The story found me

I have always been of the opinion that a book finds me, when I am ready to read it. It has been proven over and over again in my life. Sometimes I will buy a book and it will sit in my bookshelf for years, until one day I’ll pick it up to read, realizing how significantly it co-insides with a current journey I am on or how it supports or compliments certain current issues or experiences in my life.

It’s the same with stories. Stories find their writers when they are ready to be told.

This story found me one winters evening last year around my grandparents dinner table, where the best part of the evening always seems to be where Father and Grandfather start remembering “the good old days”. The passion and enthusiasm with which these stories and the Afrikaner’s history are being told, discussed and remembered is always heartwarming and beautiful.

This particular evening’s agenda included the folktale of Dirkie Uys, a Voortrekker hero during the Great Trek. During the Battle of Italeni (1838), Piet Uys was mortally wounded by an assegai while riding to the rescue of two of his cornered men.

Seeing the Zulus closing in on his father, 15 year old Dirkie Uys turned around his horse, shouting "I will die with my father", and charged. He shot three Zulu warriors, briefly forcing them to retreat, but they rushed at him and stabbed him off his horse. Dirkie Uys fell beside his father, where they were both stabbed to death. This version of events is depicted on one of the historical friezes of the Voortrekker Monument. After the Battle of Blood River, Piet Uys' remains were found by a detachment, but Dirkie Uys' never were.

Every Afrikaans child grew up with this story and knew it off by heart. Like most folktales it summarized the bravery of the blood that ran through our vanes and made us proud. My Grandfather added something to the story that I have never heard before. Apparently, the story told amongst the Zulu people, is that Dirkie was captured alive and taken back to Dingaan’s kraal where he ordered his impi’s to remove the boy’s heart and eat it while he was still alive so that they could become as brave as he was.

Today I met Bongani… he is 44 years old, on parole after serving 9 years of a 15 year sentence and also the male lead actor of this production.