My first visit to Bela Bela (as Warmbaths is now called) was a hurried affair. I arrived in the afternoon and only glanced at the people strolling in the streets. Ten years later, on yet another trip to Warmbaths, and I have to admit that my feelings for the small dorpie were not infatuation but genuine love — feelings that have propelled me back toward the town and into another bout of real passion.

”A person must be buried in full with all his or her [insides]. That is why we even stay away from post-mortems,” says Grace Mhawula, a member of the Traditional Healers Organisation. People who came back as ”cheeky spirits” are the ones who did not leave this world with all their organs. But these traditional views are not unanimously shared.

The apartheid system was inhumane, but some people have managed to dig very deep to find good in the dismantling of family structures.