Ramaphosa’s road to power, cattle and trout fishing

Itravelled to the place where the sun rises this week with a colleague – a sharpshooter who’s just as sharp with her tongue as her fingers are with the camera.

She beguiles me with endless stories told with animation that I observe through the corner of my left eye. She makes me forget about the almost eight hours round-trip that we are making to Mbombela.

I don’t even notice the static on the radio as we transcend frequency boundaries and meander our way into Mpumalanga on a cloudy day with the pitter patter of rain on the windscreen, and as a thick canopy of mist teases our view of rolling hills and the lush vegetation.

On those brief moments when my colleague is lost in her own thoughts or clicking away with the window half down – and I’m able to take a breather from laughing out loud as I think of our No 1 citizen.

He has been on my mind as he has been on yours, what with the Phala Phala scandal and the embarrassing power blackouts.

But it is not Phala Phala that amuses me on this particular day, it is the other farm – or one of the other farms, who knows – situated in this spectacular province that we are visiting.

Writing in the biography titled Cyril Ramaphosa, Anthony Butler paints a vivid picture of the president’s farm situated at the foot of the Hlumuhlumu mountains.

The book was penned during the period when Ramaphosa had left active politics and was focused on his business empire after Thabo Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela as ANC president.

It has been revised and updated three times since it was first published in 2007 to keep abreast with Ramaphosa’s political manoeuvrings.

The third edition was fully revised, extended and renamed Cyril Ramaphosa: The Road to Presidential Power and it was published after he became president of South Africa.

I refer to the first edition and Butler writes: “… He spends most Sundays and Mondays at the family’s substantial farm at the foot of Mpumalanga’s Hlumuhlumu mountains … where he indulges in his favourite pastime of trout fishing on his own lake and with his own boathouse.

“He loves to invite friends to stay on the farm and to explain to them the finer points of fly-fishing: the art of seduction, the need for patience and the futility of using force when fishing.

“The farm boasts a herd of Kenyan Boran cows … in addition there is a herd of Ugandan Ankole cattle, bought from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, which is Ramaphosa’s pride and joy.”

Forget about his pride and joy; my mind was still on the private lake when my colleague started talking again …