Rainbow reflections - and a little bit of history

More than 10 years on and I am back living (temporarily) in the "rainbow nation", in fact, in Melville, Johannesburg - barely half a mile away from the street we lived on when we first arrived in southern africa in 1994. We were the rainbow family looking for hope and a home in the "new" free South Africa. For now, however, my mind is on a young woman who travelled here on the same plane as I did the other day. 21 years old now she is returning to the country she was born in but which she left, aged nine, in the company of her anxious parents. She is looking for answers, about what this land is, who she is and where she really belongs. Her questions remind me of the circles within in circles of identity in this part of the world.

Back in 1994 this city was smaller, there were fewer distractions and for many the highlight of a Sunday morning was a trip to Rosebank Rooftop Market. A curious event, this market was located on the top of a multi-storey car park in one of the smartest areas of town. Even more curious than the location was the side event that took place on the neighbouring ground floor parking lot. Here ordinary white families of mainly European origin would come and sell their worldly goods in a desperate bid to raise enough cash to leave to return to Europe or beyond – anywhere that wasn't here, in fact. Often the parents had come to South Africa as children themselves. Sons and daughters of poor families they had left the UK and other parts of Europe in the 1950s and 60s in search of opportunity and an escape from a class system that offered them little to look forward to. My own brother's best friend had left that way leaving us in charge of his budgie! Now, in 1994, with a recently majority-elected government they were fearful of reprisals and rejection as black rule became a reality. The treasured personal possessions with which they had first arrived in South Africa were now their only assets in a bid to return whence they had come. I remember marvelling at the goods on display -preserved in time crockery, toys and trinkets that were so familiar from my English childhood -disturbed at how readily these people would sell their heritage in a desperate bid to reverse time and escape what I saw as a bright future.

Returning to my travelling companion, just 12 years on in 2006, I am wondering how many more circles there are to come, when and where will they all end?