A Childhood Friendship on an African Farm in South Africa

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Mpho: A Childhood Friendship on an African Farm in South Africa

"two children playing in water under a tree on an African farm in South Africa"





Some friendships begin before language—and remain long after words are found.

This childhood memory from South Africa tells the story of a friendship formed on an African farm—simple, unspoken, and deeply rooted in shared experience.

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Stepping out of the farmhouse into the African sunlight was to step into something immediate and alive.

The warmth did not arrive gently—it was already there, waiting. The light sharpened everything: the colour of the soil, the movement of the trees, the sounds that carried across the farm.

I walked out into the yard, small feet pressing into the dry earth.

And then I saw him.

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A Childhood on an African Farm

He stood beneath the shade of a tree, near a shallow puddle left behind by recent rain.

He was playing—completely absorbed—sending water into the air in bright, careless splashes.

There was no audience. No purpose beyond the moment itself.

I moved closer.

He turned.

For a moment, we simply looked at one another.

No words passed between us.

None were needed.

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A Friendship Without Words

Something in that glance—curiosity, openness, recognition—closed whatever distance might have existed.

His name was Mpho.

He was the grandson of Jim.

We began to play.

The heat of the African sun made clothing unnecessary, irrelevant. We moved easily in that freedom, two children sharing the same space without awareness of anything beyond it.

Water. Dust. Laughter.

The elements themselves were enough.

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Shared Childhood Moments

Day after day, we returned to that place.

The tree.

The puddle.

The small world that became ours.

We did not speak the same language.

But we understood one another.

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Looking back now, I see more than I could then.

I see the setting. The structure. The world around us that neither of us yet understood.

But within that space, something existed untouched by explanation.

Something simple. Something real.

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A Bond Formed in Simplicity

Before anything needed to be named—

we simply belonged.

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Continue Reading

Awake, Sleeper: A Childhood Memory of Crossing a River in South Africa
A Farmhouse Morning in Africa: A Childhood Memory from South Africa

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About This Memoir

This story is part of a memoir about growing up in South Africa—exploring childhood, friendship, identity, and memory as they were lived before they were fully understood.

Some lives unfold between worlds, learning the language of both - I grew up in South Africa in a world far more complex than the one many people think they know. My life unfolded between cultures — from farms in the old Transvaal Province to KwaZulu-Natal, where I became fluent in Zulu, to working in townships around Durban during turbulent years and subsequently in a rural district in ministry during the final decade before South Africa’s democratic transition. Running quietly through those years was a journey of faith that eventually carried me far from Africa. What began as a five-year stay in the United Kingdom became an unintended exile, and today I live on the west coast of Scotland. My memoir, From My Tribe to Yours, is a personal letter across cultures — sharing the South Africa I experienced, that few in Western countries knew, from within. READ MORE:https://www.theafricanoddity.com/author-south-africa-memoir.html

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