Holding Up the Sky (36 page)

Tshidi had also had a new baby since we last saw her– her sixth, a little girl whom they had named Mamello, which in English means perseverance. I had always taken delight in the naming of African children. No name was random, each had significance. If a child followed one who died, as Mamello had, they were sometimes named after unpleasant things in an effort to trick the ancestors that this was not in fact a baby at all and the child would not be taken. Other children were named after the aspirations their parents had for them, such as Chemist and Doctor. The first time I met someone by the name of Chemist, I had to have this explained to me. There is a famous South African soccer player by the name of Doctor Khumalo. I wonder if his parents supported his ultimate choice of career.

At the end of our week in Itsoseng, we reluctantly got in the car to drive back down to Natal but, thankfully, did not return immediately to ETHOS. Tony and his family had invited us to join them at their beach house on the south coast for a few days so we took a welcome detour for some more family time. Tony and Felicity had four girls who were a testimony to their wonderful parenting and we soaked up their hospitality, growing a relationship that would prove increasingly important back at ETHOS in the months to come.

Too soon, term started once more and we were back at ETHOS. To our surprise, one of the male students arrived with his wife in tow. We were shocked: the rules of the scholarship were clear, as we had found out the year before. Not only had this man failed to inform the selection committee of his marital status, he had not asked permission for them to live in the house as a married couple, as we had been forced to do. Trevor explained that his wife had been ill and he did not want to leave her in the village without any medical care. Danny, instead of taking the issue to the Board as had been the case with us, simply asked Alice if she would move from her room to make space for the couple. Not long after, it became known that Elsie, Trevor's wife, was not sick but pregnant and would be giving birth at the end of the year. Danny's wife Agnes seemed delighted at the thought of another new baby and quickly took Elsie under her wing. There was no discussion of what the implications might be but I saw the writing on the wall.

I had long stopped going to the main house, tired of being ignored, blamed or criticised. However, my difficulty was that the only way out of ETHOS was either past the main house or up the driveway and past Danny's house, either way risking a run-in with someone. While I didn't exactly feel relaxed in the cottage, knowing it was still ETHOS property, staying indoors simply meant I didn't have to see anyone, didn't have to fight. It became so bad in my mind that now I was only leaving the cottage to go to class. Despite visits from Heidi, Justin, Willie and others, I felt my perspective disappearing.

I vividly remember sitting in the bedroom one day, staring out the window towards Danny's house. It was a sunny spring morning and the room seemed to throb with light. Though the cottage was small, this day it felt cavernous and empty. I had nowhere I needed to be and lost track of time as I sat on the bed. The lawn, yet to return to its green summer glory, was in need of rain. The backyard was empty save for a single large tree, the branches of which seemed to fee its trunk in search of light.

As I looked towards Danny's house, I felt my anger against him swell. I doubted that he had any sense of the pain he was creating for Teboho and I, the damage he had done to what had been a diverse and thriving community. I felt that I could have coped with the loss of Sizwe and my resulting unemployment, but to feel under constant attack in our own home made our lives unbearable. I began to fantasise about ways to let Danny feel the severity of the situation, to make him see it. I then imagined that if I climbed the tree in the backyard and threw myself out of it, Danny would be forced to pay attention, literally be forced to clean up his own backyard. I felt it would surely make him see, repay him for all his harshness and put an end to my pain. I sat there and considered this for some time, before I heard the words echoing in my own head and wept to realise how low I had sunk. Teboho returned from class and found me sobbing on the bed. I told him what had happened and I think I scared him as much as I had scared myself.

A few days later it was my twenty-seventh birthday. Teboho was in class all day and I was alone at the cottage. Knowing my fragile state, he sent a different friend from campus to drop in on me every hour on the hour, each one bearing a small gift to cheer my day: flowers first, then a card, a chocolate; another came with lunch, then later a cake and finally Teboho came home early to surprise me and cooked a special dinner for two. I think he saved me that day.

In an effort to claw my way back, I decided to speak to a few members of the ETHOS Board about our experiences there. While I didn't receive a positive reception, the process allowed me to feel less of a victim. I also got back into my adult education networks. Lungisani, my classmate and fellow commuter who worked at the Centre for Adult Education, helped to hook me up with what was happening locally. I felt a bit sheepish about going back to Thembalethu after leaving the coaching project but went anyway as there were a dozen organisations working out of the community centre. I also threw myself into my studies, determined to do well at the end of year exams. It took a few months, but by the end of term I felt more myself. I was yet to find work but managed to finish top of my class and later received the Dean's Award for Academic Merit, a timely boost to my wobbly confidence.

