Dear South Africa

My beloved. My heart and my soul. You are perpetually flowing through my blood.

I feel your music move through me in a way that music of Europe never could.

There is something about the beating sun on a winters day that makes me flood with pride. A strange tugging on the inside of my heart occurs each time I walk through a Jacaranda engulfed street or drive along Chapman’s Peak at sunset.

There is nothing and nobody that could blind me to the beauty that is your landscape.

Although many believe that what is to come is only horror and despair, my mind’s eye will eternally know only of your fresh air, warm sunlight and scent of fynbos.

Please know that even though many have given up hope and that many others have fled, South Africa will always be what keeps my head high.

I hope that each time one who has fled returns to their roots and hears your song, that they will be overcome with the hope they had once lost and the pride that they had attempted to suppress inside of them.

So, Dear South Africa, I am sad, I am sorry, I am in love, I am lost, but above all, I am now and forevermore proud.