Page 2
We do not wait for the
crisis anymore.
Something remarkable happens when South Africans are pushed far enough.
You have seen it. The call goes out, and within hours, communities that barely spoke to each other are feeding
strangers, driving through the night, building something from nothing. Not because someone organised it. Not
because there was a plan. Because that is simply what South Africans do when it matters enough.
The rest of the world is still trying to figure out how we do that.
Here is what we want to say in this second edition of Moxie.
Why are we waiting for it to matter enough?
That instinct, that refusal to let each other fall, that extraordinary South African capacity to look at a problem
and say "right, what do we do now", it does not have to be our crisis response. It can be our daily life. It already
is, for more people in this country than the headlines will ever bother to show you.
Mainstream media has a formula. Find the worst version of the story. Make it as loud as possible. Repeat until
everyone is tired and afraid and convinced that this country is beyond saving. We understand the formula. We
are not interested in it.
Because we have been to the places the formula ignores. We have met the people it does not cover. The ones
who show up before the crisis, quietly, every single day, without a camera anywhere near them. The ones who
built something in a community that needed it. The ones who fed a family because the family was hungry, not
because it was trending.
South Africa does not need to wait for disaster to be at its best. We have what it takes. We have always had what
it takes. A country of people who know how to find each other in the dark does not need the dark as an excuse.
This edition is about our parks. A hundred years of someone deciding that something worth having was worth
protecting, long before anyone called it a crisis.
That is the South Africa we are here for. Not the one that survives. The one that chooses.
Do you know someone who is already living that choice? A community builder, a quiet hero, a local story that
deserves more than the audience it has? Tell us. We would love to tell the world.
Write to us at editor@moxiemag.co.za and join the conversation on Facebook at facebook.com/moxiemag.
Have the Moxie. Do not wait.
South Africa, we see you. We are glad you are still standing.
Christo Goosen, Barend Uys, Dewald Rosema & Jaco Vorster
The founding editorial team
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 3
This Magazine Belongs to
South Africa.
Not to us. To the people who read it, share it, write for it, and make
it better.
Moxie is South Africa's family discovery magazine. Science, nature, history, travel, food,
faith, puzzles. Written for curious minds aged 8 to 80. No sponsor to please. No agenda.
Just a country we believe is worth knowing better.
A magazine only goes as far as the people who read it. You are how Moxie
grows. We want you to be part of it, not just a reader at the end of the chain.
Every South African who passes Moxie on is part of why it survives.
Every one who sends a story, a hero, or a recipe is part of why it grows.
01 SHARE IT
Tell someone who needs it.
Know a family that would
love Moxie? Forward the
link. Share it on your
WhatsApp group. Post it
on Facebook. Word of
mouth is the only
marketing that has ever
worked for things worth
reading.
02 WRITE FOR IT
You have a story we do not.
Every South African
family has a recipe with
history behind it, a place
worth discovering, a
person worth knowing.
We want those stories.
Contributors are
credited by name.
Submissions are open.
03 NOMINATE A HERO
Someone near you deserves
this.
Every month we feature
one South African doing
something extraordinary
without recognition. No
grants. No applause. Just
the work. If you know
someone like that, tell us.
They have earned the
page.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION ON FACEBOOK
Follow us, share your Moxie moments, tag a friend.
facebook.com/moxiemag
South Africa has enough spectators. We are looking for the ones who show up.
Moxie is a monthly digital magazine.
Free with Smart Value Club membership. R49 standalone.
Publish date: 1st of every month.
E-mail us at editor@moxiemag.co.za with feedback - submissions - questions
and anything you would like to share.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 5
· COVER STORY
SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL PARKS · JULY 2026
South Africa has 19 national parks spanning deserts, mountains, coastlines, ancient
kingdoms, and some of the wildest bush on earth. Most of us have been to one.
Here is what the other 18 are waiting to show you.
NATIONAL PARKS
21 territories. 19 named
parks. Every landscape
South Africa has.
HECTARES OF SANCTUARY
4 MILLION
67% of all state-managed
protected land in South
Africa.
OF KRUGER MAGIC
100 YEARS
Proclaimed 31 May 1926.
The centenary year is now.
BIRD & MAMMAL SPECIES
900+
A biodiversity figure that
places us in a global league
of our own.
The Soil That
Remembers.
South Africa’s wild places
belong to every one of us.
If you read the mainstream headlines, you might think you know South Africa.
You might think our story is written entirely in the language of modern difficulty, of daily
friction, of numbers that flash across screens and disappear. But if you want to know who we
really are, if you want to touch the stubborn, beautiful soul of this country, you have to step off
the tarmac.
You have to go where the soil remembers.
Across 19 national parks, South Africa breathes. These are not simply fenced-off wilderness areas
or lines drawn on a tourist map. They are the living, breathing diaries of our collective resilience.
Places where tragedy has repeatedly been transformed into triumph. Where species pulled back
from the edge of extinction now walk freely across ancient plains. Where kingdoms that traded
with China and Egypt sleep beneath sandstone cliffs glowing gold in the winter light.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 6
July is the best month for game viewing in South Africa. The bush thins and the animals gather.
As we head into the crisp, clear days of July, the bush thins and invites us in. The animals gather
at the waterholes. The skies empty of haze. The cold nights make a campfire feel like an act of
grace.
This is the season. This is the country. And these parks belong to every one of us.
WHAT WE CHOSE TO KEEP
Just over a month ago, Kruger National Park turned one hundred years old.
On 31 May 1926, the National Parks Act was passed and a stretch of Lowveld bush was formally
proclaimed South Africa's first national park. Its origins reach back further still, to 1898, when
President Paul Kruger advocated for the proclamation of the Sabi Game Reserve in response to
declining game populations. James Stevenson-Hamilton arrived four years later as the first
warden, handed a job most people thought was pointless, with almost no resources to do it. He
stayed for forty-four years.
In the first year after proclamation, three cars entered the park.
Today, Kruger attracts nearly two million visitors annually and generates more than R800 million
in tourism revenue. What happened between those three dusty cars and two million visitors is
one of the most remarkable conservation stories on earth. It is a story that belongs to every South
African.
On 31 May 1926, the National Parks Act was passed. One hundred years later, to the month, we
are publishing our first parks edition. That is not a coincidence. That is a country worth
celebrating.
South Africa now protects 19 named national parks across radically different landscapes, from
the sub-Antarctic coastline of Agulhas to the red dunes of the Kgalagadi, from the golden
highland cliffs of the Free State to the ancient baobab forests of Limpopo. Together they cover
more than four million hectares. Together they protect over 900 distinct bird and mammal
species, a biodiversity figure that places South Africa among the most extraordinary conservation
nations on earth.
That says something about who we are.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
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Here is something most South Africans do not know. These parks are not spread evenly. They
reflect the extraordinary diversity of this country's landscapes. Desert and ocean. Mountain and
flatland. Ancient forest and open sky.
The original. Nearly two million hectares of Lowveld bush, the Big Five, and a hundred years of
stories the rangers will tell you if you sit long enough around the fire.
Table Mountain National Park — Western Cape
Includes Boulders Beach, where African penguins turn a Cape Town afternoon into something
unexpected. Also includes Cape Point, where two oceans argue about whose coastline it is.
Addo Elephant National Park — Eastern Cape
The park that started with eleven elephants and refused to give up. One of the only places on earth
where you can see the Big 7: the Big Five plus Southern Right Whale and Great White Shark off the
coast.
Garden Route National Park — Western Cape and Eastern Cape
Three previously separate parks — Tsitsikamma, Wilderness, and Knysna — merged into one stretch
of forest, coast, and lagoon. SANParks protects 21 territories across 19 named parks, and this is why.
Golden Gate Highlands National Park — Free State
The cathedral of the Maluti Mountains. In July the sandstone cliffs glow amber in the afternoon
light. Crisp air, Bearded Vultures, and a sky so clear the stargazing feels like looking through a
telescope.
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park — Northern Cape
Shared with Botswana. Red dunes, black-maned lions, and a silence so complete it changes
you. One of the most extraordinary wildlife experiences on the continent, hiding in plain
sight.
Mapungubwe National Park — Limpopo
At the confluence of South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. Baobab trees that were old when
Europe was still finding its feet. The golden rhinoceros. The first indigenous kingdom in southern
Africa. Readers of June's Moxie will know this ground.
Augrabies Falls National Park — Northern Cape
The Orange River drops ninety-one metres into a granite gorge. The Khoikhoi called it
Aukoerebis: the place of great noise. In July the winter flow is full and the sound reaches you
before you see it.
Camdeboo National Park — Eastern Cape
Surrounding Graaff-Reinet, it cradles the Valley of Desolation. Dolerite pillars rising one hundred
and twenty metres from the Karoo floor. Despite the name, the feeling it gives you is complete and
absolute peace.
Karoo National Park — Western Cape
Open sky and fossil-rich earth outside Beaufort West. The Karoo was once an ocean, and the
rocks still remember.
