M. has gone.

The night before we took her to the hospital, three toddlers set a fire. It blazed across a twenty acre field within seconds; neighbors ran to the nearest water pump half a mile away. When we arrived in the morning, the beehive hut stood at the edge of a sea of blackened grass, sky blue as always. One meter and half a second saved her for three more days. At first she'd refused to go to the hospital, afraid to be admitted during pension day, but no one could imagine her waiting in line for the eighty dollar monthly stipend when she couldn't hold herself upright. From the back seat, she stared out over the fields in silence, eyes fluttering, in and out this world. Ntombeleni Mlangeni was forty years old, a mother of seven, and a grandmother. Her eldest daughter will continue to work in the roads to support them. Tall and strong, she still lies on her stomach like a child, and laughs out loud. I wonder if anyone will marry her, already with a young son. Her intended husband was shot in Johannesburg on the day of their wedding, years ago. She was terrified to lose her mother; you are never ready to lose your mother, my mother said. You can blame the system, the transport problem, the one who infected her, the situations that led to his infection, and on and on but you can never name the one thing that was responsible for her end. All of these rondavels dotting the hillsides, shining buzzcut thatched roofs, grandmothers leaning against them in the sun. Almost all of these huts with a small skeleton within, buried deep in blankets that slightly rise and fall, in shortened breaths.

There is such a sharpness, of centuries of separation, just beneath the thin new skin that covers everything here, in the Cape of Good Hope. There are American ghosts, bent at the waist in the fields. The hatred that is still so hard to kill in the most notorious areas, and pessimistically thinking of how many more generations it will take to silence that here, and of those that will be brave enough to cross color lines to hasten it, and ready to be ridiculed by both sides for it. D. explained today that black means darkness and evil, so she will never be beautiful because of it. I thought about what Malcolm X had said about that. And an art teacher in 3rd grade who said that there are so many different colors in skin that nobody can be one color, when a mixed classmate argued that she was tan, not black. Brown celebrities get blonder and are suddenly beloved by twice as many. Millions of subconsciously simple tactics to make you smaller. I know that the topic of race is almost boringly obvious, and no, it shouldn't matter, but I can't seem to stop it from permeating every waking thought;

Best of all, the past few days of heaviness in our hearts has been lifted by the visit of Gerry, Sarah's father, and Konrad, Sarah's boyfriend, which required us to set aside some time to concentrate on the beautiful things around; another horse ride through the game reserve (+ another week of walking like John Wayne after last weekend's horse ride at a local doctor's farm), a rollicking Zulu engagement ceremony, and a few braais. We were in need of some outside perspective on the stories we've become a part of, and of some good ol' daddy hugs.

The much anticipated sex initiation ceremony also happened last weekend. Beautiful girls, faces, breasts and arms smeared with white clay. The both of our faces painted with three white dots. The girls running from the fields to home, and chased back outside by men and boys. A goat wearing sneakers. Meat that could be spread like butter upon bread. We were fed until it was painful, in thanks for photographing the event. All in the most beautiful area, the sky pinkening over the mountains of Lesotho. If you don't see me for the next three months, I'm locked in a room, printing family pictures for every person in uKhahlamba.

My heartfelt apologies for writing so late...our friend with a phone line went out of town, so checking email next should be thrilling; please know that I was deeply concerned about losing such faithful and extremely good-looking readers...