The Bitter Truth about Reeva Steenkamp's Death

For 13 months I have refrained from voicing any public opinion or passing judgement on the killing in South Africa of Reeva Steenkamp by her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius. As is known, he shot his girlfriend around 3 a.m. on the morning of Valentine's Day 2013 with four bullets fired at a toilet door behind which she had been. Three of the four bullets hit her and led to her death.

From the morning of February 14 when the news broke that the famous 'blade-runner' had killed his girlfriend, a well known model and reality TV celebrity of her own in South Africa, the speculations about what happened in the night at the Silver Woods Estate where Pistorius has his house went wild. Had he shot her deliberately after a quarrel or, as he described it, had there been a terrible mistake on his part? Pistorius gave a statement to the effect that he had thought there was an intruder in his bathroom, had grabbed for his gun, which he always has at his bedside, went to the bathroom, panicked and shot at the door while believing his girlfriend Reeva was lying in bed sleeping.

The story, with which Pistorius managed to achieve bail and thus freedom, sounded incredulous for many reasons, yet as a jurist I know that only facts laid down in proven evidence can lead to truth and justice needed in a criminal case. And for that reason I thought it wise to not publicly voice my opinion on his version of the story but wait for the trial to show what really might have happened that night between Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp.

Two days have now gone into the long awaited trial that is taking place in Pretoria's High Court, and the two days with three witnesses testifying to what they heard that night have been nothing less than a shock. For never would I have thought that the hard to bear truth of that night would be exposed so quickly in what has been planned to be a several weeks long trial.

Pistorius account of the night

The story Pistorius had almost immediately told to the police after his arrest had been that he had woken up and gotten out of bed to close the sliding glass balcony doors. It was then – in pitch darkness of the bedroom as he says – that he had heard noises from the bathroom area, had – again in total darkness – grabbed his gun next to his bed, had run on his stumps to the bathroom, had felt vulnerable as he did not have his blades attached, and for that reason started to fire at the toilet door, not enquiring who was behind it. Since it had been, according to his account, so dark in the bedroom, he could not see if his girlfriend was lying in bed but simply took it for granted that she was sleeping and thus not expecting it to be her behind the toilet door. Killing her was thus not intended and when, after the shots were fired, he called out to her in bed and got no reaction he realised it must be her in the toilet, got a baseball bat and bashed in the locked door to find Reeva seriously wounded. He then screamed for help, called security, family and a friend and carried his girlfriend downstairs to the hall where she died. The police were on the scene shortly after and the known events took their course.

There were many aspects of this story that seemed hard to believe.

It had to be noted with surprise that while Pistorius – living in a gated community with almost zero crime incidents – said he thought there was an intruder in his bathroom and because he was on his stumps felt vulnerable and in panic shot at the toilet door, the same man that so lost his head in the fear of a possible intruder slept peacefully without closing the sliding glass doors of his balcony. After all he had said he had gotten out of bed to shut them before allegedly hearing a noise.

The argument of Pistorius that South Africa was a troubled country with many burglaries – "I am acutely aware of violent crime being committed by intruders entering the home with a view to commit crime, including violent crime." – which according to him explained his irrational, fear-stricken, immediate shooting reaction, seemed odd at best coming from a man who, instilled with such fear, at the same time saw no problem in sleeping with the balcony wide open – which he hardly would have done had he truly been afraid of burglars climbing into his home.

The narrative that in the pitch darkness of the bedroom he never once thought of waking and alerting his girlfriend to the alleged intruder, and thus the imminent danger lurking only metres away in the bathroom, again was hard to take.

The door leading to the stairways to the hall, down which, after the shooting, Pistorius immediately carried the dying Reeva, was just adjacent to the bed. Any man with normal reactions on apparently hearing an intruder in the bathroom would have immediately and quietly woken up his girlfriend, probably holding his hand over her mouth so she would not make any noise, would have whispered to her that there was an intruder in the bathroom and told her to silently slip out the door down to the hall and call security and police. Only then, after knowing the girlfriend to be out and safe, would any normal person have taken the gun and walked off to the bathroom area, normally not to randomly shoot at a closed door not knowing who was behind it and what injuries such a shooting could cause, but to ward off the apparent intruder until the police would arrive.

