African Smiles

Home of the hundred-mile smile. That was the name of a portrait I found painted by Stephen Bennett. It was a glorious painting, quite captivating. A young woman from Botswana, her skin luxuriously dark, smiles disarmingly at the photographer who captures her. Mr Bennett has super-imposed streaks of colour over her, not disguising her but enhancing her. Every shadow ripples with colour. Her smile hardly seems static, her eyes are alive.

The moment I saw the painting, I knew that it symbolised home for me. Although the smiling woman in the painting was from Botswana and I am from South Africa, her face struck me. When I think of people smiling in South Africa, I think of them smiling like that woman. Where their eyes light up, creasing, and the smile seems to come from their very soul.

I recall stopping at an intersection in Johannesburg recently. Unemployment is rife in South Africa and this has given birth to an extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit. You can buy anything at the robots (traffic lights)