I lived in South Africa as a child, between 1989 and 1993. I don’t remember much of the world outside our high garden walls and electric gates, outside the quiet suburban streets canopied in the light purple of jacarandas in bloom, outside the armed guards who stood at the gate of the all-girls school I attended everyday in my navy blue blazer and matching uniform underwear. So when we moved back, I wondered if I would be able to perceive any changes. There were no comparisons to be made. I lived in a child’s cocoon in Johannesburg and now, in Pretoria, my cocoon still exists, but it’s accompanied with an acute knowledge that there is a separate world outside it. A restless sense of obligation drove me to search for an explanation, some source of separation. So, one winter afternoon, with the Southern Hemisphere sun hitting the yellowed Veldt grass at just the right low slant that made it glow warm and golden and breathtakingly beautiful and desolate at once, I drove down the N1 to visit the nearest historical site.