Kruger National Park — Mpumalanga and Limpopo
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 8
Mountain Zebra National Park — Eastern Cape
The Cape Mountain Zebra was almost gone. This park was created specifically to save it. Today the
species is safe, and the park sits in a dramatic amphitheatre of purple-hued mountains and vast quiet
valleys.
West Coast National Park — Western Cape
In spring, the wildflowers turn it into something painters try to capture and fail. In July it is
quiet, cold, and honest.
Agulhas National Park — Western Cape
The southernmost tip of Africa. The exact point where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. Most
people drive past the marker on the way somewhere else. Stop.
|Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park — Northern Cape
Shared with Namibia. The moonscape of the Richtersveld: a living desert that blooms when it
rains and holds a silence unlike anywhere else on earth.
Marakele National Park — Limpopo
One of the largest breeding colonies of Cape Vultures in the world lives in the Waterberg cliffs here.
The landscape shifts between grassland, bush, and mountain in a single afternoon's drive.
Mokala National Park — Northern Cape
Established in 2007. White rhino, roan antelope, tsessebe, and a quiet that
rewards patience.
Namaqua National Park — Northern Cape
In August and September this park transforms into the most extraordinary wildflower display on
the planet. Book it now for next year.
Tankwa Karoo National Park — Northern Cape
Receives less than one hundred millimetres of rain per year. Parts of it are drier than the Sahara. In
July the silence has physical weight and the stars at night have to be seen to be understood.
Bontebok National Park — Western Cape
The smallest national park in South Africa. Created to save the bontebok from extinction. Today
it protects the only remaining wild population. Three thousand five hundred hectares that
proved size is not what matters.
From wildflower fields to red dunes to ancient mountains. South Africa's 19 parks cover every landscape.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
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Some of these parks exist because someone refused to accept that it was too late.
In 1931, Addo Elephant National Park was proclaimed in the Eastern Cape when only eleven
elephants remained. They had been hunted systematically, driven back into an ever-smaller
corridor of thicket until almost nothing was left. Harold Trollope was appointed the first warden
with one assistant and a fence.
Today, more than six hundred elephants move through Addo. The park has grown to include
coastline, and off that coastline swim the Southern Right Whale and the Great White Shark,
making Addo one of the only places on earth where you can see the Big 7.
Mountain Zebra National Park tells a similar story. The Cape Mountain Zebra was by the 1950s
down to a handful of individuals. The park was established with one purpose: save this animal.
No tourism pitch, no revenue model. Just a decision that this species would not disappear on our
watch. Today the population is safe and growing.
Conservation is South Africa's quiet superpower. We do not always talk about it. We should.
THE ANCIENT PARKS
Some parks are about the future of species. Some are about the memory of civilisations.
Mapungubwe National Park in Limpopo sits at the point where South Africa, Zimbabwe, and
Botswana meet. Giant baobab trees shade paths that were trade routes a thousand years ago. The
sandstone cliffs glow pink at dusk.
READERS INPUT:
Which of these parks have you visited? Send us some stories, pictures or post them on
our Facebook page - Let's share the stories and memories.
Readers of June's Moxie will know this history: the golden rhinoceros, the sophisticated society
that traded gold and ivory with India, China, and Egypt, the kingdom that flourished here around
1200 AD before climate change ended the rains and the population moved north to build Great
Zimbabwe.
The park carries that history in every grain of its soil. Standing at the treetop boardwalk
overlooking the river confluence, watching three countries meet in the water below, you
understand that the boundaries on maps are recent inventions. The land has always been older
than the lines.
This is a thread Moxie will keep pulling at in coming editions. South Africa's history runs deeper
than most people know, and it runs through its national parks.
Kruger fills the road signs and the bucket lists.
These ones wait quietly for the South Africans & World who find them.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 10
Here is something worth saying clearly.
These parks do not belong to the government. They do not belong to international tourists or
luxury lodge operators or anyone with a corporate sponsorship. They were set aside for every
South African. Every single one.
SANParks has been clear that conservation can only succeed and endure when it is inclusive.
More than eighty neighbouring communities benefit directly through the People and Parks
programme. The rangers who protect these parks, who walk into danger for the animals in their
care, are South Africans from every background and province.
The centenary celebrations were held under the theme "Our Heritage, Our Future." That theme
was not accidental. The parks are the inheritance of everyone who calls this country home. The
question is whether we claim that inheritance, or let it be claimed for us.
Go to your parks. Take your family. Take someone who has never been. Pull off the road at a
waterhole and sit in silence long enough for something extraordinary to happen. It will.
The bush has been waiting for you.
YOUR PASSPORT TO THE WILD — THE SANPARKS WILD CARD
If this article has made you want to pack the car, there is one practical thing worth knowing before you go.
The SANParks Wild Card gives you 365 days of unlimited access to more than eighty national parks and
reserves across southern Africa. Instead of paying daily conservation fees every time you visit, one annual
membership opens every gate.
Individual All Parks: R930 per year. Couple All Parks: R1,525 per year. Family All Parks (up to 7 people): R1,870
per year.
If you visit Kruger for a single long weekend, the card pays for itself by day three. But that is almost not the
point. The point is what it does to your relationship with these places. It stops them being a once-in-a-while
expense and turns them into somewhere you can go whenever you need to breathe.
Think of it as a passport to the country you already live in. Buy it online at sanparks.org before you go. Then go.
MOXIE TIP
July is the single best month for game viewing in South Africa. The winter bush is dry
and thin, animals gather predictably at waterholes, and the cold nights make a campfire
feel like a reward. Take a blanket. Get up before sunrise. Remember why this country is
worth every bit of the trouble it sometimes gives us.
Plan your visit and buy your Wild Card at sanparks.org · https://www.sanparks.org/rewards/wild-card/overview
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 11
This Is Not Your Backyard.
Leave the City at the Gate.
There is a moment, somewhere between the boom gate and the first open plain, when the noise
stops. Not just the road noise. The other noise. The notifications, the deadlines, the hooting taxis
and the low-level hum of a country that never quite switches off. Out here, a kudu stands in the
road and looks at you with complete indifference. The world you came from does not exist to it.
And for a few seconds, if you are quiet enough, it does not exist to you either.
That is what a national park is. Too many people are arriving at the gate and bringing the city in
with them. The loud music. The alcohol. The impatience. The speed. The complete failure to
understand that this place was here long before them and, if we treat it right, will be here long
after all of us.
THE RULES. READ THEM ONCE. LIVE THEM EVERY VISIT.
Posted at every gate, printed in every guide, and ignored by too many people every single day.
They are not there to make your life difficult. They are there because without them, there is no
park left to visit.
Stay in your vehicle at all times. No arms out of windows, no doors hanging open, no standing
through sunroofs.
Speed limit is 50km/h on tar and 40km/h on gravel. Not a suggestion.
Gate times are non-negotiable. Outside after hours earns you a fine or a court date.
No loud music, no shouting, no noise that does not belong here.
Drones are completely illegal on all SANParks properties. Leave them at home.
No feeding animals. Not the baboons, not the birds, not anything. A fed animal is a dead animal.
No littering. Take everything in. Take everything out.
Respect the space. Respect the animals. Respect the people around you. Everything else follows
from those three things.
IT REALLY ISN'T DIFFICULT!
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 12
Get up before sunrise. The early morning drive is the best the bush has to offer. Animals are
active, the light is soft, the air cold enough to make your coffee taste like the best thing you have
ever drunk. Plan your route, but plan it loosely. A twenty-minute drive can take two hours
because an elephant decided the tar road is an excellent place to walk, or a lion picked the exact
centre of the road for his nap and has no interest in your schedule. This is not an inconvenience.
This is the whole point.
Pack snacks. Control the bladder or plan around it. Know where the picnic spots are before you
leave, build them into your route, and actually stop at them.
SHARE THE ROAD. SHARE THE SIGHTING.
When you find something worth stopping for, remember the car behind you came for the same
reason. Pull left, keep your voice down, turn the engine off. If you have been there a while and
cars are waiting, move on. You can come back.
Smile and wave at the people staring at tree tops with binoculars the size of small telescopes.
The bird watchers are quietly having the time of their lives looking at something you just drove
past. They are not wrong. If you do not see the Big Five, look for the Small Five. If you only see
impala from gate to gate, enjoy the impala. This is not a zoo. It is a wild place that owes you
nothing and gives you everything if you arrive with the right expectations.
THE FIRE AT THE END OF THE DAY
Be back in time to light the fire before dark. Cold drink in hand, fire crackling, the last light
leaving the sky while something calls from out in the dark beyond the fence. The kids arguing
about what they saw. Someone insisting the thing in the road was a cheetah when it was almost
certainly a very fast impala. The stars coming out over the bushveld in a way they simply do not
over any city.
God's perfect creation was here before us. It deserves to be here long after us. Be a guest worthy
of the invitation.
MOXIE TIP
Download the SANParks app before your next visit. Gate times, camp details, road
conditions, and live wildlife sighting reports all in one place. Book directly through it. No
excuses for arriving unprepared.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 13
The Bridge Between Giving
and Getting There.