Our political destiny as a nation was also progressing, even if it was two steps forward, one step back. Mandela and de Klerk announced an interim government, known as the Government of National Unity, to transition the country towards a democratic election. However, Inkatha broke the three way negotiations in protest, perhaps thinking that the National Party should have handed power over to them, as their black allies of many years. Violence broke out between the ANC and Inkatha in the township of Boipatong just south of Jo'burg, as Inkatha hostel dwellers attacked township residents, leaving forty-six people dead. A protest march of 50,000 people in the Cape, led by Cyril Ramaphosa, the Secretary General of the ANC, to call for an end to the rule of a corrupt homeland leader ended in tragedy. The crowd was fired on by troops, leaving twenty-four dead and 150 injured. Images of Ramaphosa and other senior ANC officials running for cover flooded the pages of papers across the country. We were all shocked that these things could still happen in 1992, knowing we were so close to a breakthrough–but clearly it was too early to take that for granted.

For me personally, there was one more card to be dealt before my
annus horribilis
was over. With Elsie nearing the end of her pregnancy, Agnes was concerned that it was not healthy for her to be walking up the stairs to her room, believing that such exertion could harm both mother and baby. So she suggested that Teboho and I be asked to move, making way for Trevor and Elsie to use the cottage. They had recently revealed that not only had they failed to disclose the marriage when the scholarship was awarded, but they also had a three-year-old son whom they would like to bring to live at ETHOS with them and the new baby. This sealed our fate and we were asked to leave. I should have been delighted with this news; it was just that we had nowhere to go and they wanted us out immediately.

It was then that Tony and Felicity offered us the cottage in their garden. Their tenants had given notice and they could let us have the cottage through until the end of Teboho's degree in a year's time. Given that Tony was on staff, this arrangement was acceptable to everyone and didn't jeopardise Teboho's scholarship, as long as he continued to participate in all community activities.

So as the year ended, it heralded a fresh start to 1993. Things at Sizwe were yet to be resolved but I heard that the matter was going before the Trustees. Living in Tony and Felicity's garden cottage meant I need have no contact with ETHOS. All that remained was to find meaningful work.

But that would have to wait until after Christmas. As we drove up to Jo'burg, Teboho and I were grateful that we had made it through the year very much together. We had become each other's soft place to land, bound closer by the difficulties that assailed us throughout the year. Though it wasn't an ideal first year of marriage, we felt stronger having survived it together.

THE
FRESH START I HAD HOPED FOR IN 1992 ARRIVED A YEAR LATE. WE RETURNED FROM HOLIDAYS JUST BEFORE THE START OF TERM AND MOVED INTO TONY AND FELICITY'S GARDEN COTTAGE, WHICH NESTLED BEHIND THEIR CARPORT AND WAS SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN THE ONE AT ETHOS. WHERE THE OLD COTTAGE HAD BEEN SOUTH FACING, THIS ONE WAS NORTH FACING. WHERE THAT ONE LOOKED OUT ONTO AN EMPTY YARD, THIS ONE LOOKED OUT ONTO A LUSH TROPICAL GARDEN THAT INCLUDED A GRASSY AREA WITH OUTDOOR FURNITURE, PERFECT FOR A QUIET LUNCH.

Tony and Felicity, perhaps out of compassion for the year we'd had, virtually adopted us into their family. The girls, particularly the youngest two, found Teboho to be a constant source of entertainment, always laughing and joking. Tony, despite being a respected university professor, was also a child of the African bush. He had been born near Victoria Falls in Zambia and grown up wild and barefoot. Nothing made him happier than camping in the bush, away from the bustle of the city. Though 'Maritzburg hardly qualified as a cosmopolitan hub, it was more city than Tony needed. He regularly disappeared for weeks at a time over university breaks, returning to the sanctuary of the bush. His older girls, twins, shared his affinity: one ultimately became an environmentalist for the national parks and the other an advocate for permaculture. The rest of the family, while enjoying camping, were a little less passionate about weeks on end without showers and flushing toilets.

Felicity was a librarian and though not a big city person either, I think she enjoyed the hospitality that a quiet suburban life allowed her to create. Their home always had space for a few more, whether it was students Tony had brought home or friends of the girls, so there was usually an extra plate or two at the dinner table. With this way of life echoing that of an extended African family, Teboho and I felt at home and small green shoots of happiness began to break through.

As our home environment improved, so did my quest for work. I had a meeting with a woman called Fiona, who worked on campus in a unit called the Centre for University Education Development. I knew of Fiona by reputation: a bold woman in the world, dedicated, intelligent and active in the development community. Fiona was also heavily involved in local women's programs, working hard to give aspiring black women opportunity and profile.

