Pretoria, a city of memories both historic and brand-new

It is known by many names - Jacaranda City, Snor City, capital city of South Africa - and many people have claimed it for themselves, but these days, the city is writing its own story anew

- Marianne Thamm

The old-age home is a red-brick, four-storey complex south of Meintjieskop and the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the capital of the Republic of South Africa.

Managed by the orthodox Gereformeerde Kerk, the 57-unit block also accepts Christians of other denominations. Many who live here, including my childhood friend with whom I stayed overnight, no longer watch TV or read newspapers.

The radio is the main artery to life outside (and listened to mostly on the loo). Other than that, the retired do churchy things, knit in the sunroom, read, listen to music or secretly scroll through TikTok.

If you don't keep up, the city and its history comes to sit in your head like old furniture gathering dust. When Steve Biko Drive still registers as Beatrix and Mears streets and Voortrekker Road in the old map in your head, it's time to get out.

Grow up in Pretoria and you will come to understand the difference between the Nederduitsch Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK), the Gereformeerde Kerk (GK), the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk (HK) and the Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk (APK), to which can be added new pentecostal movements. You can navigate your way, so to speak (in Afrikaans, naturally).

Here you don't touch people on their pulpits.

Snor City (snor means moustache), as rock icon Bernoldus Niemand called it, paying tribute to the choice of facial adornment worn by the security police and government officials, was a place you fled from in the old days. But it lingers.