On our first day of garden touring in Johannesburg, we travel to a shopping mall in the affluent suburb of Sandton for lunch.  On the way, we pass the home of the late Nelson Mandela, who died here  surrounded by family on December 5, 2013, at the age of 95.

It is a remarkable thing that this man, who fought so hard against the apartheid government and endured more than 27 years in prison, much of it doing hard labour, would ultimately triumph and become South Africa’s first black prime minister, enjoying the adulation of people of all colour and bringing the nation together in a spirit of reconciliation.  He was never forgotten by his supporters in those prison years; on the contrary, they pushed hard for him to be released, a movement that grew stronger as apartheid weakened. I loved this song by exiled South African musician Hugh Masekela, sung to a cheering crowd in Zimbabwe in 1987 during Paul Simon’s controversial  Graceland concert tour.

Nelson Mandela’s name would come up often on our two-week tour. We would hear it as we gazed out the bus window at “Mandela’s houses” – more properly RDP or Reconstruction and Development Project houses – lined up like dominoes all over the country.  It was his desire and the official policy of the ANC government to put roofs over the heads of all South Africans.  More than 1.4 million homes have been built under the plan, but many millions more still live in shanty towns, and the nation continues to struggle with illegal immigration from poor African countries on its borders.

We would see him smiling from the windows of the civic building in Cape Town.

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And now, at an outdoor table of a restaurant overlooking Nelson Mandela Square at the Sandton City mall, as I tuck into a delicious and rather ornate-looking lunch of prawn salad…..

….I see his likeness in a 10-metre tall bronze statue,installed in 2004,

The statue attracts wave after wave of shoppers and business people, kids and old folks, tourists in safari gear and women in burqas, all wanting to have their photo snapped posing against his massive bronze legs. Something about this parade of people makes me put down my fork and pick up my telephoto lens.  And as I watch them take their turn, I feel tears coming to my eyes. It might just be molten bronze, but the man left a long, indelible shadow over this country and changed it forever. He has gone, but his legacy lives on in the rainbow nation he left behind.

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”  Nelson Mandela