Johannesburg - I don’t know who got the bigger fright – my mother-in-law or the koringkriek which was perched precariously on the lip of her wine glass. When they made eye contact, she screamed and the koringkriek, in its own fright at the much bigger human, lost its balance and toppled into the wine.
A koringkriek (a wheat cricket is the rough translation from Afrikaans and it is, apparently, technically known as a shieldback katydid) is a fairly harmless insect which populates vast swathes of the drier parts of southern Africa.
But it’s particularly populous in Namibia and, for those haven’t encountered it, quite a frightening sight.
It’s what a Parktown prawn would be if it took steroids… only uglier. And the little swan dive into the wine (both chucked out immediately) was the thing I remember from that night we all spent at the campsite at the Kuiseb River in the heart of the Namib Desert.
Later that evening, a host of the creatures, which were in a tree above the tent we gave my parents-in-law, decided to fall onto the said tent… like the rain which seldom falls in this region (and no I didn’t plan it that way).
Welcome to our world, mom and dad.
We were living in Windhoek and were fiercely proud of our foster homeland for its rugged beauty and strange creatures, for its take-no-prisoners way of life and for the vast space and the peace those spaces would pour into your soul.
It was a shock to us when we moved there – a German old-timer told me: “You cry ven you come here und you cry ven you leave.”
It was also somewhat of a shock to my mother-in-law, who had never been there. But it was wonderful to share our wonder and admiration and to see, again, the country through new eyes, the eyes of our visitors.
That is the other, often ignored, side of travel. Visiting new places and countries can be a mind-expanding journey, but so too can the experience of living vicariously through others, showing them, the travellers, your home.
So, today, when my son steps off the plane from Europe with his Italian-Albanian girlfriend, I am hoping we will see our country afresh through her eyes.
As the famous Desiderata poem says: “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world…
Despite our sham, drudgery and broken dreams in South Africa, I hope our journey with the two of them will remind me of how much we have in this country and how amazing it is.
Let’s hope that experience begins for them at OR Tambo International airport: it really is as good as the airports in Europe and better than a number in North America and Asia.
We will show her our house (she has never lived in one, only in apartments across Europe) and our garden, with one cat and one dog in the yard (life used to be so hard, according to Crosby, Stills and Nash, now everything is easy).
And the colour of Christmas which is not, like it is in Europe, white. Here is it green. Not one, but many different hues in the amazing colour palette of greens in Joburg’s one-of-a-kind urban forest.
We may also visit the Apartheid Museum to remind us all of what went on before and the tragedy we have avoided. A country built on violence, injustice as well as hard work and bravery.
For surprise, and as a reminder that we are the vibrant pulse of this entire continent, we will go shopping in Sandton City, where the boutiques and the espressos are the equal of any in Europe.
To balance that, we will show her Monte Casino, which is our own Las Vegas when it comes to fakery and copying. Very Joburg.
Before she starts to be put off by our mining town crassness, we will head west to Madikwe game reserve (our favourite of all in southern Africa) where, at Rhulani Lodge, they will show her the real Africa. Not the stuff of zoos.
If we’re lucky we’ll see wild dogs, but that will be more for us. We’ll probably see elephant, buffalo and lion and maybe even rhino. Leopard – not so easy, but they never are.
And, we’ll have those long, African sunsets in the bush – when your wordly worries really are a long way away but where, conversely, the future seems to hold bright promise.
Then it will be back to OR Tambo to put them on a plane to Knysna, still one of the most beautiful places in the country.
We’ll show them the open beach at Noetzie, with its strange, castle-like houses – and comparatively small groups of people – so they can work on their tans.
We will show them the oysters, seafood and wine of the town’s good restaurants and we’ll have Christmas supper on the deck at granny and grandpa’s house … and we’ll watch the evening fall like a soft cloak over the lagoon below.
We’ll take our wine to the beach behind Sedgefield and watch the sun go down in near solitude, seeing the local dogs tearing in and out of the waves.
If there’s time, we’ll head out into the beautiful mountains and indigenous forests, although the chances of seeing the legendary elephants will be vanishingly small.
They won’t be here long enough to get to see places like Cape Town which, even as a Joburger I have to acknowledge is a uniquely beautiful place. Nor will they have the time to feel the immense space of the Karoo, our own Outback (altho-ugh much more interesting) or the Drakensberg’s majestic power.
Whatever the two of them see, whatever memories they take back with them to Europe, we (those of us who live here) will (I hope) be refreshed and renewed. There is nothing like the wonder of an outsider to cut through your own layers of cynicism and pessimism.
That is why we need to apprecia-te what tourists can do for us, apart from the fact that they bring in money and create jobs. Sometimes you need outsiders looking in…
l What would you show a first-time visitor to South Africa? Let me know. – [email protected]
Saturday Star