~~~~
M y siblings (at least most of them) and I were born in this city, at the Pelonomi (meaning caring) Academic Hospital, it is also a medical & surgical institution where I trained and ultimately rendered competent as a healthcare professional.
The past 15 years have been a harmonious mixture of learning, practicing, training and managing in the caring profession in different capacities; with the last few years being in the UK. My experiences to date have been a collaborative accumulation of being an active youth in the struggle for liberation, the president of the nursing student representative council at college, to leadership management of different units and now currently been a business student as well a serial volunteer with a prospect of being a community reporter, just to confirm that, indeed, we as human beings have got many, I mean, many untapped potentials.
I was born in Bloemfontein, the Judicial Capital City of the Free State Province in South Africa, it is roughly centrally situated in the Province, as well as in the country. It is the sixth largest city and is placed with more pivotal importance than any other in the country, it was not only part of an independent Boer Republic during British colonization era, but it is also the humble abode of the founders and leaders of liberation struggle, spear-headed by the African National Congress (ANC).
The atmosphere that one feels in Bloemfontein, The City of Roses, as it’s affectionately came to be known as, is one based on an antiquated appreciation of values of neighbourliness, where quality of life and its celebration is of prime importance. Politics, education, heritage and family interests are so amicably intertwined with no reason for discord; cultures are intermingled with more than 9 languages, resulting in some sort of musical interlude as demonstrated by its local lingua franca. Whilst there is little stress and less haste; the peaceful atmosphere, which is somehow almost tangible, can be felt pulsating in every street nerves and on every corner.
This city really has seen it all, it is such a pride to say it has become remarkably compliant with the realities of its Rainbow Nation in the new South Africa, and with the cost of living among the most competitive and comparatively poor in the country and the world, it is still an immense pleasure to have some of the many layers of my being stubbornly if not violently hooked with it….. I miss home, My Home!
~~