Ashley Oosthuizen, Suid-Afrikaner wat tans tronkstraf in Thailand uitdien, sê in ‘n hartroerende brief op haar verjaardag dat sy hoop dié is haar laaste verjaardag agter tralies.
A Voice for Ashley Oosthuizen, ‘n blad wat ter ondersteuning vir Oosthuizen, vriende en familie begin is, het die brief op sosiale media gedeel.
Letter from Ashley
What is in a color? Well, that depends on whom you ask. The meticulous eye of the artist will yield much more than the simple observation of a child and still differ from the detailed description of the scientist, yet none of them would be wrong. As for me, I’ll leave my person unlabeled and my answer unreserved. For when our Creator took from His rainbow palette to start coloring the world, He certainly picked yellow for the most delightful things!
Hello denotes a new beginning: after the darker red and oranges have had there share of sky, just before the big blue comes to take its fill, we’ll see the happy hues of yellow blessing the new day. To me, yellow in its best shade, is the mustard colored scarf my mom brought me from North Africa and that’s travelled with me everywhere since. And so I travel, near and far, and again I find yellow in my anticipation as we make our way to Cape Town, keeping a lookout for the canola fields.
It’s the color of my favorite fruits and the fruit itself seems to be very pleased by it, because its very shape is that of a smile! And I too smile, like the little girl I was, sitting next to my dad and tasting a banana milkshake for the first time; I felt it such an oddity- not to like the usual brown or pink like my older siblings – but oh, what a flavor! I commend your versatility, lovely fruit, that you are. For till this day you remain the key ingredient in my most tasty treats. Everything from healthy energy – to boosting snacks and those little yoghurt cups; to freshly baked homemade banana bread with butter melting on top; all the way to the “best pancakes” found on Koh Samui (as every vendor at the Night Market proudly states).
Yellow is my favorite flower: the sunflower. Her thick stem grows resolutely from the Earth’s soil, straight upwards. She always chooses to look at the bright side, with her head ever turned to the sun, seeking its nourishment. And when the darkness of night comes, she does not falter or close up, for she knows that the light will soon be here again. And thus she stays – firmly planted with her head held high – until the day she dies.
It’s the color pencil I chose as a child to draw my hair. It was me, wearing the only yellow dress in a sea of red at my first High-school Valentine’s dance. It was the color paint of the kitchen wall at the very first home I chose for myself abroad. And it is my birthday years later, as people known and unknown to me put on my color: Yellow. The color that unites us in hope.
Yellow are all the lemons life keeps throwing at me and yellow will be the delicious lemonade I’m lugubriously making in my confinement for us to drink on the day we celebrate my home coming. Thank you for each one of you: every message, prayer and all the support.
“Third time’s a charm!” I say to myself as I blow out imagining candles, “may this be my last birthday behind bars…”
With love,
Ashley.
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