After all, there was only the one door as exit out of the toilet cubicle. The intruder could not have stepped into the bathroom area other than by opening that door. Covering it with a loaded gun and voicing the willingness to make use of it should the intruder dare to open the door would have been a unfailing safe way to keep the intruder at bay until the upcoming arrest by the arriving police.

None of this, according to Pistorius account, however happened. Not one of these normal reactions one would have expected were part of his story. Instead he said he let Reeva continue sleeping while walking on his stumps with his gun to the bathroom area where he immediately opened fire at the locked toilet door – as he felt so vulnerable on his stumps that he lost his head.

What, besides everything else, one wondered at the time, kept him from putting on his blades before tackling an unknown, supposedly deadly dangerous intruder, when being on stumps scared him so massively? Something he surely must have known after decades of living with this disability?

Pistorius, confronted with interpretations of what really might have happened that night, rejected that any argument between him and Reeva had preceded the shooting. The blade-runner had a reputation of turning aggressive at times, both in speech and with guns, so the accusation of the prosecution ran that Pistorius and Reeva had quarrelled that night, that Pistorius had run into a temper and grabbed for his gun, that Reeva had fled into the bathroom and locked herself in the toilet cubicle at which Pistorius in rage then shot, killing her with three bullets to her side, her shoulder and her head.

Pistorius denied that anything like this had happened. Yet next to the fact that his version to the story seemed hardly believable, there were other questions arising to which he could not give a satisfactory answer. Because in the bathroom on the floor, in front of the shower next to the toilet door, the cell phones both of Reeva and him were found lying, when the police entered the house.

Why would Reeva, had she, as Pistorius alleged, gone to the toilet at night, have taken her cell phone with her and then dumped it on the bathroom floor? At 3 a.m. in the morning? And why, if no quarrel or fight had taken place, had his phone too fallen to the floor?

It remains one of the unsolved questions so far what those cell phones were doing on the bathroom floor as it also still has to be seen whether the bullet trajectories will show if Pistorius indeed was on his stumps when shooting – which would have led to the bullets going up into the toilet door – or, as the prosecution believes was in fact on his blades – which would have led to the bullets going down into the toilet door. These questions the trial on the second day has not tackled yet. But after what one has had to listen to in these two days makes these questions almost irrelevant.

The witness testimonies that crush Pistorius' story

On day one of the trial, Monday, March 3, the first witness, neighbour Michelle Burger, testified to what she heard the night Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead. According to Burger she and her husband woke up around 3 a.m. to terrified screams of a woman clearly in fear. "I sat upright in bed." Her husband rushed to the balcony while the screams of the woman continued.

Burger: "She called for help. She screamed terribly and shouted for help. Then I heard a man also call for help. He called for help three times."

Burger said she had believed she was hearing the sounds of a robbery next door, had taken her cell phone and dialled for security, then her husband had talked security guards and asked them to investigate.

"Then I heard her screams again," said Burger. "It was like a climax. I heard her anxiety. She was very scared."

Then she heard the shots, with a pause between the first and second shot, rapidly followed by two more.

"It was bang... bang, bang, bang," Burger said.

Then she heard a voice and all went silent.

On being aggressively cross-examined by Pistorius' defence lawyer Barry Roux, who tried hard to get Burger confused or tarnish her credibility, the witness remained unshaken, even when Burger insinuated she could not know if she had heard a woman scream or a man.

Burger insisted that it had been a woman she heard and that it was the "fear from her voice that startled" her, and added: "It was very traumatic for me. You could hear blood curdling screams. It is something that leaves you cold."

