Holding Up the Sky (17 page)

Listening to him speak in a rally of this size that had the permission of the government, it was easy to believe we were entering a new future. I had to remind myself that two weeks earlier, I had been living in a refugee camp and then attended funerals where ‘house had turned against house'–the guns were yet to be thrown into the sea. The future Mandela spoke of was still to be created and it needed to be created here in the killing fields if it was to be possible at all.

‘The ANC offers a home to all who subscribe to the principles of a free, democratic, non-racial and united South Africa. We are committed to building a single nation in our country. Our new nation will include blacks and white, Zulus and Afrikaaners, and speakers of every other language. ANC President-General Chief Luthuli said: “I personally believe that here in South Africa, with all our diversities of colour and race, we will show the world a new pattern for democracy. I think that there is a challenge to us in South Africa, to set an example for the world”.'

Looking back, it's clear that we were in the presence of the only man–Nelson Mandela–who was capable of bringing the rest of the country along with him in this audacious dream. He did it when he quietly drove into the countryside to have tea with the widow of the man who had put him into prison. He did it the day he donned the Springbok rugby jersey at the World Cup and danced to the success of the South African team. He is a man who understands both the power of forgiveness and the power of symbols and his personal integrity was strong enough to bring the rest of the nation along with him on his quest to forgive and start again. Sitting in the crowd that day, we wanted to believe that it was possible; we wanted to believe that the losses that had been suffered, and those that still awaited us all, could be forgiven. But even in the short time I had been living in Natal, I saw what it was that he was asking and hoped that it could be given. What I did not know as I sat there on the grass was that the worst was still to come.

‘We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the use of violence as a way of settling differences amongst our people.'

We did not know it, but another meeting was soon to get under way a few hours to the northwest in the heart of Zululand, also discussing what would be tolerated.

‘Great anger and violence can never build a nation', Mandela continued.

Meanwhile, the Zulu King was saying to his chiefs, ‘Whenever there was a threat to the nation, the
Amakosi
, the chiefs, acted swiftly and decisively'.

‘The apartheid regime uses this strife between us as a pretext for further oppression', said Mandela, switching from English to Zulu, his translator doing the opposite.

The Zulu King went on to denounce the behaviour of the militant youth and the action of the trade unionists, such as COSATU: ‘I want to know as your King whether you approve of these patterns of behaviour so foreign to our society. If not, what are you going to do about it?'

‘Let us now pledge ourselves to peace. Join hands all of you and raise them up for all to see', exhorted Mandela. Hands were joined across the crowd until each held the hand of another and raised them into the air.

‘Must we allow this fire to destroy the future of our children and their children's children? Do you mean to tell me that you cannot mobilise your people in your area to stop this raging fire of anarchy?' asked the King.

‘It is only the united action of you, the people that will ensure that freedom is finally achieved', Mandela said in closing.

But the King had called his chiefs to defend his kingdom and the fames began to roar. Soon, fire and ash would rain down on all of us, myself included.

AS
FEBRUARY TURNED INTO MARCH, WE ALL HOPED THINGS WOULD SETTLE. BECAUSE PETE AND ANNE WERE LEAVING LATER THAT MONTH, WE TOOK A FEW DAYS OFF AND HEADED UP TO UMFOLOZI GAME RESERVE, A FEW HOURS UP THE NORTHERN NATAL COAST. IT WAS A WELCOME BREAK FOR THE THREE OF US TO PRETEND WE WERE SIMPLY AUSSIE TOURISTS LOOKING FOR A SAFARI EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA. WE STAYED IN A SMALL THATCHED RONDAVEL IN A FENCED-OFF AREA OF THE PARK. IN THE EARLY MORNINGS AND LATE AFTERNOONS, WE PILED INTO THE CAB OF OUR BAKKIE AND DROVE THROUGH THE PARK.

I was hoping to recapture the magic of my game-viewing experiences in Zimbabwe, but this part of the world had a very different look and feel. The area was far larger, with the game more spread out. There were also violent afternoon thunderstorms each day that caused both the animals and ourselves to take cover. Each day, after the storm, we would all emerge, animals and people alike, and lift our heads to smell the wet soil, feeling invigorated and alive. Then we saw giraffe, rhino, zebra and impala nibbling on the rain-soaked grass, frisky in the coolness. Outside of the game viewing, it was wonderful to sit with friends in companionable silence waiting out the heat of the midday sun, friends who required no translation of meaning, no explanation of context. While it was thrilling to be living in the richness of another culture, I could not deny that it was also tiring.

We headed back to 'Maritzburg refreshed and ready to run the dialogue and development camp that we had postponed. In our team meeting later that day, we decided that instead of taking the group to church on the Sunday we would head out to Table Mountain. During the week, a few families had returned to the area to assess the damage and begin the process of rebuilding. We thought, given the role the girls had played in the first weekend of the crisis, they might like to see where these children had come from. We also debated the risk of taking the girls there if the situation was still unstable. Robbie had checked and apparently things were quiet–but we knew how quickly that could change and agreed that if there were any signs of trouble, we would turn around and come home.

