SISONKE
Like a high-pressure hose slashing wildly on a front lawn, the trail twists and turns its way across the face of a grassy hill. From a distance, it’s a single dirt vein on the earth, alive and beating. We see single word—the name of this trail—carved into a weathered piece of wood and mounted to a stake. Sisonke. It's Fanie’s Xhosa name.
Hylly built this trail, teasing it from the earth’s cradle like a splinter from a thumb. Using the hill’s cloaked, natural contours and form, he scratched respectfully at it with shovels and mattocks until it was revealed to world.
“For me,” says Hylly, “It’s [about] not disturbing too much of the land around you and working with what is there, because ultimately, that gives you the best trail. You can't recreate that natural flow that the mountain already has.”
The name, Sisonke—what does it mean?
“I sometimes think of the character of the trail,” he says. “And somebody will come into my mind. This trail, I was thinking of a name and then it just popped into my mind and I knew straight away—it had to be ‘cause it definitely describes Fanie.”
“I sometimes think of the character of the trail,” he says. “And somebody will come into my mind. This trail, I was thinking of a name and then it just popped into my mind and I knew straight away—it had to be ‘cause it definitely describes Fanie.”
“My name,” says Fanie, explaining the Xhosa word, “means ‘we are together.’ It’s like when you say to somebody, 'are you all right or are we good?' It basically means 'OK, now everything's fine, everything's cool, we're on the same page.' We are together.”
This moment, these guys, this trail—it all falls into place.