On day two, Tuesday, March 4, Roux once more cross-examined Burger and questioned her testimony with regard to the alleged help screams of a man, which in Roux's eyes made no sense. Burger insisted that she had heard a man also scream three times for help – "perhaps out of mockery? I don't know. You must ask Mr. Pistorius why, not me." – and again did not deviate from her previous testimony. She insisted on having heard the petrified screams of a woman clearly in fear and said to the presiding judge: "My lady, you only shout like that when your life is in danger."

When asked what impact on her life this experience had, Burger, who had defied four hours of grilling by the Pistorius' defence lawyer, got emotional for the first time.

"When I'm in the shower I relieve her shouts," Burger said battling with tears, "her terrifying screams."

Her husband confirms her statement

Later in the day, Charl Johnson, husband to Michelle Burger, confirmed her version of events of the fateful night.

According to him he too woke up to the screams of a woman. He got out of bed and walked out onto the balcony and heard clearly the screams of a woman in "extreme distress". The woman was at one point shouting for help and then afterwards a man too was shouting three times "Help!"

Johnson went back in, took the phone from his wife who had dialled security, and he related to two different guards that apparently a couple nearby was under attack and needed help. Then he discovered that his wife had mistakenly called the wrong number of guards at the security complex where they had lived previously. He therefore ended the call as he realised he was speaking to the wrong persons.

Johnson said he ran back to the balcony where he heard the woman scream again. He said the intensity and fear in her voice escalated, making it clear to him that her life was in danger.

Then he heard gunshots, some more screaming with the last screams fading after the last shot. Then silence set it.

A first conclusion

After these two statements of Michelle Burger and Charl Johnson, whose bedroom was only 177 metres away from the scene of the crime, the shock set in that indeed Pistorius could not have told the truth with his statement.

No matter what Roux tried, he could not erase the fact that both, husband and wife, were awoken by horrific screaming of a woman clearly in death fear, that the screaming went on and on, turned into help calls and then went silent when four gun shots rang out.

From this it is clear that prior to Pistorius shooting at the bathroom door, Reeva Steenkamp had been screaming in fear for her life, something that Pistorius could not possibly have missed, seeing that even neighbours 177 metres further down the road heard it clearly.

Especially Johnson's account gives a time impression to the event that can easily been reconstructed:

Waking up to the screaming of a woman in itself takes about one or two minutes until a person is able to understand at 3 a.m. what exactly woke him or her up.

Then Johnson went out onto the balcony to listen to more screaming, which easily must have taken up at least another two minutes.

On getting back in he took the cell phone from his wife and then talked to two different guards one after the other – only to discover that he was talking to the wrong people at another complex. Such a conversation is expected to again take up two, perhaps even three minutes.

Johnson then terminated the call and rushed back to the balcony to hear even worse screams from the woman.

By this time, from waking up to her screams to entering the balcony once more, anywhere between five to seven minutes would have passed, in which the woman – Reeva Steenkamp – could be heard screaming.

Then the gun shots rang out – and the screaming stopped.

This course of events can not be disputed anymore after these very clear cut, unwavering testimonies of two adults who would have no reason to give such detailed accounts of something that had not taken place and who were so consistent in their testimony even under the most heavy questioning in the cross-examination. The story makes sense in every way – but in confirming Pistorius incredulous version.

How could Pistorius say he believed Reeva had been silently asleep in bed when he went on his stumps with a gun to the bathroom area when clearly his girlfriend had screamed for at least five to seven minutes, as the neighbours clearly heard? It is impossible and leads to the frightening conclusion that Pistorius is not telling the truth about the course of events that night when saying there was no quarrel and he thought his girlfriend was quietly sleeping when he shot through the toilet door.

But if Pistorius lies about what really happened, why would he? And why had Reeva Steenkamp been in such death fear that night that she screamed in the most terrifying way?

The final clue

The answer to this last open question too came far quicker than could be expected. Witness number three – testifying in the morning after Burger's repeated cross-examination as testimony number two in the courts run – another neighbour, Estelle van der Merwe, told the court what she heard that night.