The next afternoon, the girls arrived. The usual hesitant start to a new program was replaced by the reunion of old friends. As they sat around the wooden table on the stoep and recalled the events of that weekend, albeit through a shinier lens, I knew this weekend would be different from the others we had run. This group could start where most others finished and I wondered where the advantage would take us over the course of the workshop.

Early the next morning we set out for Sweetwaters. After leaving the bakkie and the kombi, we headed off on foot towards the creche. It was now recognisable as a building. The outer walls were fi.nished, the corrugated iron roof was on and the concrete slab was laid. The slab had been a major piece of work that we began with one of the groups and continued with Fred and some of the local men the following day, laying it in two sections. Today, we were throwing the internal mud wall that separated the main room from the kitchen and storeroom. Despite the girls' enthusiasm for the task, very little mud seemed to find its way onto the wall, with most of it being plastered onto the girls themselves.

After returning to Phezulu to wash and eat, we retired to the pit to brief them for the events of the following day. We spent some time formally debriefing the whole refugee experience, something which we had done before they left to go home on the Sunday evening of that first weekend, but which now needed to be revisited. They had been watching the papers and were outraged at how Sizwe, and Steve in particular, had been treated by the council. I took the opportunity to ask them what they would have thought if they had read those articles without having been there. The white girls grudgingly admitted they would have trusted the council's actions and their parents' responses. Many of them told stories of arguments with their parents when the headlines appeared a few days after their return from Phezulu. There was hot debate on what would happen if such things were allowed to continue, with the girls trying to defend the needs of the children and their families in an attempt to humanise the word ‘refugee'. Up until this point, the Siyahlumula girls were quiet and so I asked them for their thoughts. They explained that their experience of government had always been an unhappy one. They believed that the black community was always given leftovers and their needs were never taken into account.

This was a difficult concept for many of the white girls to take in. White South African society at the time was quite cut off from the rest of the world and in many ways they believed themselves to be protected from countries who didn't understand them and, within their borders, from communists who wanted to disrupt their way of life. With this was an abiding trust in the government and the police to take care of them, to act in their best interests. They were beginning to see that their black friends' experience had been the complete opposite. Had this been a normal weekend, the conversation could well have fractured the group, with the white kids refusing to believe that black people where deliberately kept down. They would have argued, as their parents often did, that it was a lack of initiative, a lack of discipline that caused black people to squander the opportunities given to them; and because of this difference in the mindsets of the races, separate development was better for all. This group of girls saw something different, something that allowed them to touch on the taboo of politics with a little less fear. The black girls saw the gap and spoke more freely into it. They talked of the poor quality of their schooling, police brutality and ongoing violence.

When they had had their say, in the silence that followed, we asked them if they would like to visit Maqongqo in the morning to see for themselves. I saw the hesitation in all the girls, black and white, but they agreed they wanted to try and find the children and their families, and to see for themselves what had happened.

Early the next morning, we were on our way out to Table Mountain. As we drove along the dusty roads, I suspect we were all wondering how the refugee children had made the walk alone in the dark. It took us an hour in the kombi. What must it have been like for them? We turned off the main road and headed for the chief's house. Culturally, it would be wrong to visit an area without first asking the permission of the chief. Steve and Robbie went inside the chief's kraal, a cluster of large rondavels surrounded by a low mud brick wall. This was the chief's rural home, though he also kept a house in 'Maritzburg. Robbie knew Chief Maphumulo through a political structure called Contralesa, a meeting of the Zulu chiefs who supported a democratic solution to the problems of the country. The chief also knew of Sizwe and our work with the refugees, so he was more than happy that we had come to visit and brought with us some of the young people who had offered their help.

From the chief's kraal, we made our way down to the local store. It was like a small general store in a country town, in both trade and purpose. It was a hub of the community, with information being bartered like eggs and fruit on the front stairs. We all got out of the kombi and sent the girls inside to boost the local economy. Meanwhile, Robbie had a chat with a few of the men sitting outside, while Pete, Anne and I wondered up the road to a small hillock for a better look at the area. We had seen a few burnt out houses along the road on the way in, but it was only from this hill that we could see the extent of the damage. We saw home after home in blackened ruins and approached one home only 50 metres away from where we stood to get a closer look at the destruction. As we came nearer, we realised that sticking out of what was left of the doorway was a burnt crutch. Pete saw it .first, an image that would stay with him forever, he told me many years later. We had heard of homes being burnt with the sick and elderly inside, but to see the evidence of it was horrifying. We turned back quickly in case any of the girls had followed.

