Africa Day by Day- Book II: Ivory Kills

English and German settlers came to the Eastern Cape in 1920, farming the rich and fecund soil. Local farmhands multiplied and demanded their own land in time. Unrest, violence and bloodshed put an end to a peaceful time. Loss of labour meant less production and the pandemic of HIV hit the country. In ‘Egoli’, meaning Place of Gold, the land’s bowels are burrowed for the yellow metal, encroaching to deeper levels. Tourists flock to ‘Gold Reef City. In ‘Gingerbread House’, colours of land reflect in the building. Elephants have to be protected in reservations, where all can watch their playful ways in “Ivory Kills’. Waking with thoughts of concern about life in the city, in Morning in Joburg’, dark thoughts disappear watching nature at play. ‘Natal Rock’ is a wondrous mountain stirring one’s fantasy. In ‘New Age Centre’, a famous bakery is a meeting point for a cosmopolitan clientele. An unusual woman appears in “Personal Trainer’. Cultural multitudes and racial strife becomes a daily tragedy in ‘Polarities’. Glitterati and Literati congregate in No 1 bookshop serving coffee and cheesecake when exhausted from reading, while musing about daily life and a way forward in the poet’s garden, he locks himself in and waits for better days, in ‘Present City Life’. The cute and most industrious bird of all birds of Southern Africa is depicted in ‘Weaver’.