‘Angels in the Dust’
Published 4:47 pm Thursday, September 27, 2007
“Angels in the Dust” is a story of hope and healing in the face of a staggering crisis. AIDS is leaving entire South African villages devastated and thousands of children orphaned. The movie tells the inspiring story of Marion Cloete, a therapist who — with her husband and three daughters — walked away from a privileged life in a wealthy Johannesburg suburb to build Botshabelo, an extraordinary village and school that provides shelter, food and education to more than 550 South African children.
“Angels in the Dust” is the true story of Cloete and the orphans she cares for. The stories of the children are interwoven with the dramatic parallel saga of the orphaned elephants of Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. The longtime government practice of culling — brutally killing adult elephants to control herd sizes — has torn apart the complex social fabric of elephant culture, a fabric that is not unlike that of the traditionally close-knit African village before apartheid. Because the elephant society has been torn apart by culling, orphaned elephants have grown up exhibiting unusually violent behavior. In the last few years, elder female elephants have been re-introduced into the Pilanesberg population in the hopes of resocializing the young. The experiment is working — and it offers a resonant reflection of the healing taking place for the human children being “reparented” by Marion Cloethe at Botshabelo.
The documentary opens today at the Varsity.