South Africans with generous hearts stopped giving. Not because they became selfish. Because
they got burned. Helplift Network was built to solve exactly that problem. In Vanderbijlpark,
here is what solving it actually looks like.
60+
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Organisations, churches
and businesses in the
Vaal Triangle
1,000+
Clothing, household items
and furniture reaching
families in need
260+
Trauma counselling for
men, women and children
in the community
R160,000+
CLOTHING DISTRIBUTED
To shelters, foster homes
and transit houses
across the Vaal Triangle
THE STORY
Somewhere along the way, a lot of South Africans stopped donating.
Not because they stopped caring. Because they stopped trusting.
They had given clothing to an organisation and later saw it sold at a flea market. They had handed
over food parcels and heard the stories. They had written cheques to registered NPOs and
watched administrators buy new cars while the communities they were supposed to serve stayed
exactly as they were. They had been approached so many times by so many people with so many
urgent stories that they could no longer tell the difference between a genuine need and an
orchestrated performance of need.
The result is a painful kind of paralysis. Good people with resources, sitting on those resources
because they cannot work out who is actually helping and who is helping themselves.
This is the problem Helplift Network was built to solve.
PEOPLE ASSISTED VIA VOUCHERS FREE COUNSELLING SESSIONS
Not another organisation asking for your trust without earning it. A network. A verified,
transparent system that sits between the giver and the receiver and makes sure both sides are
protected. The giver's terms are respected. The receiver's dignity is preserved. A trained manager
sits in the middle ensuring that generosity reaches its destination and is not quietly redirected
along the way.
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Page 14
· THE QUIET HERO
The vision grew from a clear-eyed observation: South Africa does not have a shortage of people
who want to help. It has a shortage of trustworthy systems through which that help can actually
flow. Fix the system, and the generosity that was always there starts moving again.
In the Vaal Triangle, that fix has a name, an address, and a phone number.
Helplift Network Vaal Triangle — corner Arhbeck and Mollier Streets, ERHA building,
Vanderbijlpark.
HELPLIFT NETWORK VAAL TRIANGLE
It operates from the second floor of the ERHA building on the corner of Arhbeck and Mollier
Streets in Vanderbijlpark. Walk in on any weekday between 09h00 and 15h00 and you will find a
charity shop that smells of sorted clothing and quiet purpose, a sewing room where someone is
learning something new, and a team of volunteers who have decided that showing up is enough
of a qualification.
Lenette Kruger leads the Vaal Triangle chapter as CEO and Chairperson, overseeing a committee
that meets regularly to manage day-to-day operations. The organisation is registered as NPO
152-090 and runs entirely on income from the charity shop and public donations.
What it has built in the Vaal Triangle is a living model of something South Africa talks about
more than it does: communities that actually function. People helping people, not because
someone told them to, but because the system makes it possible and the trust makes it safe.
The charity shop is the engine.
Donated clothing arrives. Gerda Woest and Louise van der Merwe are two of the volunteers who
sort it. Every item is assessed. Some goes onto the shop floor, priced at levels that make clothing
genuinely accessible. Some is allocated through the voucher system to families who need it most.
Some goes directly to shelters, foster homes, and transit houses.
It sounds simple. It is not. It requires people who show up every week, who care whether a
donated item reaches someone who needs it or gets lost somewhere in the middle.
"Helplift gives me the opportunity to live out my love and gratitude toward God and
toward my neighbour. It gives me purpose. And a reason to get up in the morning."
Gerda Woest, Helplift volunteer
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 15
· THE QUIET HERO
THE SHOP THAT FUNDS EVERYTHING
Louise van der Merwe works alongside Gerda. Louise says Helplift means knowing that those
who have less can come and find what they need without paying too much. It makes her aware,
she says, of how grateful she should be. And that a person must stay humble.
Two women, sorting clothing in a room in Vanderbijlpark, without a camera and without
applause. They are a large part of the reason this whole thing keeps working.
Since the chapter began, more than 1,600 individuals have been assisted through the voucher
system with clothing, household items, and furniture. The network has connected 25
organisations, churches, and businesses in the Vaal Triangle, and made 157 verified connections
between donors and the organisations serving their communities. More than R160,000 worth of
clothing has been distributed directly to shelters and foster homes.
THE SEWING ROOM
Past the charity shop and through the right door, there is a room that smells of thread and
possibility.
Helplift Vaal Triangle runs free skills training on a weekly basis. Sewing on machines. Hand
sewing. Crochet. Knitting. Art classes. Small groups only, because small groups mean proper
attention. New intakes every six months. The waiting list is managed at the charity shop because
the demand is consistently real.
The facilitators give their craft, not just their time. And when the graduates leave, some of them
immediately turn around and give what they learned to someone else.
This is the whole story of Helplift in one motion.
The people who teach here are volunteers
who give their craft, not just their time.
Some graduates have started small businesses. Others have done something they never thought
was possible & that says even more about what Helplift is building.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 16
The People Who Keep Paying It Forward.
Six months, countless stitches, and a room full of new skills. Helplift sewing graduates at their certificate ceremony.
Lydia Tladi completed her six-month hand sewing programme at Helplift Network and received
her certificate. She could have taken that certificate home and used what she learned for herself
and her family. That would have been entirely enough.
Instead, she came back.
Lydia approached Helplift with an idea: she wanted to start a hand sewing class for the elderly at
Bophelong Day Care Centre. Helplift said yes and donated the materials. Lydia showed up and
taught. In their first session, a room full of elderly women learned to make hanging bags for
storing household items. They held up what they had made and smiled the way people smile
when they have surprised themselves.
One person learned something and immediately turned around to give it away to someone who
needed it. The skill multiplied. The community became more capable than it was the week
before. Nobody needed a grant or a strategy document. Someone just needed to show up with a
needle, thread, and the willingness to share.
LYDIA'S STORY
We can all learn from Lydia.
She didn't get a ticket that will
enrich her life alone, she made
her certificate and new skill
enrich her community!
Lydia Tladi completed her
sewing programme then used
what she learned to teach elderly
women at Bophelong Day Care.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 17
· THE QUIET HERO
MORE THAN A SHOP AND A SEWING ROOM
The charity shop and the skills training are what you see when you walk in. There is more behind
the door.
Two qualified counsellors provide trauma counselling free of charge to anyone in the community
who needs it. They are volunteers. Since the chapter began they have conducted 272 counselling
sessions for men, women, and children. That number represents 272 people who came in
carrying something heavy and found someone who would sit with them.
The voucher system connects families with clothing and household items without the need for
cash. The network of 25 partner organisations means that when one part of the community has
something and another part needs it, there is a structure to move it from one to the other without
it disappearing in the middle.
That last part is the whole point. The things that are meant to reach people in need, actually arriving.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Helplift Network Vaal Triangle is one chapter in a broader national network. The vision is
expansion: more chapters, more hubs, more verified connections between givers and receivers in
more communities across South Africa. The Vaal Triangle chapter is proof that the model works.
More on the national growth in a future edition of Moxie.
For now, the invitation is local. If you live in the Vaal Triangle, the door on the second floor of the
ERHA building is open. Bring clothing you no longer wear. Put your name on the waiting list for a
skills class. Volunteer a skill you have. Buy something from the charity shop on a Saturday
morning, because that sale is what funds the next graduating class and the next counselling
session and the next family that receives a coat through the voucher system.
You do not have to solve the whole problem.
You just have to show up.
MOXIE TIP
If you have been burned by giving before and stopped, Helplift is worth a second look. A
registered NPO with a verified network and a system designed to make sure your donation
reaches the person it is meant for. Sometimes the answer to a broken system is a better
system.
GET INVOLVED WITH HELPLIFT VAAL TRIANGLE
Corner Arhbeck and Mollier Streets, ERHA building, 2nd floor, CE6, Vanderbijlpark
NPO 152-090 · Tel: 069 317 0292
Email: helplift237@gmail.com
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moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
JULY 2026
Page 21
A Link. A Tag. A Historic Journey.
Reinette Kotze, who Alice calls Dolla, is based in New Zealand. She saw a Facebook post
about the Great World Race, thought of one person immediately, and sent a tag with one
comment: the only person she knows crazy enough to attempt this is her mother.
Alice read it. Alice applied. Alice got in.
"When I read her comment, I thought: why not me?" says Alice. Not as arrogance. As a
genuine, wide-open question. The kind that changes everything.
"Thank you, Dolla. For believing in your crazy mom. For sending
the link. For reminding me that bold dreams don't have an age
limit.This one starts because of you."
— ALICE MYBURGH · To her daughter Reinette (Dolla)
The official Great World Race route — Wolf's Fang, Antarctica to Miami. Image:
Great World Race / thegreatworldrace.com
INSIDE THE GAUNTLET
295 kilometres. 168 hours. 68 hours in the air. Temperature swings from minus 40 degrees
Celsius in Antarctica to over 35 degrees in Abu Dhabi. Eighteen time zones in seven days.
All 60 competitors travel together on chartered business jets, moving as a group from
continent to continent. Alice will not be running alone. But the South African flag she carries
will be hers alone.
