Articles

I’VE just read a rape appeal judgment that has left me fuming. It’s yet another case in which the rapist got off with less than he deserves because of a technical hitch or the misplaced sympathy of a judicial officer. It convinces me that we need a plan; something...

This group of four blue cranes against the mountains caught my eye. I could have watched them the whole day.

A desert where a dam used to be ….   Early Sunday morning. The tractor arrives where the dam used to be bringing driver Geelbooi Maseu and his friend Petrus Zenzile who works on a sewerage clearing team during the week. Maseu connects the tank on the tractor to...

WHEN the town dam dies, there’s always a feast. It’s happened twice during the time I’ve been living in this little Free State dorp and I’m learning the rituals. At its fullest the dam, just outside the town gates, is more than six kilometres in circumference. Several...

This used to be a town dam, with water as far as you could see. Now there’s nothing except a dark stain in the centre where the last water dried into mud shards. Careless owners of cattle and horses have left their animals to graze next to the dry dam and they are...

Blooming in the veld right now is Harveya purpurea, aka the ink plant (because the flowers turn an inky black colour if they are bruised). More sceptical members of the public might say that there is another reason for this to be the patron plant of journalists: it’s...