According to her, Mrs. van der Merwe was awoken already at 1:56 a.m. – an hour prior to the killing – by loud voices of a man and a woman clearly having a serious argument. The voice of the woman was signalling distress, going "up and down". While van der Merwe could not make out the content of the dispute, it was clear that it was heated. At one point, she said, she pulled the cushion over her ears in the hope of getting some sleep, as her son was writing an exam the next morning and she badly needed to rest. But the quarrel was too loud to be dampened by the cushion and went on "for about an hour". Then four gun shots could be heard and ended the argument.

The bitter truth to face

With this third testimony in only two days, the question burning on the minds of family and friends for 13 long months as to what really happened that night at the house of Oscar Pistorius and why Reeva Steenkamp, a bright, young woman and in short to be lawyer, was killed, was answered in the most bitter form. A quarrel between the two for reasons unknown, lasting an hour, ended in a fatal shooting of Reeva by her boyfriend Pistorius who, again for unknown reasons, was so tempered up that he drew his gun on her. Reeva, fearing for her live, was petrified and screamed for help, then must have rushed to the bathroom perhaps in the hope to still call help via her phone, and then, when seeing Pistorius approaching with a gun, locked herself in the toilet in the hope of evading his wrath. It was then that the bullets penetrated the door and hit her as she was crouching behind it. She had no chance.

For the family and friends of Reeva Steenkamp this disclosure of the events of the fateful morning of Valentine's Day 2013 only two days into the trial must be a shock. The hope, albeit slim, that Oscar Pistorius would somehow come up with a version that was credible and make it possible to believe Reeva had lost her life due to a tragic, panic instilled mistake on his part, has not been fulfilled. The accounts of three witnesses to the happenings of that night at the Silver Woods Estate have given a consistent insight into the course of events that led to Reeva's death. A mistake on his part can not only not be deducted from it, on the contrary the accounts show clearly that Pistorius, in the hope to get off the hook and bail out to temporary freedom, gave a narrative that in no way possibly could be the truth. And the fact that the blade-runner lied as to the quarrel and the subsequent screaming of his girlfriend just prior to him shooting at her through the toilet door leaves no room for interpretation other than that he lost once more his nerves in high-tempered rage and shot her dead. The tragedy in this revelation for Reeva's family and friends can not be described in words.

The last hope

Perhaps one day, in realising that his story does not hold after these witnesses testified, Oscar Pistorius will have the courage to tell those who intensely loved Reeva Steenkamp what the cause was for this deadly argument – the suspicion that they fought over his jealous believe she had been untrue to him with a mutual friend had already made the rounds immediately after his arrest, as he had shown such traits before – and why he lost his control so much that he got a gun and shot at Reeva behind the toilet door. For the family and friends of Reeva had wanted nothing more from this trial than to learn the truth about what really happened to their daughter, sister, niece and friend, who held so much love for life, carried a warming smile and a compassionate heart.

Ironically, the witnesses Burger and Johnson, who gave such a clear account of the happenings that night, confided to the court that initially they had not wanted to get involved once they found out who had been shot that night and by whom. They kept quiet hoping other neighbours would step forward who must also have heard the screaming. But when the bail hearing took place, the couple realised this was not so and the description of the night given by Pistorius in no way fitted with what they had witnessed. It was then that they contacted the police via a lawyer friend and testified to what they had heard.

Had Burger and Johnson not waited but contacted the police right after the killing and informed on the real course of events it can be safely assumed that Oscar Pistorius would not have come free on bail at the hearing, would not have been able to live in the plush home of his uncle in Pretoria and enjoy the freedom of living that Reeva Steenkamp was robbed off by him on February 14, 2013.

Undoubtedly, due to the timid reaction of the witnesses, Pistorius was once lucky. As the trial develops in only two days, the chances luck will come his way a second time seem more than slim. If only in the interest of Reeva's family and friends he might find the strength to now tell the truth, this might have an effect on the verdict. Contemplating however on how consistently he lied for 13 long – and for her family and friends gruelling – months, it is hard to see him fulfil the hope that the truth and nothing but the truth will be finally known at the end of this trial.

