Attack of the killer mosquitoes
Rivers and I are not friends. I have dozens of stories about close encounters with them – the first from my toddler days, when a crocodile nearly got me in the Umlalazi River outside Mtunzini. My parents were so traumatised by the event that they never taught me how to swim.
In my clumsy early teens, I once fell out of a canoe, while wearing a life jacket, in the Keurbooms River near Plettenberg Bay, and because I was a poor swimmer, it took me an eternity to doggie paddle to shore where Iwas picked up by jeering friends.
Over the years, I would continue to brave some or other river, only to repeatedly retreat, drenched and with my tail tucked between my legs. But yes, I did eventually learn how to swim.
Despite these misfortunes, I find the life-giving veins that course through our barren land fascinating, which is why
