By Britta Zawada.
We give tribute to our fellow-student and friend, Derrick Griffiths, who passed away since our last Bushveld Mosaic weekend together because of COVID-19.
Derrick joined the Bushveld Mosaic course out of an interest based on his profession as an evaluator of game and wildlife properties. It was clear very early on that he was the one who already had a lot of knowledge that he could draw on for most of the topics and was going to be asking the lecturer’s the difficult questions! Derrick joined the course with his daughter Megan, and we were privileged to form part of the setting of their special father-daughter interactions.
Little did we know that these would be some of last memories we have of him. Fire and braai master par excellence, Derrick always delayed his own braai until everyone else had finished theirs. At Borakalalo he was regularly found on his camp stool far away from everything and everyone, enjoying the moon rising and the African night. The red water bottle that accompanied him almost everywhere, and was an absolute must at our regular evening tests, definitely contained water! But the most profound challenge to a lecturer’s assessment on the uses of grass, resulted in the mantra for this group of students, which will remain with us forever: And the answer to Question 1 is? WHISKEY!
Goodbye, Derrick, you will be remembered…
Thank you, Alta, Lodewikus, and Peter, for your tribute around our campfire and for the special toast to Derrick. It was a special moment, and we are sure that he was there with us and will be for the remainder of the course.