I first visited South Africa in 2009 and it will be forever a special place to me. It was there that I did a last-minute application for the US-Austrian Journalism Fellowship. It was there that I learned how a country came to be guided by one man’s will and million people’s wishes. It was at Robben Island where I saw that a prison cell can never contain a strong mind. My new life brought me back to South Africa just a few days ago visiting Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. The scars are still there, everywhere to be seen. But the wounds are healing and there is a special sentiment among South Africans that can be only described by this
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I believe.