The first marathon takes place at Wolf's Fang runway, Antarctica, at 71 degrees south.
Competitors have described the surface
SA PERSONALITY
ALICE MYBURGH A SOUTH AFRICAN FIRST
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 22
She Won't Know Until
the Last Moment.
Here is the detail that separates this race
from every other Alice has entered. She will
not know, until the last possible moment,
what continent she is running first.
Antarctic weather is entirely unpredictable. If
conditions are unsafe for flying, the Race
Director changes the schedule without
warning. It happened in the 2025 race: Cape
Town ran first while the field waited for Wolf's
Fang to clear.
If the weather holds: Antarctica Day 1, then
back to run Sea Point on home soil Day 2. A
finish line on South African ground,
twenty-four hours after running on Antarctic
ice.
If the weather breaks: Cape Town first,
Antarctica waiting at the bottom of the earth,
carried as unfinished business across five
more continents before the ice can be claimed.
You cannot train for that kind of unknowing.
You can only become the kind of person who
is comfortable inside it. Alice Myburgh has
been becoming that person for thirty years.
Alice at Kala Patthar before the Everest Marathon. Photo: Alice Myburgh.
THE MENTAL GAME
Alice has been assigned Irish coach Dermot
McDermott to help her prepare. He sends a
training schedule every week via WhatsApp.
She executes it alone.
"I am not a pro-athlete. I am an average
athlete, so I need all the coaching help I can
get," she says. "I will motivate myself. I have
never had a coach, but I trust they know better
how to be prepared."
What she has, which no schedule can give
you, is thirty years of knowing what her mind
does when her body wants to stop. The
Drakensberg. The Himalayas. The Karoo at
kilometre 80 when the cut-off is real.
The physical challenge of seven marathons is
understood. What makes this race different is
what happens in the gaps. Legs swell on
long-haul flights. Sleep arrives in fragments.
Every recovery signal gets scrambled by
eighteen time zones.
Experienced finishers describe a shift around
day four. The body stops asking questions. The
mind makes the same decision every morning:
I am getting up. I am going to the start line. I
am running today's marathon.
Alice has been making that decision for three
decades. She knows the terrain.
"The human body is a miracle. I think it
is a mental and physical challenge to
see how far you can push the body and
mind."
— ALICE MYBURGH
SA PERSONALITY
ALICE MYBURGH A SOUTH AFRICAN FIRST
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Page 23
Conservation.
Community. Country.
The Camel Trophy, one of many adventure races
in Alice's three-decade career.
Photo: supplied by Alice Myburgh.
RUNNING FOR A GREATER PURPOSE
Alice is not running for self-glory. This journey
is tied to causes that matter to her and to the
community she calls home.
If funds raised exceed what is needed for
entry, travel, coaching, and kit, Alice wants
the excess directed to causes that define
who she is:
• Wild and Free, Marloth Park
Conservancy
• Dullstroom Bird of Prey and
Rehabilitation Centre
• Rhino Anti-Poaching Unit
The wild places she runs in and the animals
she shares Marloth with. It is as South African
a cause as the flag she will carry.
A MESSAGE TO EVERY SOUTH
AFRICAN WOMAN
"Age is only a number. Sometimes
when people retire they think it is
the end, instead of the beginning of
a new phase of life with so many
more opportunities to explore. For
young people, your health is an
investment. It adds up over time like
compounding interest."
— ALICE MYBURGH
AN OPEN INVITATION TO ALL OF
SOUTH AFRICA
Alice has extended an open invitation to every
South African, on every continent, to join her
on each day's run, walk, or cycle.
"Maybe the week I do the race, everyone who
wants to in South Africa, Mpumalanga, and
Marloth can do their 1km, 7km, 42km or bike
ride every day in support. Whatever works for
them."
Reinette runs Miami with her. Roleen Conn
joins in Portugal. Claudette Botha and Jaco
Kok in Cape Town. The dates are fixed. The
distances are your own.
WHY SOUTH AFRICA NEEDS TO
KNOW HER NAME
South African sport has always had its
front-page heroes. What we celebrate less
often are the Alice Myburghs — the ones
who got up before sunrise for thirty years,
drove to remote start lines, and carried our
flag with absolute pride.
She is a financial planner who trains before
dawn in Marloth Park. She has a Comrades
Green Number, an Everest Marathon medal,
and a Kilimanjaro summit. She has never
asked anyone for anything.
She is asking now. For a share. For a contribution, however small. For someone to say her name
out loud so more South Africans know that a woman from Marloth Park is about to BE THE FIRST!
SA PERSONALITY
ALICE MYBURGH A SOUTH AFRICAN FIRST
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Page 26
What Dies
With Them.
We are losing the most valuable library on earth. It does not have a building or pages.
It has a face, a voice, and a chair in the corner we stopped pulling up to the table.
There is a kind of knowledge that cannot be Googled.
It lives in the way your grandmother's hands moved when she described something that
happened before you were born. It lives in the pause your grandfather takes before he answers a
hard question, the pause that tells you he has thought about this before, that he paid for that
answer with something real. It lives in the lines on their faces, each one a chapter, and in the
stories attached to those lines that most of us never thought to ask about.
We are losing that library. Not slowly. Faster than we think. And we are so distracted by the noise
of everything else that most of us will not notice it is gone until we are sitting in a room full of
people who all feel the same quiet ache and cannot explain where it came from.
THE STORIES WE THINK ARE SMALL
We have made a mistake about what storytelling is.
We have confused it with entertainment. With the fish that got away, or the ghost story around
the campfire, or the funny thing that happened on the way to somewhere. Those stories have
their place. But they are not the ones we are talking about.
The stories we are losing are different. They are the ones about how someone survived the thing
that is currently breaking you. The story of how your uncle kept a family fed when there was no
work and no plan and no end in sight. The story of how your grandmother walked into a room
where she was not welcome and conducted herself with such quiet dignity that the room had to
adjust to her. The story of what your father felt the day the rand was stronger than the pound,
and what he felt the day it was not, and how he kept going through both.
These are not small
stories. These are
load-bearing stories.
They hold people up.
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Page 27
They teach what no ten-step programme can teach, because they are not theory. They are proof.
Proof that the thing you are facing has been faced before. Proof that people who loved you,
people whose blood runs in your veins, stood in that same fire and came out the other side. That
knowledge changes something in a person. It does not just inform. It fortifies.
YOUR PARENTS WERE THERE FOR ALL OF IT
Here is something the generation between fourteen and twenty-eight may not have fully
considered yet.
Your parents, and in many cases your grandparents, did not grow up in the world you were born
into. They grew up in a completely different one, and they crossed every bridge between that
world and this one on foot, in real time, without a guide.
They watched television arrive. Not as something that was always there, but as an event. A box
that appeared in the lounge and changed the rhythm of the whole house. They went from vinyl
records to cassette tapes to CDs to MP3 players to streaming, and each time they had to learn
something new, adapt to something new, let go of something they had only just learned to love.
They wrote letters. Real ones, by hand, and posted them, and then waited. Not the anxious,
refreshing kind of waiting we do now, staring at a screen to see if the message has been read.
Patient waiting. The kind that assumed the other person was alive and well and would respond
when they could. Then faxes arrived, and email, and SMS, and BlackBerry Messenger, and
WhatsApp, and they learned every single one of those too.
They carried cash. They had bank books, physical books where a teller stamped your balance by
hand. Then came cards. Then internet banking at a desktop computer. Then banking apps on
phones they never imagined owning. Then tap and pay at a till that does not even need them to
enter a pin.
They lived through the rand being stronger than the dollar. They lived through it collapsing.
They lived through load shedding before it had a name and a schedule, through price increases
that arrived without warning, through years when you could not buy fuel on a Sunday and a trip
across town required actual planning.
They survived all of that. They adapted, every single time, without a tutorial and without the
option to opt out.
And most of them have never once sat down and told you exactly what that felt like. What it cost
them. What they learned. What they wish they had known earlier. Not because they do not want
to. Because nobody asked.
WHAT WE DID INSTEAD
Somewhere along the way, we
started treating the grey-haired
ones as a logistical problem to
be solved rather than a resource
to be drawn from.
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Page 28
We got busy. The days filled up. The visits got shorter. The conversations got shallower. We
started summarising instead of listening. We started finishing their sentences because we
thought we knew where they were going, and we missed the destination entirely.
We put screens in front of children and called it stimulation. We settled our grey-haired ones
into homes and called it care. We gave them enough to be comfortable and quiet, and we told
ourselves that was kindness, and maybe it was, but it was also a kind of abandonment that we
have not yet fully reckoned with.
The generation between thirty and forty-five sits in the middle of this, and it is a painful place to
be. Old enough to remember a childhood without smartphones. Young enough to have handed
their own children one before they could read. Stretched between two worlds, quietly aware that
something important got lost in the handover, but moving too fast to stop and name it.
So the screens stay on. The earphones stay in. The dinner table conversations get shorter. And
the children in those homes grow up learning, without anyone meaning to teach them, that the
people with the grey hair are there to be managed, not listened to. That their stories are
interruptions rather than invitations. That wisdom is something you find online, not in the
person sitting across from you who has forty years of lived evidence that you could access for
free, right now, if you just asked.
