South Africans are famous for many things. We make mountains out of molehills. And we are great at ignoring important stuff. We live with shocking figures when it comes to murder and rape statistics; turn a blind eye to corruption and crime; and hide behind the high walls of survival.
Our national animal should be the humble mole, who hides below the surface, digging blindly to…nowhere.
This morning while walking on the beach, a little mound of sand caught my eye…
The last photograph is blurred (sorry!). Moles are shy and extremely reluctant to be photographed. They hate being seen in the open, and usually disappear quickly when they see strangers near their homes. They don’t like surprises, you see?
So they live solitary lives, avoiding the dangers lurking outside their warm and cosy and dark tunnels. They prefer to let the outside world take care of itself while they live in the dark.
Like I said: the perfect national symbol for a society struggling to get the right perspective on what the word ‘normal’ means… Surely it can’t just be a setting on the program of the washing machine?
Rolbos © 
This is so cute! 🙂
This is the first mole I ever saw…was lucky to have the camera there. Thanks, Huggs!
how dare you sneak around my yard!?!!! hahahahaha!! I live in a different hemisphere and halfway across the world from you yet i SWEAR Florida and South Africa are SO identical it is uncanny!!
i even did a holey moley post on my blog one winter….however i didn’t catch the little b*stard redhanded like you did!!! What an amazing thing!! What time of day did you see him?
I was amazed to see the little critter! It was at about 9 am, exactly when he should have been dozing off the night’s fatigue. Obviously this one has ambition and is aiming at the presidency. Or kingship. Or whatever moles become when they impress the others. I went back, but I suppose he’s gone back to being a normal mole now: lazing the days away in the knowledge that (in Africa) diligence isn’t a virtue!.
Baie geluk! Dis nie maklik om net op die regte tyd met die kamera daar gereed te wees nie!
So cute! I never knew they dig through sand too! thanks for sharing.
Baie goeie vergelyking! Jy het beslis n besonderse oomblik vas gepen in beeld!
Amos… great comparison. I think there are moles all over our world. Popping heads! Burying secrets! Digging holes for bodies! Lying! Passing bucks and so much more! Most of it done behind dark doors or in the pitch black of night. OK, now that we agree on that, I have spent years trying to figure what “normal” is in a variety of situations. I have come to believe that it is an ever evolving notion floating through humanity like jelly fish in salt water.
Well said my friend!
Indeed!
So true, Harold. We both agree: being normal is abnormal. So you and I will keep on storming windmills – you’ll take the photographs and I’ll write about them.
Sounds like a hell of a deal Amos.
Great shots and Very apt analogy.
Thank you!
Wow Amos, I appreciate the way you speak so frankly about living like a mole. Isn’t that the tragedy of us a humanity? We all find it safer to be cocooned in what we think are our own little bubbles … when in all reality your home is my home and your people are my people because WE are all citizens of earth. Great pictures. Great story. You’re really an excellent writer. Love, Sheri
Thanks, Sheri. Yes, in Africa they use the word ubuntu: meaning I can only be ok if you are. There’s great wisdom in that…
I love that! That’s my new word! Ubuntu!
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They may live underground, but have an opinion on everything happening outside their little world. Think that their opinion is the only correct one.
I love this comment! Thanks, Lidia!
Extremely appropriate.
Thank you…
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