December is the month when we all get beaten over the head with symbolism, cloying Christmassy stuff. Hidden most of the time, but there at short recall on the internet, is even more of it — the origins of the 25th’s and year-end festivities in European seasonal rites. Then there is the Rainbow Nation mythologising — the Day of the Vow become Reconciliation Day. But for one platteland couple this December symbolism was even harder to avoid as a near calamitous event took them back to the roots of their personal history, and that of the country. Santa van Bart, with her Decembery name, thought she was going to die on the 16th when a freak wind blew down the gigantic tent hosting President Jacob Zuma and 6,000 others in Gopane near Zeerust in North West. She was there as the conductor of a marimba band of local children, but the organisers of the event misread her artist’s accreditation as a VIP one, and plonked her down right at the president’s feet on a chair with frilled cushion an...
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