May the family and friends of Reeva Steenkamp have the strength to see this through. Next to the terrible loss they endured and feel to this day, the continued silence of Oscar Pistorius might be the worst yet for them to have to bear. Whether they suffer more still or not is now entirely up to him.

The legacy of Reeva Steenkamp

Today, a year ago, on what the world calls Valentine's day, the day of love, a beautiful woman in South Africa lost her life. The beauty she held is documented not only in the good looks the world talked about, but in what she said and wrote and what family and friends recount in loving memory. Reeva Steenkamp to many was the model, the TV personality-to-be, the girlfriend of the so called blade-runner, Oscar Pistorius. In November 2012 she had first appeared publicly at his side and her words to the camera about him where carefully chosen, as makes sense at the beginning of a new relationship. After all, Reeva, whose strikingly warmhearted smile had become a trademark, had not only positive experiences in what is deemed love. She had suffered for years in an abusive relationship and had come to Johannesburg to reshape her life.

On Valentine's day 2013, barely four months after the relation had started, Reeva wanted to make the day special for her new boyfriend and for herself. But as she was not only about herself, as some might have thought, Reeva had also intended to make this a day for others, to speak about her struggle against life's odds and domestic violence to pupils at the Sandown High School in Johannesburg. She wanted to be honest about the abuse she knew and encouraging to young people and especially girls to become proud adults who would not ever be humiliated by anyone, let alone by male violence.

She never got to speak at Sandown. While staying the night at her boyfriends house she was shot dead by him shortly after 3 am in the morning, locked in a toilet cubicle where four bullets that her boyfriend shot at the door took her life.

Much has been written about this fatal moment, about how or why Oscar Pistorius drew the gun on her, on whether, as he states, this was an accident, or as the state prosecution in the charges say it was murder. The trial is set to begin on March 3. And no matter what is written or said, the answer to this will only – hopefully – come to light in the hearings. To the family and friends who loved her dearly it will be the hardest time to endure after 13 months of feeling the loss.

The woman who cared for victims of domestic violence

Reeva Steenkamp was blessed by nature with looks which made it to the cover of magazines and she knew how to strike a good pose. She was starting to develop a promising career as a model and her smile and blonde hair made everyone believe that this was what she was all about: modelling, beauty, the feminine touch. Few knew that the woman behind the poses was a hard working law-graduate about to engage in her Bar exam. With 30, a birthday to come up in August last year, she wanted to have reached her goal of being a qualified legal advocate defending the rights of those who couldn't defend themselves.

When in the Cape Province 17-year old Anene Booysen was brutally gang-raped and slashed to death by her rapists and on February 9, 2013, the teenager was laid to rest, it was Reeva who remembered her on her twitter account:

she wrote, ignoring that such a topic was not the in-thing to care for in a world of glamour and bright lights.

But the model who was the star of scene parties and always a good shot for high-key photography didn't keep in those circles in her mind. While she was fashionable and for many simply a symbol of good looks, there was a serious thinking person behind the cover the others wanted to see only. Her troubling experiences in her own relationship many years ago had made her lose her self-worth heavily. She did a lot of soul searching to remind herself of her value in the world, started to get back on her feet and work hard in a business formerly unknown to her, and while her fame rose and the offers came rolling in more and more, she never forgot that there was more to life than just good looks, fashion and partying. There was a message for the students at Sandown High that she spelled out in writing, but never got to tell them in person:

"Be brave. Always see the positive. Make your voice heard. Your physical seen. And the presence of your mental you felt. It's that culmination of your person that will leave a legacy and uplift."

A day after the funeral of Anene Booysen, on February 10, Reeva Steenkamp, once more ignoring who her followers could be on social media, wrote on her instagram account:

Little could she know that only four days later she herself would fall victim to male violence and the comfort of the happy safe home was exchanged for death.

