Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: MOURNING / MORNING (02/02/23)
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TITLE: Piet-my-vrou | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
02/09/23 -
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“You’re best pleased with yourself,” I muttered. “Aagh, go away!”
Ahead of me, bounding through the wheat-coloured waist-high grasses, was Max, my Rhodesian Ridgeback. Strong, dependable, and forever a puppy, he was nosing termite mounds and burrows, hopeful that this time he’d strike gold and catch a rabbit, or at the very least a mouse.
I could almost see spring exploding into life before my eyes. The tendrils of the morning sun lovingly tipped the long grass before moving up the trees and filtering its rays through the budding branches. I tilted my head towards the east and allowed the sun to work its magic. And it would need a lot of magic this morning.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my emails until I got to the email sent from my brother. He’d traveled to England right after his army stint and landed up meeting his now-wife.
“I’ll visit often,” he promised me.
“But who will help with the farm? I need you!” I told him.
“Sipho can step up and take over some of the jobs.”
That was eight years ago. Not only had Sipho stepped up to help me, but he had also become my husband. Seth and Mandy were meant to fly over for the wedding but didn’t. Over the years, it was always some new excuse; studies, work, fear of crime as too many farmers were being killed for their land. All valid in their own way, but nonetheless heartbreaking for me.
I should have expected an email, but seeing his name in my inbox was jarring. He only ever emailed when he was too chicken to talk to me or FaceTime me. Before I even opened it, I knew it was another ‘so sorry, we cannot come because [insert reason]. But hey, if you fly to Basingstoke, there’s always room for you here. We’d love to see you and spend time showing you around.’ Each time I got one of those, I wept. He was all the natural family I had left.
I called Max to me and turned back to the homestead, to the farm that had been in our family for four generations. It was pointless trying to get my brother to change his mind, or rather his wife’s mind. She was too fearful to come to the ‘dark continent.’ As much as I hated her reasoning, I got it. BBC News did an amazing (awful) job of showcasing the plight of farmers in Zim, the murders, the necklacings, and the government’s heavy-handed equity approach. Possibly if I was a British woman who’d never ventured farther than Paris, I might feel the same way.
“Perhaps it’s time for Sipho and me to take them up on their offer. What do you think, Max?” His long tongue lolled out the side of his huge mouth, and he rubbed his massive body against my hips. “Perhaps it’s time to stop mourning the ideal and go with the reality. If the mountain won’t come to Mohammad, well, me, then I will go to the mountain.”
I immediately texted Sipho. “Hey, wanna go to England?”
My phone dinged, and I looked at its screen. “Yes!!!!! It’s definitely time!”
As I approached the back door of the old farmhouse with a light heart, a plan, and a new resolve, I heard the harbinger of spring trill out once again, “Piet-my-vrou, piet-my-vrou.”
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So now I want to know what happened at the meet-up, if it even happened!
God Bless~