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On Sunday morning, I woke early to catch a flight at dawn to East London, in the Eastern Cape, where the great Clements Kadalie, the first black trade union activist in South Africa (and my wife's great-grandfather), lived out his life after his career in organizing came to an end. He is buried there, in the Cambridge Cemetery, and I wanted to visit his grave and pay my respects.

I did not know exactly where his grave was, but thanks to photos posted in recent years to Facebook by other people, including the local municipal government -- which held a ceremony there last year with the president of Malawi, where Kadalie was from -- I had some visual and geographic clues.

On my way to the cemetery, I stopped in the center of the city to visit the statue of Steve Biko, the founder of the Black Consciousness movement, who was killed by apartheid police. East London was his hometown, as it was for many intellectual leaders of the struggle.

After driving around the cemetery alone in a drizzling rain -- the Eastern Cape and Western Cape had dramatically different weather yesterday -- I found the area where I believed his grave was likely to be. As I stepped out of my car, I felt Kadalie's presence. I knew I would find his grave. And soon, among the overgrown grasses -- there it was. The rain ceased, and the sky grew lighter.

After saying a prayer, and reflecting on the life of the great man, I left and drove down to the coast, where I walked along a beach for half an hour. East London is a gritty port city, where the poverty of the townships is grinding, and the roads are full of potholes. But like much of the Eastern Cape, it is known for its magnificent beaches, and I enjoyed a stroll, watching the wild waves of the Indian Ocean underneath overcast skies, and collecting some seashells.

I returned to the King Phalo Airport and boarded a flight back to Cape Town. I was one of the only white people aboard; evidently many black people with the means to do so are choosing to fly back and forth between the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape rather than taking the dangerous long-distance taxis.

I joined family for a hike through the Kirstenbosch National Gardens on a scorching yet beautiful afternoon. There is nothing quite like the glory of the gardens, which nestle up against the windward side of Table Montain, beneath a formation called Table Rock. We explored a new walkway that rises through the treetops, and the familiar site of Colonel Bird's Bath, a brick pool that is more than 200 years old and is fed by a natural spring from within the mountain. As evening settled, a crowd gathered on the lawn for an outdoor movie -- an innovation in the era of COVID that may also become a cherished tradition.