“Reeva held a passion for women’s abuse issues and frequently spoke out against domestic violence. She intended to one day open an establishment where abused women would be cared for", her parents said in a statement a few days ago. Once the trial is over they intend to start a foundation "honouring Reeva’s passions”.


The trial is about truth and justice

After the funeral - candles in the sky

For those who loved her the trial is both a promise that the terrible time of uncertainty about what exactly happened that fateful night at Pistorius' house will finally come to an end, as well as the hope to find closure in a loss that one way or the other will stay with them for the rest of their lives. It will be a troubling time of battling emotions, and the press will take any chance to show a crying mother or a bereaved friend. That Reeva was killed is no news to them anymore. It has been reported numerous times now and fails to capture the imagination of editors who want new points of interest to catch their readers and viewers. And while to the family and friends of Reeva Steenkamp the trial will be all about her, the burning pain of having lost her and the love they forever hold for her, others will see it only as a chance to get headlines and news stories to serve a never ending hunger. It is, sadly, the way the media world works.

And yet – thinking of Reeva Steenkamp and the compassion she held for others, the hope goes out that just this time the media will tread softly and value the pain over a loss that to this day for many cannot be understood. They want this trial to happen, yes. But they don't want the frenzy that will go with it. For the family and friends this trial is about truth, about knowledge and about justice served for a woman whose smile and heart went out to so many and could have still done so much good, had her life not been cut short.

Those who loved her will do so long after the trial is over and the flashlights have found new objects of interest. Getting through it is a tribulation they endure for her and for her only. The intimacy of grief they still posses to this day is theirs, and it gives way to a vulnerability that should never be exploited. The world and the media must respect this at all costs and thus honour the legacy of Reeva Steenkamp.

The woman who showed compassion for Anene Booysen while others only wanted to see glamour deserves nothing less.

It takes all kinds to make a world

As short as the New Year is, I nevertheless already got a huge overdose of racist and misogynistic slurs on social media. And I keep wondering, why is it that people are so afraid of others being different? What scares them so that they would resort to vile attacks, vicious insults and overall defaming of what they consider to be – not in line, not according to their way of living, not being identical with what they think they themselves are? Why is 'different' so scary and needs to be fought so hard against?

The great Austrian painter Gustav Klimt created a masterpiece in 1907 when he finished his famous "Flower Garden". In looking at this painting I have always marvelled at the diversity of flowers that he strew across the green grass. The painting is full of life and beauty where flowers of different kind and colour come in abundance and where diversity is the name of the game.

How often have I wondered how we would look at that painting and what we would think of it if he had left out the splendour of different colours and just gave us a plain green meadow to look at? I doubt we would have been equally pleased. What makes his painting so enchanting – and is in fact the true thrill we feel when seeing such places in real life – is the multiple choices we have of picking colours with our eyes. Yes, we plainly love that there are so many different flowers to be seen and we would be dulled if this was not so.

Why then do we react differently to people than we do to flowers in a garden? While we treasure the diversity in nature, many are plain scared when it comes to the diversity of people, of race, culture, gender, sexual orientation or religion. But is this not too just the richness nature has to offer? Why then feel scared when you can be enchanted? Would a Daffodil be afraid of a Daisy because it's colours are different?

The little brown boy became my friend

When I was a young boy, there was a time when we lived in a little village on the outskirts of a small German town. In the primary school of the village 20 puffed-faced little kids sat in my class and tried to learn the alphabet, knowing nothing yet about the diversity of the world. Most of my classmates were farmer's kids. We made mischief in the barn, rolled around in the straw or – much to the dismay of their fathers – played hide and seek in the corn fields. We couldn't read papers yet and on television we only got to see children's programs. We were a closed little community of know-nots and happy in our childish ignorance.

One day in the second grade – I was seven years old – the door of our classroom opened and our teacher came in with a little, slim boy. He was brown in skin colour, had black hair and dark eyes and twenty white-faced, puffed up little kids stared at him in amazement. They had never seen anything like him in real life. Our teacher told us, the boy came from India and his father was sent to work in the town nearby. From now on he would be our classmate and we should be kind to him and make friends. Twenty stunned kids looked back at her blank.

