Here’s to 2021! After everything we have all had to endure in 2020, wouldn’t it be good if we could start doing ‘normal’ things once again: hugging each other, going out for dinner with friends, watching live sport, going to the theatre, working alongside our colleagues, fired up with enthusiasm and hope? And wouldn’t it be nice if our frontline health workers, policemen and women, politicians (yes, even them) and the unsung heroes in our communities were able to take breath and recharge their batteries? They deserve a break. Like many of us, I suspect, I am (a) feeling mentally, physically and emotionally drained by it all, and (b) really, really, keen to get back onto African soil again, to feel her hot dusty earth under my feet and her rejuvenating sun on my back; and to soak in all that wide, wide open space and enormous skies. I desperately want to connect with nature once more and replenish my soul.
I yearn to go to the Matobo Hills, outside Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, where I grew up. I want to climb the bald granite hills and gaze out over the rambling landscape of valleys and balancing rocks, the warm wind a gentle caress across my face. I want to walk the valleys in search of rhinos, clamber among the boulders looking for paperbark acacias, climbing fig trees and rock art, and listen to the endless chatter of birds and insects. I would camp at Rowallan Park, cooking over an open _ire with my brother, under a blanket of stars. In Matobo there are efforts to erect a secure fence to stop wildlife wandering into neighbouring communal lands. Tourism operators are helping to fund schools, build sanitary water services and support local conservation groups. (See the delightful ‘My beautiful home’ project on page 17.)