Crying for all the right reasons

I was in tears today as I read the 27 February 2015 edition of the Roodepoort Record; not just because I was mourning the death of my neighbour in Nelson Avenue (page 6), but because of the guts of the man called Stan, an amputee, on completing the Ironman 70.3 (and in the top 50 per cent of participants ‘nogal’)! I was inspired by 17 year-old Karlie Coetzee’s total unselfishness in helping to build a nursery school (page 19), Hennie Kraamwinkel rowing 365Km in order to raise funds for a new tent to enable his church to meet (page 27), Davidonsville being able to host a soccer tournament because they now have a prestigious sports’ stadium (page 27) etc. etc.

What I like most about a community paper, is that its readers are drawn to the stories because they can identify with them, often relating to them on a personal level. Believe you me, when you are a middle-aged woman having lived in the same city all one’s life, it is exciting although rather disturbing to see what is happening at the school (page 3) where one’s mum was the first ‘white’ person to teach there (in 1983) and how the then headmaster gave me a touching eulogy to read out at her funeral eight years ago about how she had been so loved by staff and pupils alike.

I was thrilled, to see that The President’s Award programme is flourishing in schools. (My cousin, Emma Heistein (27), based in the Headquarters in Grahamstown is the Operations Manager for the Western Cape and represented South Africa in Korea at the world conference last year. She started on the programme when she was fifteen and it would be a win-win-situation for our country if every senior school could run the President’s Award initiative).

This week’s edition of the Roodepoort Record left me feeling proud to be a Poortjie and also to be “proudly South African”!