"Who would like to sit next to him?", our teacher asked, and you could have heard a pin drop. No one stirred. Only my hand shot up, almost reaching the ceiling. "I would", I shouted almost a bit too exited as I could see the scared look on the face of the brown boy, not understanding what was going on but feeling intimidated by the stares of his new classmates. I wanted this boy. I wanted him to be my friend, I so knew it. He was different! He didn't look like us! He was full of adventures! We would have great fun, I was sure of that!

Since no one else stirred, the decision wasn't hard to take, and a minute later the little brown boy with his black hair and dark eyes shyly squeezed into the bench next to me and hardly dared to move. I shared my books with him and my pencils, he nodded thankfully, not being able to speak the language – but before the day was out we both were proud of our achievements. Who needs language when you are a kid, when you've got hands and feet, when you can draw and paint in the air, when you are willing to look and learn and listen to the sound of a voice that teaches you much about the heart behind it? It took us weeks to communicate in broken German, but until then we had long made friends.

None of the others in the class showed interest. And while they kept their friendship with me, they did not interact with him, as if they couldn't make heads and tails of what he was about. I did. He was about difference in colour and language, in the form of living and food (I loved his mom's different cooking!), about religion and Gods. And I remember how much I enjoyed playing over at his house full of mysterious paintings and figurines, how kind his mother was to me, how she catered for both of us equally as if we were brothers. I never ever felt alien when being with them, and in all differences that could be seen, the friendship we had was a wonderful bond no one could destroy. The summer was heaven, and it soon turned out that he was obviously from a good family, well educated and – as I have to admit – much more well-mannered and behaved than me. We made a funny pair, we two, and never noticed the world around us or the stares of the others when we were together. No difference in colour made any difference to us. To us we were one and enriched each other with the cultural backgrounds we made the other come to know.

When the year was out, his mother told us one afternoon that his father had been called to go to London to work there and for this reason they would have to move yet again. My friend and I just looked at each other and couldn't believe this. And when they left, it broke our hearts, and I was returned into the world of twenty white-faced look-alike kids not bothering about other worlds to explore. But my friend and all the adventures he brought into my life because he was different, I could never forget.

The richness of Africa

Two years later it was my mother who told me that my father now was being sent to South Africa and we would move there. And so before I knew it, barely eleven years old, I once again entered the world of differences and came to live in a country that could not be fuller of diversity. It was still the times of apartheid, and the maltreatment of blacks could be encountered everywhere. But to me this seemed no obstacle that could deter me. The blacks I came across were different to the brown boy I had been friends with. They looked different, they dressed different, the spoke a different language and had a totally different culture. For anyone out to explore new worlds and make new friends, as I was once more determined to do, this was paradise.

I remember a class trip we took when I was twelve, when we drove hundreds of kilometres to plunge into the vast, majestic landscape of Zululand that was dazzling to the eye. In a very small village, barely comprised of more than a few huts and a small church with an adjacent little building, practically in the middle of nowhere, we were shown how the women of the village learned to work with sewing machines to make an easier living. Our teacher, who had organised the trip and was fluent in Zulu, asked the lady in charge if the women could sing something for us. And before we knew it, the women got up from their places, gathered at one side of the little hall and without any hesitation started to sing a-cappella the songs they sang in their kraal. It blew my mind away. The intensity of their voices, the volume, the harmonies I had never heard before - all this was so strong that I felt it tore down the walls and barriers around us, flinging the window panes out into the valley below and allowing these amazing voices to fly out into the vastness and grandeur of Zululand, filling the space easily as if it was nothing. There was such an unbelievable richness in what I encountered, I could never after that understand how anyone in his right mind in that country could not see what treasures they had with the diversity of the cultures. Where they only saw black and white, I saw colour. And to this day, decades later, when I travel through South Africa and see the treasures of it's nature, I hear the amazing voices of those simple clad women, beaming with shy pride to show us what they knew to do so well. And the volume of their singing opens up the sky above the majestic Drakensberg mountains telling us there are no barriers for voices that are free.

