TAH 1952

A group of Voortrekkers known as the Jerusalem Trekkers, set out north from the Cape in the 1860s towards the Holy Land but with only the maps at the back of their Bibles to go on they thought they had reached the Nile River when they came upon a wide river flowing northwards and a rocky hill which they thought was a ruined pyramid. Sadly they were over 6,000km out.

The Voortrekkers settled in the area and formed a small village on the banks of the Nyl River in 1866 and called it Nylstroom. During the Boer War the British set up a concentration camp here and interned the Boer women and children while the troops burnt the land in their Scorched Earth policy to try flush out the Boer soldiers.

The name of the town was changed to Modimolle, the local name for the same rocky hill that was supposed to be a ruined pyramid. The name is derived from the Tswana words “Modimo o lie” meaning “the forefathers have eaten”.

Now with the words “White Genocide” becoming more and more brandied out freely as an old BBC report from 2013 is brought back to life, I have always thought this was one sided as many poor, black and white have become poorer while a few have become rich off the new South Africa. This is becoming a slippery slope I don’t know how we can get out of. This is very evident driving through the small towns of our Rainbow Nation of how dirt poor a lot of people are and in Modimolle today, along what was thought to be the Nile River, we came across Charlie and Suzzette with their 3 dogs, 3 donkeys, and all their belongings, and I mean all that they process on a donkey cart. This abandoned family was in search of shelter for the night after being unceremoniously kicked out of their home.

The question that I am rising “So where to now Rainbow Nation?”