I remember the first time I got off the plane at Entebbe. It was October, the start of the rainy season, and the heat of the sun was mingling with a recent rainfall.   The smell was intoxicating, like a half-cooked clay pot mixed with the rising scent of begonia, the murrim dust burnt orange underfoot.  This blast of heat and smell and dust blew in front of me; the noise, aroma and sensation, an enticing beckoning into a love affair that has never left.

I have waited nearly 12 years to share this with my child.  Wanting him to be old enough, aware enough, to build his own relationship with this special place.  We chose South Africa, “Africa light” as I’m apt to describe it, for a slew of reasons, all of which were rational and pragmatic.  We decided to visit in Winter, better to see the wildlife on safari, less mosquito’s, less tourists.  We chose a mix of African bush and city to provide contrast and maintain interest, carefully selecting the places to stay.

And the first few days were magical – all I could have wished for.  I watched his eyes widen at the sight of elephants so close you could smell their breath, at lions lying feet away replete from a kill, at rhinos locking horns in violent play-fight, at hungry hyena and wild dog scrapping, at giraffes fixing him with their beautiful hooded eyes before sauntering away.  I saw him listen to every word of Stu the safari guide and George our spotter.  He playfully gave himself into the music and culture delighting the staff at Etali Lodge with his desire to learn their songs and participate in their sounds. He jumped in deep;  watching lizard, zebra, bush buck and warthog from the depths of our plunge-pool and singing loudly and with great abandon in the outdoor shower.  This is a happy child, falling in love with my Africa.

And then we arrive in Cape Town and it changes.  The city itself is beyond recollection and I keenly feel what Elizabeth Marx terms “reverse culture shock“.  It is at once familiar yet strangely alien.  I search for Africa and see the successful commercialisation of an international city.  Small family owned restaurants are now large, bland, international affairs.  In revolt we purchase a MyCiti card and take to travelling in and around the city on local buses, desperate to retain a link to the culture that made this place so unique.  We encounter slivers of this, just enough to keep searching, but it is becoming more futile by the hour.  To make it worse, Roscoe keeps talking of Madikwe and us returning there and it is obvious that the Mother city has only attracted his consumerism and not his heart.

So we headed off to the Cape Winelands, basing ourselves in Franschhoek the Huguenot town renowned for its gastronomic delights, engulfed by a plethora of high-quality vineyards and nestled in the spectacular Franschhoek valley.  
This is the home of La Petite Ferme, the award-winning, family run vineyard where Craig and I used to stay in our young and carefree days.  Only this is currently closed, having been sold, and is now undergoing renovations, no doubt to make it bigger, better and more commercially lucrative than before.  Everywhere we go, we see the march of touristic progress from the penguins sidewalk at Simons Town to the rise of new hotels in the middle of Hermanus.  The charm and culture appears to be ebbing away and it bruises my soul.  Of course I have no right to wish stagnation on a country that so desperately needs the tourist dollar, no right to expect the culture to be wrapped in cotton wool and preserved for my child to experience.  I would not want this place, this continent. to do anything but rise and prosper and flourish.  But to see it through my child’s eyes – we could be anywhere in Europe, America, Canada, Australia – this is not Africa, this homogeneity choking a culture so colourful and vibrant.

And yet, we take a thread of hope and a promise of tomorrow, back with us.  For Franschhoek also hosts a number of small boutique art galleries.  And on day one of our visit we fall in love with a painting by a local artist called Katherine Wood.  It’s an exorbitant cost but it beckons us back each day to gaze at its sweeping skyline and discuss how it makes us feel, think, breathe.  We are in the in-between land of knowing but not knowing, reminded that life is fleeting and ephemeral.  This art, it calls to us and commonsense and pragmatism fade and disappear in its incessant need to be heard.

We buy hope and dreams, future not past. And the crate arrives three weeks later, massive in size, it alone making a statement that refuses to be ignored.

We will gaze at this painting, and its companion piece,  to the end of our days.  I too have succumbed to commercialism and magic.  Yes, Africa remains within me, a concept, a promise, a never-ending love affair.