Something about that farm…

I love Jozi. He has a gamut of costumes, faces, accents, quirks, moves. And like all interesting people, a past. Which, from the gold rush to the freedom struggle, makes for fascinating stories and places with captivating atmosphere.

I found just such a place when I set off to explore my adopted hometown recently. Imagine visiting an artist and his wife on their farm, their kids playing by the river, the plumber arriving to fix a leaking pipe, the gardener raking leaves in the driveway, where an overland tourist truck is parked… now peep under the cloak of normalcy and find a family façade, top revolutionary leaders, one destined to become world-revered, having covert meetings, planning guerrilla warfare with truckloads of AK47’s being delivered – and you are thrown into the layers of Liliesleaf Farm - there for you to pull apart, investigate, experience.

The farm is where the apartheid government’s police force cracked open the core of the insurgent wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) on 11 July 1963, which led to the Rivonia Trial, which in turn sentenced Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni, Dennis Goldberg, Raymond Mahlaba and Ahmed Kathrada to life imprisonment.

An enlightening experience, one that I have to say I approached with trepidation, but one that has intrigued (not haunted) me since – thankfully, on leaving you get a ticket with your trial date on it, allowing you to return and continue your journey, mahala (free) this time!

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