That lesson, learned early and reinforced daily, is one of the most expensive things we are
passing on to the next generation. And most of us are doing it without knowing.
WHAT THE SILENCE COSTS
A generation that does not know its own stories is a generation that has to learn everything from
scratch.
It has to discover resilience on its own, usually the hard way. It has to figure out its own identity
without the thread of continuity that tells you who you come from and therefore who you are
capable of being. It looks for that thread online, in the opinions of strangers, in the carefully
curated lives of people who have mastered the art of looking like they have it together, and it
finds something that looks like an answer but does not hold weight.
This is not a criticism of young people. It is a description of what happens when the transmission
breaks down. When the stories stop moving between generations, something in the chain of
human resilience breaks. People start feeling alone in experiences that are not new. They start
believing that their struggle is unique, that no one has ever felt this particular weight, and that
belief makes the weight heavier.
The cure for that belief is a story. A real one, from a real person, told in a real voice. Not a
chapter in a self-help book. Not a motivational quote on a phone screen. A voice saying: I have
been where you are. Here is what it felt like. Here is what I did. Here is what I wish I had known.
That transmission is irreplaceable.
And we are interrupting it.
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Page 29
Here is the part that matters. Because this is not a eulogy. This is a call.
The stories are still there. Most of them. The people who carry them are still sitting in chairs,
still alive, still full of everything they have seen and done and survived. Many of them stopped
offering what nobody seemed to want. They got tired of talking to the tops of people's heads.
They learned to take up less space, make less noise, ask for less. They got very good at being
quiet.
But quiet is not the same as empty.
Ask the question you have been putting off. The one about what it was like. The one about how
they got through it. The one about the tree in the garden and how long it has been there and
what they remember about the day it was planted. Ask your mother what she felt the first time
she held you and had no idea what she was doing and had to figure it out anyway. Ask your
father what his lowest point looked like and what pulled him through it. Ask your grandmother
what she gave up. Ask your grandfather what he is most proud of that nobody ever noticed.
Put the phone face-down on the table. That
small gesture says something that words cannot
quite say.
And then be quiet. Really quiet. The kind of quiet that
tells someone you are not waiting for them to finish so
you can talk. The kind of quiet that says: what you are
saying matters, and I have nowhere else to be.
Put the phone face-down on the table. Not on silent. Face-down, so you cannot see the screen
light up. That small gesture says something that words cannot quite say. It says: right now, you
are more important than anything on that screen. Most of the grey-haired ones in your life have
never once been told that by a screen, and they never will be.
Record it if they will let you. Write it down. Tell your children. Repeat the story at the dinner
table until your children know it well enough to tell it themselves. Keep the thread moving.
Because here is the truth: every wrinkle on that face is a chapter. Every grey hair is a season
survived. Every long pause before the answer is a life being distilled into something you can
actually use.
That is not a burden sitting in that chair. That is a library.
And the door is still open.
MOXIE TIP
You do not need a special occasion. The next time you are with someone older than you,
ask one question you have never asked before. Not about their health. About their life.
Then listen like it is the most important thing you will hear this week. It probably is.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 31
Pack the Jackets. July Is Worth the Drive.
July school holidays mean cold mornings, open roads, and some of the best events on the
South African calendar. From a lagoon full of oysters to animatronic dinosaurs in Limpopo,
there is something worth the trip in every province.
GAUTENG
10-12 JULY
FAMILY & SHOPPING
The Shopping and Food Fest
The Red Roman Shed, Emperors Palace, Johannesburg
Free entry and three full days of more than 90 shopping stalls, a Halaal food market, live
tribute shows, an indoor ice rink experience, a family funfair, and a supervised kids play
corner. An easy, full-day winter outing that costs nothing to walk through.
25 JULY
MUSIC & YOUTH CULTURE
Joy of Jazz: Jazz for Young People
National School of the Arts, Johannesburg
A high-energy youth culture day running alongside the main Joy of Jazz programme. Live
music and dance sets performed entirely by young South African artists, alongside a student
entrepreneur market selling creative local goods. A proper introduction to jazz for curious
kids. quicket.co.za
MID-JULY (ANNUAL)
FAMILY & HISTORY
The JHB Medieval Fayre
Johannesburg
A fantasy dress-up day that families return to every year. Historical re-enactments, archery
booths, artisan stalls, tavern food, and fairytale entertainment for children of every age. Check
local listings for the confirmed venue and date closer to July.
25 JULY
FOOD & FARMING HERITAGE
Lamb Champs Pretoria
Harlequins Rugby Club, Pretoria
One hundred and ten sheep farmers competing for the best lamb spit, live music, and a large
children play arena. A celebration of farming heritage that feels genuinely South African from
the first smell of the fire to the last note of the band.
18 JULY
MUSIC & CULTURE
Winter Dub at Melrose House
Melrose House Museum, Pretoria
A relaxed Mandela Day outdoor musical picnic celebrating sound system culture on the lawns
of a Pretoria landmark. All ages welcome. Children under 12 enter free. Food stalls, shade, and
music that actually makes people stop walking and stay.
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Page 32
Knysna Oyster Festival
Knysna, Garden Route
Nine days of freshly shucked oysters, live music, cycling events, lagoon canoe races, craft
markets, and kids entertainment hubs spread across the whole town. One of the most
consistently loved family events on the South African calendar. knysnaoyster.co.za
THROUGHOUT JULY · SLEEPOVER 18 JULY
FAMILY
Two Oceans Aquarium Holiday Club
V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
The aquarium runs an Art of the Ocean competition, daily puppet shows, and live animal
feeding sessions throughout July. The overnight museum sleepover on 18 July is the highlight
for families who want something their children will talk about for months. aquarium.co.za
10 JULY
FOOD & LIFESTYLE
Leopard's Leap French Fete
Leopard's Leap Wine Farm, Franschhoek
The farm opens its lawns for Bastille weekend with French buffets, macaron stations, live
music, and space for children to run free. A relaxed afternoon in one of the most beautiful
valleys in the country. leopardsleap.co.za
17 JULY
FAMILY & COMMUNITY
Ladles of Love Mandela Day Extravaganza
DHL Stadium, Green Point, Cape Town
A high-energy family charity event built around 67 minutes of doing something that matters.
Parents and children spend the time together packing grocery boxes and crafting toys for
families in need. Active, meaningful, and genuinely fun for everyone involved. ladlesoflove.org.za
KWAZULU-NATAL
27 JUNE - 5 JULY
LIFESTYLE & FAMILY
East Coast Radio House and Garden Show
Durban Exhibition Centre, Durban
A nine-day lifestyle exhibition with a dedicated Kids Zone packed with giant inflatables,
face-painting stations, creative craft workshops, and food stalls. A warm indoor winter escape
that parents and children can spend an entire day inside without running out of things to do.
10-11 JULY
COUNTRY FESTIVAL
Winter Fest
Underberg Country Club, Underberg
A warm, community-run festival at the foot of the Southern Drakensberg. Local crafts,
regional food stalls, and a safe country club setting with daytime activities for the whole
family. The kind of event where you stay longer than you planned.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 33
Ashburton Aloe Festival
Galago Farm, Ashburton
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. A nature-first day out for outdoorsy families with
scenic winter walks, wildlife talks, working-dog demonstrations, and traditional boerewors
rolls, tea, and cake on the farm lawns. Low cost, low crowds, high reward.
26 JULY
AVIATION & FAMILY
Durban Virginia Airshow
Virginia Airport, Durban
Aerobatic manoeuvres, static aircraft displays, food vendors, and kids fun zones at one of
KwaZulu-Natal most spectacular annual events. Bring camp chairs, arrive early for parking,
and look up.
MPUMALANGA, EASTERN CAPE & LIMPOPO
3-6 JULY
ARTS & CULTURE
Innibos Kunstefees
Mbombela, Mpumalanga
The premier Afrikaans music, culture, and arts festival with sprawling craft markets,
open-air food courts, and a dedicated daytime children theatre programme. The evening
concert lineups sell out fast. The daytime is where the families live. innibos.co.za
EARLY JULY
ARTS & CULTURE
National Arts Festival Makhanda
Makhanda, Eastern Cape
Africa largest cultural gathering, and one of the most underrated family destinations in the
country. The concurrent Children Arts Festival runs daily puppet shows, magic acts,
interactive pottery workshops, and street performances. A genuine mid-winter arts
pilgrimage. nationalartsfestival.co.za
11 JULY
FOOD & LIFESTYLE
Taste of Dullstroom
The Dullstroom Inn Restaurant, Dullstroom, Mpumalanga
Dullstroom first dedicated street food and wine festival. A walking afternoon of gourmet local
dishes, regional wines, and live acoustic music in crisp mountain air. Compact enough to do
on foot and warm enough to linger well into the evening.
Event dates and details correct at time of publication. Always confirm with the event organiser before travelling.
Have an exciting event coming up?
