Roads around the village were blocked a few kilometres in each direction, but being a journalist with accreditation for the funeral I was able to get through to the final roadblock on the outskirts of the village.
There I stood in the blazing sun, along with many foreign and local journalists. Television cameras were set up on any vantage point to capture the story the whole world wanted.
As we waited, I started interviewing some of the people who had begun gathering to pay tribute to Tata (Father) Madiba.
Three teenage boys sauntered up to me and we started chatting. They told me they had come from Umtata and were still at school.
I was astounded when one of the boys, 18-year-old Apiwe Ndende, told me that he was only in grade three. He said he did not know what the problem was but he had failed five times. He really wanted to be a lawyer, but felt his failure rate may be a handbrake on his ambitions.
The moment of the day for me was when the hearse was in the village as a large military helicopter hovered over the burial site. What a day.
