Hilde Van Mieghem takes the time for a glowing look behind the scenes of her life.
Hilde Van Mieghem22 July 2023, 03:00
My South African cousin C., the daughter of a Congolese mother and one of my brothers, turned eighteen last month. In Johannesburg she obtained her baccalaureate at the French lyceum, and two days after her birthday she also obtained her driver’s license.
She was ready to leave for Europe, to Brussels, where she will study biology at the ULB.
Her days were bathed in that very specific South African sunlight for eighteen years, she slept under starry skies you can only dream of here and has seen more giraffes, elephants, tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses, springboks and hyenas than cows in a meadow.
From an early age my niece swam among seals, devil rays, sand tiger sharks, hammerhead sharks and hundreds of smaller sea creatures, and was immensely interested in nature and animals.
No vacation went by without her diving into the sea in Mozambique, Durban or Cape Town.
I still remember how we, she and I, stared at the horizon for hours on a godforsaken beach in Mozambique until we were lucky enough to see the imposing humpback whales, which pass by on their journey from arctic to tropical waters to mate and give birth, leaping out of the sea.
It was a phenomenal spectacle. The humpback whales are known as the happiest of all whales, as they make spectacular tumbles above the water’s surface. The males are sea warblers, with their song they lure the females and mark their territory. The singing can reverberate for up to 45 minutes and can be heard for miles.
In total awe we sat there on the beach and listened to the beautiful melodies – they whistle, growl, moan and cry.
Just to illustrate the kind of world my niece grew up in.
She spent most of her life with my brother after he and her mother divorced, and was pampered day and night there by Brenda, the housekeeper who has lived with him for thirty years and raised not only her, but also her half-brother from his first marriage, and a half-sister from my brother’s third marriage for a year and a half. Finally, there is a second, older, half-sister, from her mother’s first marriage. In terms of a blended family, it can count, I know.
In tears, my brother and Brenda said goodbye to her as she bravely left for here. Fortunately, her brother and sister also live here, and together with them we are ready to make her happy.
What a turn in her life. When I ask her what she misses most after a week in Belgium, she replies, looking at me in amazement with her beautiful dark deer eyes: “Aunt Hilde, no one smiles in this country.”
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2023-07-22 01:00:32
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