When a prayer is answered

omerset East, like the rest of the country, suffered growing pains in the early 1990s. White people who voted for opposing sides in the 1992 referendum nodded anxiously at one another behind family-sized bottles of Ponstan in McCoughey’s Pharmacy and among freshly baked bread loaves in Bekkie’s shop. But gradually integration did take its course. There were friendly faces in the streets, peaceful marches where white doves were released, and interdenominational prayer meetings at the foot of a large white cross on Bosberg, overlooking the town. You got a sense that people were ready for the new South Africa. Well, everyone but the APK (Afrikaans Protestant Church), but let’s forget about them for now – in fact, forever