• They say Africa has a heartbeat of it's own. It is in everything on the continent and doesn't have a fixed rhythm. All you have to do is listen. Some people hear it instantly, the first time they come here, the first time they listen. Other people wait years, or even a life time to hear it. Being one of the latter, I know its because those people are to busy listening to other inconsequential things, that they can't hear or identify Africa's heartbeat. As I am sitting here on a small hill on my brother's farm, I hear it for the first time...

    My parents moved from Britain to Africa when I was seven. My brother, Richard, was fifteen. Although we looked as if we could be twins, we couldn't be more different. In a sense he belonged here, in Africa. I always felt like an imposter.
    The year I turned sixteen my parents died in a car accident. I hated this place. I believed that if we were in a country with proper roads and good hospitals, they still would be alive. Richard inherited our father's game lodge, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the conservation of the animals, especially cheetahs. He never once wondered if there was more to life than feeding the cubs every two hours, and every other hour taking tourists for game drives and entertaining people that gawked and couldn't get enough of what I saw every day. I lived with my brother and his fiancee, hoping for a miracle to get me out of this hell.
    A year later Richard got shot while he accompanied the police to arrest game-thieves in possession of a lioness of his. He got caught in the crossfire. He didn't die, but when I visited him in the hospital, I hated him. I hated him for making me feel inadequate, vulnerable, inferior. He heard Africa's heartbeat. He belonged here.
    When I turned twenty-one I found out that my father had an empire of resorts, hotels and lodges all over the world. Everything was sold after his death, except for Richard's lodge and a hotel on Miami Beach. Richard wanted to go into a joint partnership, both of us having fifty percent ownership in both the lodge and the hotel. I said no. There was no way I was going to keep ties with my past, I wanted to get as far away as possible. I claimed the hotel as my rightful inheritance and moved to Miami. I knew I was driving a stake through my brother's heart as he silently looked on.
    For eight years I lived the American dream: Parties, money, girls, alcohol, more parties. For eight years I got an e-mail from Richard every month. I never replied. One night when I was in a state of depression because my latest girlfriend walked out on me and my head hurt too much from the previous day's drinking to even contemplate a party, I had an inclination to go on an interactive game on the internet that I knew my brother played, well, eight years ago. It was a shot in the dark. To my utter surprise I found him. We started chatting. He didn't know who I was since I used an alias. Sitting there in the dark talking to Richard on a game for the first time in eight years, gave me the most profound longing and desire to see my brother again.
    I showed up on his doorstep a week later. For a dreadful moment I was sure that he would be angry and chase me away. He didn't. He shocked me by greeting me as if nothing bad had ever happened between us. He was eight years older since the last time I had seen him; his face looked more mature, rather than the reckless young man that would thoughtlessly confront the whole world. But his indigo eyes still held a youthful vitality in them and life that I didn't know existed. And something else. I know now that what I saw was unconditional brotherly love.
    “Bloody hell, James! Is that you?”
    His laugh rolled off the surrounding hills.
    He kept my room exactly as it was, even though my words was eight years ago “Don't bother keeping my things, I wont be coming back.”

    Richard and I are sitting on a small hill just behind the house now. Just listening. I went away from here to escape my anger and pain. I came back here for the same reason. With Richard's guidance I now see the world through his eyes. I know by truly opening my eyes I and seeing the beauty of the world I can escape the darkness within. Richard showed me what a real brother's heart is like by never giving up on me. He taught me how to listen.