We love sharing what South African families are doing. If your community, school,
church, sports club, or neighbourhood is hosting something worth celebrating, send
it to us. We read every submission and publish the events that deserve a bigger
audience.
Send your event to editor@moxiemag.co.za
Subject line: Events Submission · Include event name, dates, venue, contact details, and a short description
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 35
Vryheid.
Oor katte, leibande, en die dun toutjies
wat ons uit volkome vryheid flous.
Hierdie stuk is ingestuur deur een van ons lesers en word gedeel presies soos geskryf.
Ons waardeer elke story . In Afrikaans, ongeredigeerd, net soos dit gekom het.
Wie onthou Mel Gibson se blou gesig en gebalde vuis hoog in die lug terwyl hy skreeu
"Freedom!" Sy filmkarakter was bereid om tot die dood toe te veg vir vryheid vir hom en sy
nageslag. Hoeveel moeite doen ons om vryheid te verkry? Hiermee wil ek nie 'n oproep doen tot
vryheid in politiese terme nie. Dink maar aan die sin: "Ons lewens word ingeperk deur..." Met
wat kan ons daardie sin net nie alles voltooi nie?
Ons het die afgelope 12 maande vir die eerste keer in vyftien jaar, in 'n huis in die gewone
dorpsgebied gebly. Ons het uit 'n estate getrek en die dorpshuis is 'n oorgangsfase voor ons na die
Karooplaas toe trek. Dit was regtig 'n groot aanpassing. Die tweede aand was daar reeds by ons
ingebreek en toe weer twee maal in die daaropvolgende maande. Die huis en tuin is heelwat
kleiner en die omgewing meer lawaaierig, maar die mens is mos aanpasbaar en ons gaan aan.
Wie egter die swaarste gekry het, is ons katte.
Ons het twee Bengal katte, Calvin en Mattewis. Hulle het nog altyd groot spasie gehad om rond te
kon beweeg en kon kom en gaan soos hulle wou. By die nuwe huis is ons egter bang dat iemand
hulle sal steel of dat 'n voertuig hulle sal raakry. Dus het hulle huiskatte geword. Om hul wel in
die tuin te laat rondloop, maak ons hulle buitekant aan leibande vas. Verbasend is katte ook heel
aanpasbaar. Hulle loop buite in sirkels en jaag akkedisse, want beperkte vryheid is tog beter as
geen vryheid. Of is dit?
Terwyl ek in die week hierdie twee tuin gevangenes dophou, wonder ek of hulle besef daar is net
'n dun toutjie tussen hulle en volkome vryheid. Kyk, ek is baie bly ons hoef nie kort-kort agter 'n
vaartbelynde spikkelkat aan te hardloop nie, maar ek het tog 'n jammerte vir hulle situasie.
Menigmaal koek die leibande om die tafel, stoel of springmatpote en moet ons gaan help. Skielik
tref dit my: Hoeveel dun toutjies flous ons mense uit volkome vryheid uit?
"Ek sal nooit 'hierdie' kan regkry nie." of "Ek sal nooit 'daardie' kan bereik nie." Vir ons om
Karooplaas toe te trek, moes ons uit die inperkende denkrigtings wat ons vasgehou het, loswoel.
Die proses het begin deur te bid vir God se leiding in ons lewe, want net soos Calvin en Mattewis
het ons hulp nodig gehad. 'n Mens se situasie gaan nie oornag verander nie, maar skakel vir
skakel is ons besig om die ketting te breek.
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Page 36
"Ons sal finansieël nooit kan plaas toe trek nie."
Toe maak ons die uitgawes minder deur in 'n kleiner huis te trek en ander voertuie aan te skaf.
"Die kinders gaan sukkel om vriende te kry."
Toe ontmoet ons vir die eerste keer die bure met kinders, wat reeds vyf jaar agter ons plaas bly
en die kinders kuier uit die staanspoor uit, asof hulle mekaar jare ken!
Ek glo ons gaan vorentoe nog vele getuienisse kan gee van hoe die Here leiding verskaf het om
ons vir ons fisiese en geestelike vryheid te besorg op die plaas. Ek is so bly ons het die
geloofstreë na... begin neem.
Ek en die sussies (my twee meisies en eienaars van die spikkelkatte) kan nie wag om Calvin en
Mattewis permanent plaas toe te neem, sodat hulle ongehinderd kan beweeg soos dit 'n
spikkelkat betaam nie. Ek is seker as ons miaau-taal verstaan het, sou ons gehoor het "Vryheid!"
daar waar hulle tussen die karoobossies indraf.
DEEL JOU STORIE
Het jy ook iets op die hart? Stuur jou storie, besinning, of ondervinding na
editor@moxiemag.co.za en jy kan dalk in die volgende uitgawe verskyn.
Ons lees elke inset.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 37
The People Who
Remembered Everything.
In the hills of Limpopo, a community has been carrying a story for two thousand years.
The world called it a myth. They called it home.
Stand on the flat-topped hill at Mapungubwe in the early morning, before the heat rises and the
tourists arrive, and you will feel something difficult to name. The Limpopo valley stretches away
in every direction, baobabs standing like old sentinels in the yellow winter grass. Below this hill,
centuries ago, Southern Africa's first great kingdom was built. Gold was worked here. Trade
routes stretched from these banks to the coast, and from the coast to places most South Africans
have never thought to connect to this soil.
The Lemba thought about it every day. They never stopped.
A STORY THE WORLD CALLED IMPOSSIBLE
Somewhere in the hills of Limpopo and into Zimbabwe, there is a community of people who
speak Bantu languages, live African lives, and have held on to one of the most extraordinary
origin stories on this continent.
For generations, fathers told sons who they were and where they came from.
Their ancestors, they said, came from across the sea, from a place called Sena, somewhere in
what we now know as Yemen.
They were traders who came south following gold. They arrived by boat. A storm broke the vessel
in two. Half the group was lost and never found again. The survivors came ashore, moved inland,
married local women, and began the long work of becoming African while never forgetting that
they were also something else.
They carried a sacred object called the ngoma lungundu, the drum that thunders, which their
oral history describes as the Ark of the Covenant. Guided south by a star, they eventually settled
in the Limpopo valley alongside the Venda, learning their language, sharing their skills, and
keeping their own customs quietly alive. The world called this mythology. The Lemba kept
telling it anyway.
Photograph depicting the appearance of Lemba men
in the Transvaal
Photo by N.J. Van Warmelo from The Copper Miners of
Musina and the Early History of the Zoutpansberg
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The Lemba did not just tell their story. They lived it. For two thousand years they maintained
practices that had no explanation unless the story was true. They did not eat pork or shellfish.
They practiced ritual slaughter in a manner so specific it carries a name derived from the
Hebrew word for it. They kept separate pots for milk and meat. They circumcised their sons.
They buried their dead with heads pointing toward a land most of them had never seen, and
marked graves with the Star of David.
Their community emblem is a Star of David with an elephant at its centre. The elephant
represents their belonging to the Venda nation. The Star of David is the thread that goes back
further. That single image carries the whole story, two identities held together without
contradiction, without apology, for century after century. The Venda and Lemba shared the
same mountains and language for hundreds of years without conflict. The Lemba brought
metalworking knowledge. The Venda brought community. Both were made richer.
WHEN SCIENCE CAUGHT UP
In the late 1990s, scientists began examining the genetic ancestry of Lemba men. What they
found quietly shook the academic world. Buried in the DNA of the Lemba priestly clan was a
genetic marker associated with ancient Semitic ancestry, the same marker found in the
hereditary Jewish priestly class at remarkably similar rates. Two thousand years of oral
tradition, passed from mouth to ear across more than a hundred generations, had been
describing something real. One elder put it plainly: they never needed a laboratory to tell them
who they were. They already knew.
THE LIVING STORY
Today the Lemba Cultural Association gathers its members annually near Limpopo. Some are
Christians. Some are practicing Jews. Some are Muslim. What they share across all of those
differences is the story. Unchanged, unbroken, passed from father to son across two thousand
years and more. They are farmers, teachers, healers, and ordinary South Africans living in a
country that is still discovering how extraordinary its own history is.
Drive up to the northern reaches of Limpopo, find someone who will sit with you and tell you
the story of Sena, of the boat and the storm and the drum that thunders, and you will leave that
conversation changed. The Lemba have been patient. They have been telling their story for two
thousand years. There is room on the hill at Mapungubwe for you to go and listen.
MOXIE TIP
Mapungubwe National Park in Limpopo is one of the most undervisited parks in the
country. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where the golden rhinoceros was found, and
the on-site museum carries original artefacts from Southern Africa's first great kingdom.
The Lemba Cultural Association is based near Elim. Go before everyone else finds out
about it.
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We Were Always Going to Make It.
Five hundred years of this land. The ships that came. The wars that were fought. The freedoms
that were won. And the unbreakable thing that survived all of it.
RESEARCH CREDIT
Timeline research for pre-1999 history guided by the work of Anne Lehmkuhl at
southafricanresearcher.com — one of the most thorough records of South African history
available online. Follow her on Facebook for ongoing research and updates. Her dedication
to preserving this history deserves every share.
https://www.facebook.com/SouthAfricanResearcher/
The Land Before the Lines
Before the ships arrived, before the maps were drawn and the borders argued over, this land
had already been home for thousands of years.
