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Foreword...
In a truly beautiful, blessed land - the land of "Far-Far-Away"; deep within
the jungles, surrounded by warm brilliant blue oceans and sandy beaches,
in a valley time seems to have purposely overlooked, there is a
special place where hummingbirds never leave, flowers always bloom,
spring (and it's moderate climate) never dies, bananas, papayas,
pineapples and mangos abound, crystal clear fresh waters cascade down
awesome mountains over craggy cliffs into turquoise swimming pools
surrounded by large warm smooth rocks, their effervescent cascading waters
often hiding rocky caves. There, with beautiful multi-colored birds sing sweetly
from the surrounding trees and large metallic-blue and other
multicolored butterflies flutter all around ... lives the heroine
of this fairy-tale ... "Africa's Snow-white", now well into her 50's
and, as you can see, aging gracefully. |
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But that's not how this story starts - that's how
it ends, for just as in the original fairy-tale, this beautiful
and welcome happy ending may well not have happened at all if dark
malevolent forces had prevailed - as very nearly happens in both
stories! For now though, let's journey back to a distant land and
time, to the very beginning of this
fairy-tale ...
"Once upon a time, in another land far
far away, there was a
beautiful young woman, the daughter of a company president,
who, whilst spending her summer holiday by the sea, met and fell in love with a physician's son. For both it
was a case of "Love at first sight" - but they were only 16. Quite naturally (but
rather naively) they expected that everyone would be happy for them and
would gladly support their genuine love for each other. But sadly they were mistaken,
for there
were those that did, that were happy for them, and then there were
those that were not amused at all, working to annihilate
this young love by imposing their own choices, dreams and ideals,
their proud iron willed way ... at any price!"
Well, that's the way this love story really does
start. You see, it really did all happen a "long long time ago", and "in
a land far far away" - in fact about as far away as you can get from here, or even
from most places actually, for our story starts at the southern-most tip of
the untamed continent - Africa. For now though, while those loving feelings (the
most wonderful feelings imaginable) are still warm, and the
memories of them have not slowly faded away, this story needs
telling, before it is too late. Many couples have
been given this special gift, and many others wait to receive this most
precious loving gift - the wondrous gift of "True Love",
but for some of them, just like for Helen and Paris, those that would seek
to destroy their love will suddenly appear on the horizon in
their arrogant
ships, and the two sweethearts will be forced to retreat behind the
seemingly safe walls of
their
own "Troy" - and the relentless siege seeking to destroy
love, will begin! So too it was for
them.
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Introducing the two young lovers, and setting the
scene ...
A
most beguiling of young beauties (born in 1957) - the privileged daughter of a
local captain
of colonial industry, being raised amongst
the sunny mountain valleys of those intoxicatingly beautiful
wine-lands in what Sir Frances Drake called "The fairest cape of them all"
... Cape Town, South Africa.
A privileged Doctor's son (born
in
1956) and raised in a remote corner of Africa called the "Transkei"
- backed up
between the majestic peaks of the Drakensberg (Dragon's)
mountains, and the warm Indian ocean (Nelson Mandela's
boyhood home too) who at age 8 was sent from home to be made tough and to
be educated as an
English gentleman, to one of the finest
Private English boarding schools in the dying days of colonial
Africa who, when he was 16, got to answer a rhetorical
question: "Choose between Wealth, Power or Love" -
and decided that "Love" was the most promising choice. 
Imagine
...
These two sweethearts are only 16, they meet in a place
and in a way that most people dream about (but never quite expect to
come true) - and to make it all seem just that
much more like a truly beautiful dream, they meet in a
seemingly un-planned way and during a summer vacation, at Christmas-time
(in the S. Hemisphere) and in a most exquisitely romantic Fairy-Tale
setting -
in the "Wilderness national park" - which just so
happens to also be Southern Africa's favorite idyllic
paradise for sweethearts and honeymooners. So what do you think happens next? Well
you could easily let your mind wander, and you'd probably
imagine a really lovely story as a result, but it's not the
story you are about to read since you'd never be able to
imagine all the twists and turns that this story took in
real-life, and that's not so unusual, by the way, because in
reality ... neither did they!
So it's perfectly natural to assume that these were the beginning of a rather classic love-story,
BUT
(as is sometimes the case) it was also the start of a rather strange
"real-life Fairytale" ...
Since
between the customary beginnings and much anticipated (but elusive) "Happy endings"
of most romantic fairytales, more often than not,
intriguing danger-filled stories unfold .Thus it
was for them.
Now,
many many
Christmases later, you may ask ...
Did these two young lovers end up together?
Did they get to live "happily
ever-after"?
[Click
here to start
reading this contemporary Fairytale ...]
Chronology of recent UPDATES:
(Christmas 2008:
We've only ever missed one Christmas
('74) together
since 1971. Updates include many new artistic works)
(20 & 21 February, 2009:
Some major updates, including many "hidden links", have been added
throughout this entire story)
(Easter-eve, April 2009:
As you read (or reread) this story, be on the lookout for the links to several
pertinent "mini-movies")
(3 May, 2009:
Filters preventing this website from
being viewed in CANADA are now removed, now all of Canada can view it!)
(10 May, 2009:
Filters preventing this website from
being viewed in S.Africa will be removed, so all of S.Africa can view it
too)
(3 July 2009: 3 years after leaving Canada, our move has now
become permanent. We truly loved Canada and it's people, but we were
just never left in peace. It's a BIG country, like the hearts of it's
people, but not big enough. Finally now we are free)
(To be announced: There have been some truly splendid ("humbling", actually) developments
that will serve to enshrine this story in popular folk-lore. These are
now completed, so regardless of what happens, events will proceed on a fixed schedule)
Copyright notice:
This rather unusual story has
evolved since it first appeared on the Internet in 1995 as "The Witch's daughter".
It has been updated since then and now finally has a surprise logical ending
in 2006 (though it now appears under it's current name: "Africa's Snow White").
The first half of this story was first placed on the Internet and copyrighted in 1995
(all rights reserved) and now with it's new title and
with significant additional content. Regarding it's previous incarnation
as well as it's current incarnation, paintings, photos,
text and everything contained in it are the sole property of
our family: Ian, Jennifer, Daniel and Jonathan Eloff, for it
is our family's story (some 38 years in the making) and
naturally we reserve all rights to it's current and future
use. For now though we are making parts of this story
available on the
internet, to be read by you free of charge. Enjoy it ... we
sure did! You are free to reference it by linking to it from any web-pages or websites of your
own, but not to copy any parts of it for use in any
publications - on the internet or elsewhere, even for
non-commercial or non-profit use, without that use first
being pre-approved by us. We can be reached at our Email:
Eloff@sweety.com
The ecstasy, dangers, agony and rewards
of falling in love with
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