South Africa had plenty to explore for me, as there were more than 50 peoples living there with different backgrounds, beliefs, customs and languages. They had different ways to build their houses, used different motives to paint their walls, they dressed in different ways and practiced different rituals. For anyone seeing the richness, this country was overflowing with it to make you dizzy. And then there were of course the neighbouring countries to visit, with yet again different peoples - Botswana and Zimbabwe, the wonderfully friendly locals of Malawi and the once again different looking inhabitants of Mozambique. Later I moved to Namibia and met with the proud Hereros and clever Bushmen, again so much different to what I had encountered in South Africa. And on visits to Kenya I learned about even more tribes and peoples and cultures and rituals. Africa, it seemed, was just endless in being different and wonderfully enchanting, like the rich flower garden Klimt presented us with in his painting.

The barriers are gone

Many years later, when we came to live in Cairo, I again was confronted with differences. I learned that there was not the Egyptian, but that there were people from Upper and Middle and Lower Egypt, diverse and enriching the country. And I also learned that there was not the Arab, as Arabs from all parts of the Middle East travelled to Egypt to mingle in what was deemed a more free atmosphere in Cairo. And hardly one was alike, coming from different nations with different backgrounds. Diversity never came to an end. It was as if someone had offered me a huge silver platter piled up high with fruits of all forms and sizes, in red and pink and yellow and green. One as enticing as the next and never of the same taste. If that is not richness, what is?

When I travelled across America, there was yet more diversity to explore. And once again, with the many different cultures of the Native Americans, I saw the treasures of a country that so many simply wanted to ignore, shying away from embracing the 'otherness' and not understanding what jewels of different inspirations and customs were offered to them freely to have and to hold, to learn from and to be enriched by. I have never seen anything scary in 'otherness' and never felt anything bad in people being different. On the contrary. My life could not have been richer to this day than it has been with so many encounters with people and peoples being different to me. The era of internet and modern communication after all teaches us how silly it is to build borders and walls, especially if it's in our hearts. And when once, after having spent four weeks on Aruba, a dark skinned local lady we had befriended looked at my almost equally dark tanned arm and said in joyful surprise: "You're one of us!" - she couldn't have paid me a nicer compliment. She meant much more than just my tan. I was still me. But the barriers were gone.

Don't be afraid

Some say, I have been privileged and blessed with such a rich life so far. And of course they are right. Yet I think about the twenty white-faced kids back then in that little village school and know, they all could have grabbed the treasure when it was offered to them. Because they turned away and I did not, I was blessed with the friendship of that little brown looking boy. Often these days I think of him and wonder if he still remembers his little white friend. At first of course we were shy, and when we looked into books together we couldn't help notice that his arm on the table was brown and mine next to it was white. But as unusual as this was for us kids at that time, the colour never made a difference but for the excitement that there was something different there to be explored. Would we still be able to talk today as adults? Could I discuss with him the perils of modern India, where women are still subjected to horrific abuses just for being 'different' to men? Knowing that he too was confronted at an early age with diversity, I would want to believe I could. While our arms were of a different colour, our hearts definitely were not. We had become friends. Despite the differences.

To those, afraid of anything different, I can only say: don't. Don't be afraid to tackle something new, don't be afraid to learn about other peoples ways, their customs, their beliefs. The diversity we enjoy in the painting of Klimt is the richness of our world. We could go out there forever learning and listening and discussing, and not a dull moment in sight. Why anyone would not want that, why anyone would prefer the look-think-talk-alike version of life, is beyond me. There are treasures out there to be found, if only we are willing to take the risk. But taking it will enrich us in a way we could never imagine. After all, it takes all kinds to make a world. And in the end, at least for me, thinking about my Indian friend and the many other friends of different colours and races I later made, the truth is really pure and simple: If everyone on this earth would be like me, I'd be bored to death.