The Bitter Olive

South Africa 1978. It is a time when draconian laws and deep-seated prejudice care little for the love and ties of family. When the colour of your skin determines where you live, who you marry and even where you sit on the bus.
This is one man’s story of a childhood that ended abruptly at the age of nine, when despite every kind of intervention, he is transplanted from his idyllic middle-class upbringing in leafy Pretoria, to the alien surroundings of the Cape Flats. Forced to leave his devasted parents, siblings, grandparents and the only life he has ever known, Ronald Samuels is adopted by a coloured family, and so begins a new chapter, one in which he will need all his stamina, resilience and grit.
But as we know, it is not what is on the outside that matters. Ronald finds his inner strength and despite the odds, discovers his purpose – finding friendship and even love in his new surroundings. Reconnecting with his family and achieving in the army give him the leverage he needs to build an exceptional career.
The purchase of a guest house situated on an olive farm in the Karoo presents Ronald with an intriguing metaphor for his life story. The first fruit of an olive tree is essentially inedible, its bitterness an effective defense mechanism. However, once the olives are cured and treated not only do they become palatable, they are considered a delicacy.
So too the child plucked from his home, who could have succumbed to bitterness and lawlessness, but instead, through the support, discipline and encouragement of others and an innate determination, became a significant contributor to society and an inspiration to those who have suffered the same unpardonable injustice wrought by the Apartheid system.