The San people, the oldest continuous human population on earth, moved across these plains
and valleys and coastlines following the seasons, reading the stars, painting what they saw on
rock faces that still speak today if you know how to listen. The Khoikhoi brought cattle to the
Cape and built communities around the richness of what the land provided. The Bantu-speaking
peoples moved south over centuries, bringing iron, agriculture, and language, establishing
kingdoms that traded as far as Arabia and China long before any European ship rounded the
Cape.
Mapungubwe stood here. A golden kingdom in the Limpopo valley, sophisticated and connected
to the world, centuries before Van Riebeeck ever set sail. The soil of this country was already
carrying civilisation when Europe was still in its dark ages.
We were not waiting to be discovered.
We were already here, already building, already trading, already living.
ONE
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On 6 April 1652, Jan van Riebeeck stepped off a Dutch East India Company ship into Table Bay
and planted a flag that would change everything. What followed over the next two and a half
centuries was extraordinary and brutal and complicated in equal measure.
Slaves arrived from Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Angola. The French
Huguenots came fleeing persecution. The British came for strategic advantage and stayed for the
diamonds. The German settlers came. The Irish came. The 1820 Settlers came. Approximately
152,000 Indian labourers arrived in Natal between 1860 and 1911 to work the sugar cane fields.
Every community brought something with it, language, food, faith, music, and the Cape became
something the world had never quite seen before. A place where the whole world had washed up
on one shore.
The Great Trek of 1836 pushed the boundaries of the colony inland, and with it came conflict,
with the Zulu, with the Xhosa across nine frontier wars, with the British who followed. The
discovery of diamonds near Hopetown in 1867, and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, turned a
colonial outpost into the most strategically valuable piece of land on earth.
The Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902 was one of the most brutal in British imperial history. Farms
burned. Women and children in concentration camps. More than 26,000 Boer women and
children died. Tens of thousands of black South Africans caught in the middle, their suffering
largely unrecorded in the histories written afterwards.
But out of all of it came something remarkable. On 31 May 1910, the Union of South Africa was
established. Four colonies, two former republics, and every language and culture and faith that
had arrived on these shores, joined under one flag. It was imperfect. It was unjust in ways that
would take another eighty years to begin correcting. But it was the first attempt to say: all of this,
together, is one thing.
FIVE CENTURIES AT A GLANCE
1652 Van Riebeeck arrives at Table Bay
1838 Battle of Blood River
1867 Diamonds discovered near Hopetown
1886 Gold found on the Witwatersrand
1902 End of the Anglo-Boer War
1910 Union of South Africa established
1948 Apartheid laws enacted
1960 Sharpeville
1990 Mandela freed, ANC unbanned
1994 First democratic election
2010 SA hosts the FIFA World Cup
2019 Siya Kolisi lifts the Rugby World Cup
2024 Government of National Unity formed
When the World Arrived
TWO
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The Long Storm
1948 is a year that every South African carries somewhere inside them, whether they know the
date or not. The Nationalist government came to power and built apartheid into law. Separate
beaches, separate buses, separate schools, separate futures.
On 21 March 1960, at Sharpeville, police opened fire on a crowd protesting the pass laws.
Sixty-nine people were killed. The world watched. The pressure that had been building inside
the country for decades found its voice in organisations, in marches, in exile, in prison cells on
Robben Island where a man named Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela spent 27 years and emerged not
broken but more committed than when he went in.
But the people themselves never stopped. The church halls where communities organised. The
women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 to protest the pass laws, 20,000 of them, and
left a message that became a chant. Wathintʼ abafazi, wathintʼ imbokodo. You strike a woman,
you strike a rock. The musicians who smuggled resistance into sound. The ordinary South
Africans of every background who quietly refused to accept that this was all there was.
The storm lasted a long time. But it could not last forever.
The Country We Are Building
On 2 February 1990, F.W. de Klerk stood in parliament and unbanned the ANC. Nine days later,
Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison. The world held its breath and waited for
the explosion that many said was inevitable. It did not come.
On 27 April 1994, South Africans stood in lines that stretched for hours in the autumn sun and
voted for the first time. All of them. For the first time. Old people who had never held a ballot
paper. Young people who had grown up knowing exactly what they were waiting for. At the end
of it, the country had a new president and a new beginning that the whole world watched with
something very close to awe.
The queues were long and the day was long and at the end of it, the country had a
new beginning that the whole world watched with something very close to awe.
The HIV/AIDS crisis arrived and for a terrible few years threatened to undo everything. Then
civil society fought back. The Treatment Action Campaign took the government to court and
won the right to treatment.
South Africa launched the largest antiretroviral treatment programme the world had ever
seen. Life expectancy, which had fallen to 53 years, climbed back to 64 years by 2018.
Millions of people are alive today because ordinary South Africans refused to accept that
their neighbours were expendable.
THREE
FOUR
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In 2010, South Africa hosted the FIFA World Cup, the first African country ever to do so. The
world arrived expecting disaster and found instead a country that could organise, welcome, and
celebrate. The Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in 2007, and again in 2019 when Siya Kolisi
became the first Black captain to lift the trophy, and again in 2023. Three World Cups. A team
that looks like the country, playing for a country that still sometimes forgets it looks like that
team. Each win was bigger than rugby.
In the Karoo, the Square Kilometre Array telescope is being built, the most powerful radio
telescope ever constructed. Scientists from dozens of countries are working on our soil, looking
deeper into space than humans have ever looked before. The land that held Mapungubwe's
golden kingdom is now holding the instruments that will help answer questions about the origin
of the universe.
In 2024, when the ANC lost its outright majority for the first time since 1994, South Africa did not
descend into chaos. It formed a Government of National Unity. It did what mature democracies
do. It negotiated. It compromised. It held. The courts have held. The Constitution has held. The
press has held.
And Amapiano, which started in the townships of Gauteng, is now playing in clubs in London
and New York and Tokyo. South African youth did not just consume global culture. They made
it.
THIS IS THE THING ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA
We have never been a country that made sense on paper. Too many languages. Too many
wounds. Too many competing claims on the same piece of ground. Too much history pressed
into too small a space.
And yet. The food at a South African table carries three continents in a single meal. The music
crosses every boundary. The laughter at a braai does not check your passport. When the
Springboks run out, something happens in this country that has no simple political explanation.
We have survived five centuries of being told we could not hold together. We are still here. Still
arguing, still building, still failing sometimes and getting up, still producing artists and scientists
and athletes and ordinary people of extraordinary courage who make this country what it is.
The history is not finished. We are in the middle of it right now. What we do with it is still being
decided, not by the people in power, but by the people in the communities, in the churches, in
the classrooms, in the kitchens, in the queues. It has always been decided there.
MOXIE TIP
Visit Mapungubwe National Park in Limpopo to stand on the soil where South Africa's first
great kingdom stood. Visit the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg to understand the full
weight of what was built and what was dismantled. Read the Freedom Charter, written in
1955 by ordinary South Africans from every background. It is short, clear, and still ahead of
its time.
Five hundred years brought us here.
What we do tomorrow is entirely up to us.
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The Fish That Built
a Culture.
Long before the braai became a national institution, the people of the Cape were already
standing over open coals, basting a long silver fish with apricot jam and calling it dinner. Some
things are worth keeping exactly as they are.
There is a harbour smell that Cape Town people carry with them for the rest of their lives, no
matter how far they move from the coast. It is salt and smoke and something oily and good, and
if you grew up anywhere near Hout Bay or Kalk Bay or the Boulders, you know exactly what it is.
It is snoek. And it has been part of this coastline longer than almost anything else.
Thyrsites atun, to give it its scientific name, is a long, lean, fast, and frankly terrifying fish. It has
razor-sharp teeth, prickly fins, and a tendency to leap out of the water snapping when it is
caught. There is an old Cape saying, slaan my dood met 'n pap snoek, which translates roughly as
"beat me dead with a limp snoek," meaning something so astonishing it leaves you speechless.
The snoek earned that phrase. It is a fish with personality.
The Benguela Current, that cold upwelling of Antarctic water running along the West Coast, is
what makes snoek plentiful here. It drives a richness of marine life that has fed the Cape for
centuries. Fishermen from Hout Bay and Kalk Bay have been pulling snoek from these waters
for generations, selling it fresh from the boat, dried, smoked, and in winter, stacked on ice at
every harbour from Sea Point to Paternoster.
HOW THE APRICOT JAM GOT INTO THE PICTURE
The combination of snoek and apricot jam is one of those Cape Malay culinary gifts that became
so embedded in local food culture that most people have forgotten it was ever an innovation.
The enslaved people brought to the Cape by the Dutch East India Company came from Indonesia,
India, Sri Lanka, and the East African coast. They brought a deep knowledge of spice, of
sweetness as a counterpoint to salt, of using fruit to balance the richness of oily fish. The apricot
orchards of the Cape provided exactly the right ingredient. Sweet, slightly tart, thick enough to
glaze over fire without burning off immediately.
