South Africa where my heart feels at home

The Netherlands is my home. It is the place where I feel safe, where I have lived for most of my life and where my life has put down its deepest roots.

But home is not really made by a country, a house or a familiar street. Home is made by the people we love—and my husband, my five children, their spouses, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren are where my heart truly is.

They have filled my life with love, laughter, noise, celebrations, ordinary days and countless precious memories. They are my greatest earthly blessings. Wherever they are will always be the place I most deeply belong.

South Africa is my second favourite place to be. Whenever I visit, something inside me seems to breathe out and say, “I know this place.”

Perhaps it is because, although I was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe—then Rhodesia—Africa was where my life began. I spent the first eleven years of my life beneath African skies, and those early years must have written something into my heart that time and distance could never erase.

I love the vastness of the sky, the sudden rolling thunder and lightning, the warmth of the sun, the calls of the birds and the animals wandering surprisingly close. I love the familiar voices, the laughter, the food, the colours and the way life seems to happen all around you at once.

But most of all, I love the people. I love being with family again—embracing Auntie Elsie, sharing meals, remembering old stories, making new memories, praying together, laughing together and sometimes crying together. South Africa holds so many people and moments that are woven into who I am.

Yet, while I am there, I deeply miss my husband, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the Netherlands. They are not merely part of my home—they are the heart of my home.

South Africa awakens another part of me: the little African girl who never completely left. It connects me to my childhood, my memories and a part of myself that will always remain “African”.

The Netherlands is where my life is rooted and where the people I love most are.

South Africa is where another part of my heart comes alive.