Today is Freedom Day, a national holiday commemorating this country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Nelson Mandela, the first black president, spoke along with others on this cold rainy day Cape Town day. His main themes were crime, economic challenges, alcohol and drug abuse, and “pushing back the frontier of poverty”. The underestimated number of people living with HIV virus and AIDS related deaths weren’t mentioned while I listened and tried to find any white faces in the crowd. Tribal dancers wearing a variety of colorful outfits (mostly covering their lower body) danced while professional news personalities announced the event on TV. Two worlds, both black, present quite a different picture. Some of the women in African garb interviewed have University degrees and a proficient command of the English language, and others are as rural as you can imagine, speaking only their native language. Many share the tradition of topless tribal dress. Africa meets the West.

While the nation takes a break today, I study and reminisce about the holiday Peter and I took last week. While traveling we saw many beautiful things: fields of trees including bananas, oranges, macadamias, coffee, pine trees, avocados and palm trees; dramatic waterfalls, canyons, rolling landscapes and fifty foot trees in full bloom, pink, yellow and blue. Africans line the streets walking nearby every town, smiling faces emerged almost every time eye contact was made. Some women we passed on a seemingly endless stretches of land balanced sticks and branches (at least as tall as they were) on their heads often carring babies the traditional way, straddled legs in back held with a towel, sheet or some other kind of fabric. The two women pictured here were selling their wares and when I asked if I could take their picture the older one stood up to pose. You can see from their clothes, that inseparable mix, Africa and the West. On this day, Freedom Day, I pray God looks with favor on these and all His children here in Africa.