

I couldn’t help but fear that this is the future. Will my hometown Pretoria come to this?

Then I read an article by economist Magnus Heystek about how deteriorating infrastructure in South Africa’s interior is rapidly destroying property value.

And we drove through Meiringspoort into the Western Cape, as if driving through the gates of heaven. Through places like Oudsthoorn, Swellendam and Bonnievale – struck by the cleanliness, the well-kept tar roads, the sense of beauty.

And I wondered whether we shouldn’t join the exodus to the Western Cape and beyond. I mean, how can we continue living in a place that we know is falling apart?

But then I spoke to my Zimbabwean friend in Mamelodi (outside Pretoria) and learnt of their daily struggle to survive amidst the increasing xenophobic threat.

And I thought of an old varsity friend in Bonnievale, who initiated the building of a first-class technical school for the local poor community.

And I read the words “Others make a place beautiful.”

And I am once again reminded that, compared to the forgotten people of Wolmaransstad, Coligny and Mamelodi, I have nothing to complain about.

In fact, the question is: Am I willing to make my place, my town, my community beautiful?

Like my friend in Bonnievale.

And like the many people in those small forgotten towns whose front yard roses stand defyingly tall and red next to crumbling streets of dust.