Monthly Archives: March 2025

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: One Foot in Front of the Other

The future work landscape is difficult to predict.

The planet Mars. PHOTO WIKIPEDIA 

March 22, 2025

The world of work has been quite the journey for me. I like adventures. It started off right after varsity, newly married, 21, and newly relocated to the big city – Durban. I look back on those four years I spent in retail management and feel a bit shell-shocked. Six bosses, five stores, two provinces, three cities, countless CCMA cases, sleepless nights of alarm call-outs, and many, many tears. Adulting is hard. At a certain point, staying with it and getting the next promotion would have been harder than just jumping ship.

Over the Sea

We decided to play our luck and go teach English overseas instead. Maybe that wouldn’t feel like selling souls to corporations who didn’t see or care. In a way, it didn’t. Then again, there were many moments in those next five years in the classroom that still felt like we were in some rat race we didn’t choose. It was a fantastic experience to go out of South Africa and jump in the deep end of a foreign, non-English speaking culture, earning some real money. The children and co-teachers were sweet a lot of the time. The rice cakes were much sweeter.

We didn’t anticipate being quite so isolated, I think, without our support system. Since it was only meant to be for a short time, it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe we only noticed the difference when we came back again to South Africa and reunited with people who really knew us and loved us.

Back Home

Then, we started working online. It was convenient and seemed like it opened up a whole world of possibilities. We were thinking about kids, being flexible, and not wanting to be in an office or schoolroom that kept us out of the sunshine. Idealistic, maybe. Our dues are being paid currently, but we’re doing it in the sunshine most days.

The journey hasn’t stopped, though. Online work has changed – metamorphosed – since 2014, when I first dabbled in freelancing. Teaching online is now a viable career for many with a better internet connection than I currently possess. Freelancing in anything has become extremely competitive. And then, there’s AI.

I’m not sure what this work thing is going to look like in five to ten years. Working on Mars? On a floating office as icebergs melt? Let’s see, shall we?

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Squeaking Takkie in the Winelands While Herding Cats

We celebrated with our family and watched our boys experience their very first wedding.

 The beautiful winelands in the Cape.

March 14, 2025

Oribi Mom’s crew had a little adventure.

First, it must be said that this was the very first new year that Oribi Mom and Dad can remember staying up for in, well, we think, decades. We’re not teenagers trying to find shelter on some beach thanks to the South Coast’s dependable New Year’s Eve rain anymore. This year, we shouted ‘Happy New Year’ over loud music under flashing lights and even kissed (very briefly!). It was well past our parental bedtime, and three tiny boys were already asleep in the room we were all sharing. Still, we were quite proud of our efforts.

It was a special wedding, you see, over New Year’s Eve on a wine estate – and over 1500 kilometres away from our little farmhouse. We worked all year to get to that wedding. We very nearly cancelled, too.

We Almost Didn’t Make the Wedding

The first half of December was a bit of a blur. The kids promptly got sick in the last week of school and passed it along to their tired parents. Then, Oribi Gorge lost power in that huge storm that blew over poles and trees. We didn’t have power for eight days.

We went to stay with the grandparents a little earlier than planned, packing for the wedding just in case, and then the kids got sick again. Very sick. Like buying a portable nebuliser in case anyone couldn’t breathe properly on the road.

A rat chewed our car’s air conditioning wire to pieces. Can you drive through the Karoo in mid-summer without air conditioning? On the morning we decided to leave, a beloved uncle passed away.

What did we do?

We visited our dear aunt with flowers, finished the packing, bathed the boys, and strapped them into their car seats at 7 pm.

We drove 18 hours, non-stop, through the night and arrived in Cape Town at lunchtime the next day.

We celebrated with our family and watched our boys experience their very first wedding. It was like herding cats with 10 niblings walking ahead of their aunty down the aisle together, but it was so beautiful.

We danced. We laughed. We got all dressed up and took a family picture. We saw in 2025.

And then, we made it home again to Oribi Gorge. We’re all better; we have power, and it’s a whole new year!

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: An Ancient Artist’s Palette in an Unlikely Place

There is beauty all around.

 PHOTO BY PIXABAYMarch 4, 2025

There’s a tree I love on the highway between Harrismith and Ladysmith. I have seen it since I was a little girl, travelling home. I lived in Northern Natal for a little while and played sports sometimes in Harrismith. Even after that, we’ve made trips up to Joburg to see family, embark on planes, or visit game reserves.

Every time we come back from the highveld to the lowveld, there’s a spark. I see that big flat mountain in Harrismith and feel a tingle. Then, I see the ‘Racing Car’ mountain, which my children insist on calling ‘Hippo Mountain’, where I look for bald ibises. The little spark of joy grows because I know the descent is coming.

You have to go super slow down Van Reenen’s. Driving at 60km/h feels like trudging through clay after a few hours at 120km/h. The police assure us it’s not meant as a lesson in patience; they want us to arrive alive. Before you get to Smelly-Truck-Brake Pass, though, there’s this beautiful tree. It’s huge compared to everything else in that location, so it stands out. It’s also right next to the road.

Look Closer at the Tree As You Come To This Ancient Place

I have no idea how this tree is still standing. For 30-plus years, I’ve taped it as absolutely ancient. It hasn’t changed. The tree of my childhood memories looks just the same. It’s a gum tree, but let’s skip over the part about it being invasive and water-guzzling. It’s dazzling. It stands straight up, towering above you as you come up the hill. You can see it from quite a long way off, and as you get closer, it touches the sky.

You can’t help but notice the phenomenal composition its stripped bark reveals layer upon layer. It’s like a bored artist has taken their palette and tried to get every colour there is onto one tree trunk – pinks, greens, yellow, blues, greys, oranges, and all the fancy colour names in between that I don’t know. ‘Rainbow’ would not even come close to it.

The ibises, cranes, and ducks get to enjoy it every day. I just catch a glimpse of it when I’m coming home. Is that why it’s so captivating? I hope to ask my grandchildren one day. Will they be coming home to beautiful KZN, too? To me, home is colours on a tree and the promise of the ocean.

What’s it to you?

Published here.