Companions..

These are just two of the people that have accompanied me on parts of my road trip. This is Anna, from Bethlehem, and her two-year old grandson. She was stranded by an unscrupulous taxi driver, without any more money, and needed a lift from Ladybrand to Wepener in Free State province.

Now, in her autumn years, she's finally looking after her own...her grandchildren. For most of her life she raised other people's children...she has spent the best years of her life bringing up white children on behalf of her 'madams' throughout the Free State. Make no mistake she is grateful for the employment, and mostly was treated exceptionally well. That was not always the case though. In our relatively short drive, she recounted storiesof love, loyaltly, car accidents, death, alcoholism, generosity and abuse. Throughout all of this she was a live-in spectator in other families and another culture altogether. Her life and family was but the wallpaper on the walls of a small room, often outside and a bit away from the grand main house. I left her at the Total petrol station in Wepener happy and smiling, very much still in intact.
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