Salt of the earth

Geraldine Amoko discovers that sometimes it takes a journey to understand your roots.

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I'm convinced - I was groomed to enjoy long car rides. My first journey (or at least, the one that I can remember) was from Pretoria to Midrand. Then by the time I was nine, my mom and I would drive from Joburg to the Free State. At some point, the radio signal would fall away and we'd be left with whichever rotation of CDs my mom had in the car that day, from UB40 to Phil Collins and everything in-between. I loved singing along to the hits from the NOW compilations - my favourite song was (and still is) 'High' by Lighthouse Family. "Cause we are gonna beeeee, forever you and meeeee" I'd belt out, off-key I'm sure but before long, I knew the lyrics by heart from start to finish. And when that got boring, my mom would say: "Let's play I-Spy with my little eye" - shifting my focus outside to open pieces of land that extended everywhere.