So, we were in Pretoria.
Some nice things about Pretoria: after Jo'burg it was really really nice and quiet; it's pretty; and we met a beautiful public health officer from Malawi who cracked us up with stories all during breakfast. We loved her! She showed us pictures of her gorgeous twin daughters and regaled us with stories about huge storms on the lake (she's actually from the island in the center of the Lake Malawi) and the oppressive regime cutting her brother's afro in the airport when he came home for a visit.
Bad things about Pretoria: it's the home of apartheid, the National Party, and one of the most infamous prisons in South Africa, that is notorious still for its mistreatment of prisoners.
Neither I nor our chirpy little ole white lady hostess could understand why, but Naomi was determined to go to the VOORTREKKERS Monument. Something about staring into the face of evil.
"Why do you want to go there for?" LOWL asked with a dismissive wave. "Garbage it is, that whole thing."
Since my job is to love her and take her where she want to go, we drove around the back of town, up a dry and dusty huge hill and saw the forbidding thing looking out over the plain. Naomi's got those pictures. Ick.
*The VOORTREKKERS MONUEMENT commemorates the "Great Trek" the Afrikaaners made when the British chased them into the interior -- and further into Xhosa, Sotho, Khoi, and Zulu lands. It is a real source of "Oh Pioneers" pride and the National Party used to have all these events celebrating it, their bravery, tenacity etc, where you see all these women wearing those terrible bonnets and they reenact the wagon trips.
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