“You should wake up! You need to know what goes on around you…”
No! I can’t! I can’t face it…
When it comes to politics, I live with my head in the sand. My own country’s pain is far too close to home, so I prefer to be up to date with what goes on in the wider world… the world further removed from the people I love and the soil that runs through my veins.
But I suppose that is what protesters do: They knock people like me whose heads are in the sand on the shoulder. They force us to look, to face ugly truths. They force us to look, then they leave us to think, to feel and to agonize.
We had an innocent day at the Johannesburg zoo. We were excited to see the gorilla and chimpanzees, entertained by the monkeys, amazed by the beautifully elegant giraffes, charmed by snakes and awed by the lions and tigers.
We were loving another blue-sky winters’ day. We were letting ourselves be drawn into the fresh, enchanted world that only a toddler can inhabit. And oh the trees! Johannesburg has got the most beautiful, big trees. And the zoo’s collection is breathtaking – different shapes and colours. All tall and stately.
We were delighting in these pleasures when security started driving around the zoo telling all visitors to leave urgently as protesters might be planning to attack the zoo.
With my shoulder now prodded I pulled my proverbial head out of the sand and bewildered, discovered that the small protests that started a few days ago because our former president Jacob Zuma was imprisoned for contempt of court, has spread across the country and spilled into Johannesburg.
We left and were fine. My head is back in the sand but my mind is troubled! Troubled for the fate of those innocent creatures at the zoo, for our children who has no one to trust but us, for our elderly parents who have no other hope except us. Troubled for this spectacular land and its people!
Mom&Teacher Thoughts 