I am an African and I am so proud

A letter by Andrew Rae.

I sat the other night on an open plain on Mapesu Farm, our beloved slice of Africa. I was shivering because I was in an open Land Rover and had already driven a while through the frigid bushveld air. I had just left a jovial bunch of Belgians at the lodge, bade them good night and was now on my way home across the farm. It is on nights like these that I usually see the most incredible natural wonders.

Nocturnal delights such as lesser bush baby, spotted hyena, porcupine, civet, honey badger and leopard are on my drive home list as well as the occasional eland bull in all his burly magnificence trotting away, dewlap swaying as the very earth shakes beneath his hooves. On this particular night I stopped in an open glade known to us locals as Impala Plains. A loud crack, not unlike the report of a rifle, had alerted me and I switched the ignition off immediately to listen. It was approaching full moon and I could see quite clearly.

A white-faced owl called in the distance in that impatient bubbling explosion of theirs and I exhaled a cloud of wintry vapour and waited (I have quit smoking recently so exhaling wintry vapour is all I have left!) There was the noise again…loud and brutal in the quiet African night. Then I saw them…two fantastic cloven hoofed, lyre-horned gladiators locked in savage combat! Two impala rams, both mindless bezerkers fuelled on testosterone and driven by a primeval need to conquer and rut, were having it out across a moonlit patch of Limpopo savannah.

I was the only spectator. The noise I had heard? It was the sound of horns smashing together. I sat there that night watching an age old display of natural selection and I marvelled at the anonymity of it all. At that very moment on similar battlefields from Kruger to Kilimanjaro, the same duel was taking place. There was no crowd of fans, no cash prize for the victor and no television cameras, just good old survival of the fittest. I felt it that night in the cold moonlight…Africa’s rhythm, her heartbeat, her ancient percussion and I knew then that I would always reside close to it, within it even, until I breathe my last. What moves you in this world? What is real to you? Why is it that people feel the need to bleed just to know that they are alive?

I think mankind yearns for something tangible, something vital and visceral, something that comes from the deep seated savage within. Africa waits for all those who feel this way. She will move you and shake you and reveal an existence that you have barely thought possible. I am also tired of my Africa suffering humiliation courtesy of the tabloid stars. We don’t need Angelina to have her baby in Namibia for the world to know that Africa exists or Madonna to adopt another poor Malawian infant. It sickens me that Africa is reduced to this botox injected reality. How dare these glorified court jesters and their plastic mindscapes demean this magnificent and ancient place!

I am an African and I am offended! I stood at the threshold looking out across the tarmac at an Airbus recently. I was at Dulles International in Washington DC and it was the end of an incredible vacation with my family. I stood rooted at the large windows of international departures and I stared at this one particular aircraft. It was beautiful, sleek, with the most pleasing lines and the potential for speed as obvious as a crouching peregrine falcon. But what had caught my attention was the flag painted on the tail, the flag of my homeland. My vision blurred and that infernal frog climbed back into my throat. I could smell the dust already and the pulse of it, the drum beat of a Dark Continent, my heartland began to stir in the far off recesses of my mind. My daughter, Angie, grabbed my hand and smiling, said to me, “Come on Dad, let’s go home.

” Thank you Lord, I was going home. I am an African and I am so proud.