The day I flew towards the sunrise.

Sunny Daze: Sunrise from the Settler's Monument, Grahamstown.
Picture: Sarita Pillay


By Sarita Pillay

Arms outstretched, with a blanket draped over my shoulders like a pair of wings, I flapped my way towards the sun over the distant hills.
I hadn’t done this before.

It must have been at about 4.45am, when, in a half-asleep state, we decided that we would trek to the monument to watch the sunrise. After a failed night on the town, the successful invasion of our friend’s digs, playing Nintendo Wii until our arms hurt and watching The Wedding Singer with one eye open, it seemed the logical way to end a night that had fast turned into a morning. Every Rhodent has heard about the sunrise from the monument, the perfect end to an all-nighter, and this was my chance to experience it.

We would have struck any person as any unusual bunch, two girls and three guys; one black, one white (but actually Croatian-Indian), one Taiwanese, one coloured and one Indian (but actually half Mexican). We reached the top of the hill on which the Monument is perched and bundled out of the car with our blankets. A few other die-hards had parked their cars already hippie-like music, the loud strums of a guitar and melancholic lyrics drifted through the otherwise still air. As soon as we stepped out of the car, it was as if a mixture of awe, thoughtfulness and exhaustion had come over all of us at once. Drifting off in our own directions, finding a spot we thought best to view the growing orange glow behind the hill and taking in the view of the town that had almost become home. Grahamstown was eerily still, from the leafy suburb of Oatlands to the narrow streets of Joza. Between thoughts and hippie-songs the sun emerged, gathering speed as the orange hue changed to an almost blinding bright yellowish white.
That moment of the sun emerging – that moment felt as if everything in the world had paused for a second of pure perfection.

Arms outstretched, with a blanket draped over my shoulders like a pair of wings, I flapped my way towards the peeping sun over the distant hills. My friends laughed. I laughed. I had watched the sunrise over the monument and, in my sleep deprived state, I had decided it wouldn’t hurt to try and fly.