As we approached the store, we saw an army truck, or kasper, coming up the hill, now only 100 metres from where the girls stood. I knew this was what Steve had feared. It was an armoured vehicle with three soldiers carrying automatic weapons sprouting from the top like flowers in a vase. It pulled to a halt next to our kombi and the sergeant climbed down from the passenger seat. Steve walked over to meet him, I suspect to keep the conversation away from the girls who now stood silently on the stairs watching. After a few minutes Steve came over and told us that the army wanted us out, saying the area was still volatile. They had questioned Steve on what business he had bringing white schoolgirls out here like this. When he told them where he was from, they recognised the organisation and told him to leave, now. In the meantime, Robbie had been given directions to where a few of the returned families were staying. However, we all agreed that it would not be wise to disobey the instruction; we didn't want to jeopardise our work in schools, which a word in the ear of a school principal could easily do. We called the girls to get back into the vehicles and headed off down the hill, taking the ring road out of the area so that the girls could at least see the valley, or what was left of it, for themselves. The kasper followed close behind.

The issue of language had come up a number of times in our team meetings. Beth was taking lessons, Steve was trying to find the time and I seemed to be picking it up as we went along. But I felt strongly that the nature of my work demanded a fl.uency in Zulu that I did not currently have. I suggested that the best way to learn was to live in the township. However, there was no space with Robbie in his home in Azalea and Themba lived in a room at the back of someone's house in Caluza.

It was agreed we would ask a local family if they would be willing to take me in: Themba would approach the Skhosana family, a local minister and his wife who often took in boarders, and see if I could stay with them for two weeks. They lived up the road from Themba, right on the edge of the border between Edendale and Sweetwaters. Steve had offered me two weeks off work to allow me to immerse myself in the language and I was delighted at the thought of living in the community, not merely sleeping over as I did with the Imbali Support Group. The Skhosanas, while initially surprised at Themba's unusual request, agreed to open their home to me. They had three daughters, one around my age and two younger, so they thought they could both help me with the language during my stay. They also had three sons, an aunt and several other boarders–so it would be cosy.

A week before I was due to move into the township, Msizi came to stay. He was in Durban for two days with work and had come up to 'Maritzburg to spend the weekend with me. It was the first time I had seen him in almost nine months, despite our regular phone calls. Steve and his family were also incredibly fond of Msizi and were very excited that he was visiting. Having to share him with Steve, Beth and the kids meant that we weren't keen to spend the whole weekend visiting friends. We did go to AE to see Fred and a few others, but other than that, stayed at the cottage enjoying each other's company.

It was such a relief to see him again. I was waiting anxiously when he drove through the gate. As he got out of the car and came across the carpark, I held my breath. He took me in his arms and held me and we stayed that way for the longest time, without saying a word. During my first year here, he was my true north, the reference by which I measured all my experiences. Now, living at Phezulu, with him in Grahamstown, I was having a completely different experience working with people he didn't know. He could no longer interpret events for me in the same way. I knew that Robbie had taken over the role of being my sounding board and I trusted his judgment completely, but it was not the same. So I had to get used to the lifestyle of missing him, wishing he was still with me, hoping he was safe. Having him back, even for a few days, meant that the familiar knot in my stomach had the weekend off.

But sitting in the garden at dusk the next day, I realised that another knot was taking its place. I knew that he was holding back on me. We were still in the limbo of living in the moment, not wanting to let go but not seeing a way forward. Secretly I thought if I hung in long enough the environment would change, allowing us to find a way through; I didn't want to force the issue. But it was something else. In the end, I could only assume that it was shyness at not having seen me for so long. He was planning to come back for a week over Easter for a proper holiday, so I let it slide.

My time with Pete and Anne was at an end, with Anne heading back to Sydney and Pete travelling on to Scotland. Anne left first, catching a plane from the local Oribi airport to Johannesburg. Pete had decided on a different mode of transport, taking a long distance kombi to Jo'burg instead. There were greyhound buses that ran between the two cities but the taxis were much cheaper and therefore preferred by most black travellers. As I said my sad goodbyes to Pete at the taxi rank downtown, surrounded by hundreds of black commuters, we hardly noticed the stares that had become the bread and butter of his time in South Africa.

I watched the taxi pull off with Pete's head towering above the others. They were all squashed together like teenagers at a rock concert and I wondered whether he would regret his decision to have one last adventure before he finally left the country. As it turned out, what should have been a six-hour journey became a nine-hour one as the taxi driver took a few detours along the way, getting himself horribly lost.

Pete, in his usual good-natured way unperturbed by neither the delay nor the route choice that took him through unknown townships late at night, finally arrived at Jo'burg station at around one in the morning. He phoned a friend who had agreed to give him a bed for the night, convincing him, despite the hour, to drive downtown and fetch him from the station. Pete waited for an hour, wondering what had happened to his friend who lived only ten minutes away. He looked around the station at the many other travellers who had clearly not found accommodation for the night and were now camped on the ground asleep. Pete also saw a white policeman approach two black policemen who had been patrolling the area. The white policeman then approached Pete and asked to know his business in the train station. When Pete told him, he explained that his friend would most likely be waiting in the ‘European' area of the station and proceeded to lead him through to a cleaner, brighter, well-serviced area where no one was sleeping on the ground. Pete very quickly found his friend who, though frustrated with the late night inconvenience and worried about Pete's whereabouts, took him home to a soft, clean bed for what was left of the night.