Someone in the Cape, a long time ago, had the idea of spreading apricot jam onto a butterflied
snoek before putting it on the coals. The sweetness drew out the smokiness. The sugars
caramelised and created a sticky, burnished crust over the oily, salty flesh beneath. It was
perfect. It became tradition. It has stayed tradition ever since. Today garlic is added, sometimes
butter, sometimes lemon juice or Worcestershire sauce. Every family has their version. Every
version is the correct one.
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Snoek op die Braai with Apricot and Garlic Glaze
Serves 6 to 8
FOR THE FISH
1 whole fresh snoek, cleaned and butterflied
Olive oil for the grid
Coarse sea salt and black pepper
FOR THE GLAZE
150ml smooth apricot jam
100g butter
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
25ml Worcestershire sauce
Dash of chilli sauce (optional)
TO SERVE
Thick white bread or roosterkoek
Lemon wedges
Fresh parsley, roughly chopped
METHOD
1. Get coals going well in advance. You want medium heat. Snoek cooks faster than you think.
2. Make the glaze. Melt butter in a small pot, fry garlic one minute until fragrant. Add apricot jam,
lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until combined and just bubbling. Set aside.
3. Oil the grid. Place snoek skin-side down. Season flesh with salt and pepper. Baste generously
with the glaze.
4. Cook skin-side down over medium coals for 12 to 15 minutes, basting frequently. When flesh
turns white and flakes, you are nearly done. Flip briefly for the last 3 minutes if you like.
5. Slide onto a platter. Drizzle remaining glaze over. Scatter with parsley. Serve with lemon wedges
and bread.
Snoek has bones. They are long and easy to find.
Pick them out as you go.
MOXIE TIP
Buy your snoek fresh at Kalk Bay, Hout Bay, or Granger Bay. Inland, frozen snoek works
well. Ask for it cleaned and butterflied. A fish basket grid makes flipping much easier and
is worth every rand.
WHAT TO DO WITH WHAT IS LEFT
If you have leftover snoek, which is unlikely but possible, you are in luck. Smoorsnoek is a Cape
classic made by flaking the fish off the bones and frying it with onion, chilli, potato, and tomato.
Snoek pate with cream cheese and lemon juice is extraordinary on crackers. Serve the braai with
lemon wedges, let people eat with their fingers, and watch what happens to the conversation
when the fish comes off the fire. That is the whole point of snoek. It has always been.
THE RECIPE
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DO YOU KNOW YOUR PARKS?
Wild Knowledge Quiz
Grab the whole family. Answers at the bottom. No peeking.
ROUND 1 WHO AM I? Identify the animal from the clues
I have the largest ears of any land animal 1
and can smell water from 12km away. I am
the only one allowed to push over a tree and
get away with it.
South Africa's fastest animal, reaching
100km/h in 3 seconds. I am not a leopard.
Look for the black tear marks running
down my face.
The world's tallest animal. I sleep just 30 3
minutes a day. My tongue is 45cm long and a
deep purple colour.
I look clumsy on land but move faster than
you think. I yawn to show my teeth, not
because I am tired. I can hold my breath
for 5 minutes.
ROUND 2 TRUE OR FALSE? Park rules — tick T or F
You are allowed to feed baboons in national parks as long as you do not touch
them.
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
The speed limit on tar roads inside SANParks is 50km/h.
Drones are allowed in national parks if you hold a valid drone licence.
You must stay inside your vehicle at all times unless at a designated rest stop or
camp.
You can stay outside camp after gate closure if you pay an after-hours fine at the
gate.
ROUND 3 UNSCRAMBLE IT! SA national park names
REKGUR
GBUWMPUANE
GROUTED NEAR
DARKLY BORNERS EGA
GRABSAUIE
ANSWERS
ROUND 1: 1. Elephant 2. Cheetah 3. Giraffe 4. Hippo
ROUND 2: 5. FALSE 6. TRUE 7. FALSE (drones are illegal in all parks) 8. TRUE 9. FALSE
ROUND 3: 10. Kruger 11. Mapungubwe 12. Garden Route 13. Royal Drakensberg 14. Augrabies
ANSWER:
ANSWER:
ANSWER:
ANSWER:
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 46
JULY Work & Calling
Colossians 3:23
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for
human masters.”
EXTRACT FROM
Standing 365 ·
In Conclusion with AM I...
A devotional journal for the honest moments.
Now available on Amazon.
Coming soon in paperback for South Africa.
FIND IT ON AMAZON · STANDING365
Here we are. July.
June asked you hard things about family. About the people you were born into and the ones you
chose and the complicated, unfinished work of loving them well. July is asking something
different.
July wants to know what you do with your days.
Not what you dream about doing. Not what you tell people you do when they ask at a dinner and
you reach for the polished version. What you actually do. The alarm that goes off. The commute.
The inbox. The meeting that could have been an email. The colleague who makes everything
harder than it needs to be. The Sunday night that arrives with that particular weight in your chest
before the week begins again.
Work is where most of us spend the majority of our waking hours. And yet for most people it
remains one of the least examined parts of their lives. We survive it, endure it, escape from it on
weekends, and count down to retirement without ever asking the question that sits underneath
all of it.
Is what I do with my days connected to what I was made for?
That is the question July is built around. Not in a way that requires you to quit your job and
follow your passion, because that is bad advice that ignores the reality of bills and
responsibilities and the fact that most people do not have the luxury of choosing only
meaningful work. But in a way that asks something more subtle and more important.
Can the work you have, right now, in this season, become something more than survival? Can
the difficult colleague become a teacher instead of just an obstacle? Can Monday morning carry
something of a calling even when it feels like a grind? Can the thing you do for a living connect
to the person God made you to be, even if the connection is not obvious yet?
Thirty one days. Honest about the burnout, honest about the frustration, honest about the
Sunday nights.
But also honest about this: work was never
meant to be meaningless. And you were never
meant to be just a body filling a seat.
Let us find out what July
has to say about that.
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
Page 47
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
More Than a Magazine.
More Than a Membership.
Smart Value Club was built around one idea: that South Africans who look out for each other,
and for their money, deserve something better than what they have been getting.
You are already holding proof of that idea in your hands. Moxie Magazine, the publication you
just read from cover to cover, comes free with every Smart Value Club membership. Not as a
bonus. Not as a footnote. As a core part of what membership means. A magazine for the whole
South African family, every single month.
But Moxie is just where the story starts.
THE R49 QUESTION
Here is something worth knowing before you read any further.
Same R49. A completely different picture.
A standalone Moxie subscription costs R49 per month. You get the magazine, every edition,
every month. That is already good value for what is inside. But a Smart Value Club
membership also costs R49 per month. Same price. Everything below included.
WHAT SVC MEMBERSHIP INCLUDES
Moxie Magazine
Every edition, every month, delivered digitally. The magazine for the whole South African
family, covering science, nature, history, travel, food, faith, puzzles, and real South African
stories that do not appear anywhere else.
Over R2,000 in Monthly Grocery Coupons
Real coupons from Checkers and Shoprite, Dis-Chem, and Pick n Pay. Stores South African
families already shop at every week, delivering savings worth many times more than the
membership costs. For most households, this alone changes the monthly maths significantly.
Train 4 Wealth
Online learning covering financial literacy, personal development, business skills, and more.
The kind of knowledge that changes how people think about money, opportunity, and the
futures they are building.
Venora
A full digital library with something for every reader in the family. From children's storybooks to
self-help titles to business books and beyond, at every age and on every kind of day.
Monthly Members-Only Raffle
Every SVC member receives an automatic entry into a monthly draw with a prize value of
R2,000. Exclusively for Smart Value Club members. Every month.
Page 48
moxiemag.co.za · A Smart Value Club Publication
COMING SOON
DigitalFlyer SA
A complete online business platform. Not just a listing. A full toolkit including a webpage, a
webshop, and everything a growing South African business needs to operate and sell
online.
BidWeb
Professional website hosting and WordPress support at partner rates. Reliable, properly
supported infrastructure for businesses that take their online presence seriously.
TWO OPEN DOORS
AN OPEN INVITATION
FOR WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND COMMUNITY STORYTELLERS
Moxie is built on South African stories that deserve to be told. If you have a story, a skill, or
a perspective that fits the Moxie voice, we want to hear from you. Write to us and tell us
who you are and what you would bring. We read every submission.
FOR BUSINESSES EXPLORING PARTNERSHIP
If your product or service genuinely adds value to South African families and
entrepreneurs, and you believe in the kind of South Africa Moxie believes in, we would like
to have a real conversation about what building something together could look like.
GET IN TOUCH
Both doors lead to the same place: a community that is growing and a membership that
keeps expanding what South Africans can do for each other.
For membership enquiries, partnership discussions, and contributor applications:
info@smartvalueclub.co.za
smartvalueclub.co.za
Smart Value Club is a proudly South African membership platform. Moxie Magazine is published monthly as a Smart Value Club
benefit. Membership starts at R49 per month.