"Ekahau's new South Africa Page" South Africa by Ekahau

"Ronald
My friend, you are not forgotten. It seems that our time together was a lifetime ago, but my memories of you hold the clarity of just yesterday. Remember that jungle gym in the schoolyard and how we decided that it was our duty to protect it at all costs from the fifth graders, and how during one heroic defense I fell off that tricky third bar and got a concussion? Or how we could talk about everything and anything for hours on end and that one time when we both got in trouble for writing out our teacher's name in rabbit pellets and then leaving it on her desk? How we sat under the South African sky and watched the clouds transform under each other's imaginations.

When my father sat me down and told me you had died, I could not believe it. My mind refused to register the possibility that you were actually gone. The notion of the finality that death imparted was incomprehensible to my young mind. Yet when I went to school a couple days later and saw that your chair was empty, I knew that I would never see you again. Suddenly the faces of my peers became clear to me and the sadness that everyone felt began suffocating me. I couldn’t take it. I remember, my friend, getting up from my chair and leaving the class without a word. The teacher knew how close you and I were, Ronald, and as I walked out, she didn't say anything either. I went to the office, called my father and asked him to pick me up. When in the car I demanded to know by what accident you had died. My father thought for a few minutes, looked out the car windshield and then told me you did not die of an accident, that you were killed. He said that you and your whole family was murdered because your father was a member of the ANC, and when he saw that I didn't understand, he told me that you died because the color of your skin. I remember saying with tears of rage as well as grief that I wanted to go out and kill everyone that had to do with your death. My father took his left hand off the steering wheel, placed it around my shoulders and gave me a sympathetic smile. He said that's not what you would have wanted, Ronald, and now that I am older I think he was right.

Ronald, whenever I think of the fear you must have felt as those men walked into your house with their rifles, I feel sick. The reality I was so accustomed to, in which our innocence was our salvation, shattered at my feet. I've been trying very hard my friend, trying hard to understand the humanity that would allow this to happen. As I got older I plunged myself into philosophy and devoured as much as I could. I received a hundred definitions of humanity and none of them sufficed. I then realized that man had to define himself through himself. Because of you, Ronald, I better understand hate. I came to see that hatred brought nothing but pain and was a trait of the ignorant. Hatred is not a state of mind; it is a choice; so is forgiveness. Not only were you one of my greatest friends, but one of my greatest teachers as well. Ke a leboha-sala hantle ho opa kgomo lenaka.. Go well Ronald, go well my teacher. Ronald, you helped define who I am."