Some found Fiona intimidating; I found her inspirational. Fiona was almost twenty years my senior, married with two teenage daughters and had a long history in the field of education. In conjunction with her role at CUED, she worked for the South African Association for Academic Development, an organisation that sought to transform tertiary education to include students of all racial backgrounds. SAAAD's members were all university lecturers working for units similar to Fiona's. Their passion was to see the curriculum expand to recognise that South African universities and technicons were based in Africa, not Europe, and needed to offer degrees and diplomas that would prepare students to find solutions to African problems in a global economy. My focus up until this point had been on my local community and the impact of provincial and national politics on its people–but this would soon expand.

Meeting Fiona changed many things for me. By offering me a job supporting her work with SAAAD, she gave me a fresh start as well as opening my eyes to a broader professional area on which I could focus my efforts. She also became a mentor and a friend. Her deeply ingrained integrity and honour allowed me to trust again and provided me with a role model for engaging with large organisations without losing your soul. While I saw what it cost her to hold the line, I understood it was the only way to be. My work with Fiona was only part-time and much of it administrative, but she gave me a psychological and intellectual home that drew me out of the shell I had closed over myself the year before. And with the boost in my confidence, it wasn't long before I picked up a second job.

It was through Lungisani, my car pool buddy, that I was approached to develop a workbook for adult literacy classes on democracy and voter education, a project jointly sponsored by Thembalethu and one of its tenants, the Centre for Legal Education. The government had just announced plans for the first democratic elections to be held the following year. This was cause for great celebration but also the signal for massive amounts of preparatory work to be done. The workbook I was commissioned to produce had a simple English page of explanation with translation of key words into Zulu, followed by an illustrated worksheet to be photocopied and used in class. I loved the challenge of organising the content, hand drawing all the illustrations and then working on the light box at the Centre for Adult Education to pull it all together, just as the team there did for the weekly newspaper supplement.

Before I knew it, life was full again. I spent mornings at CUED with Fiona, afternoons working at home or on campus and Tuesday night at class in Durban. Teboho and I also felt less besieged and so our home and marriage ceased to be a fortress. While the year before had brought us close in mutual protection, now we had a playfulness in our relationship that had been missing for some time. Teboho was also in a better space himself. Another black minister by the name of Luke and his wife Rebecca had joined the ETHOS team, allowing Jacques to move on. I don't know whether Luke tempered Danny or whether he simply decided that the constant conflict wasn't worth it, but the politics at ETHOS also settled down and calm returned to the old house once more.

Teboho also found a part-time job, managing a cafe on campus. Not only was he the first black manager of the cafe, but its first ever black employee. While it took many weeks for the white students to warm to the idea of a black boss, his likeable personality soon won them over. The cafe also started to make a profit as Teboho's natural entrepreneurial skills came to the fore. I was so proud of him for making it work during his busy honours year when he also served on various university committees.

On the back of this success, Teboho took on a second part-time job. Tony owned a small fat-bed truck and between them they agreed that they could run a weekend removalist business on the side. Tony liked the idea of physical labour to balance out the heady pursuits of his week as a professor. He also liked the expression on people's faces when they realised he held a doctorate but was still happy lifting fridges onto the back of a truck. Each Saturday morning, Tony, Teboho and one of the other students from ETHOS would head off to their job as removalists. Not only did Tony delight in the juxtaposition of his two professions, but it was a running joke between them that Teboho would call him
‘baas'
, a phrase equivalent to ‘master', when they were out on the job. At some point, Tony would let slip that his workers were not illiterate casual workers he picked up from the township that morning, as his clients might have assumed, but his honours students at the university. The quizzical faces of their customers as they drove away had them laughing all the way home. I had a suspicion Tony would have done this work for free as his contribution to screwing with the stereotypes in the minds of white South Africa. Tony was a man before his time, suited more to the country's democratic future than its colonial past. It was a good thing too, with us living in his backyard.

On 10 April 1993, the peace was shattered. Suddenly, the whole country teetered on the brink of civil war.

Chris Hani, the wildly popular Secretary General of the small but powerful South African Communist Party–second only to Mandela in the hearts of black South Africans–was gunned down in the driveway of his suburban home in Johannesburg. He was living in a previously white neighbourhood in a modest area of Boksburg in the city's east. That morning, he was getting into his car to drive his teenage daughter to school when a white man walked up his driveway calling his name. He stepped back out of his car and was shot in the head, dying instantly. The white man, a Polish immigrant by the name of Janusz Walus, ran back to his car and drove away, but not before Hani's white neighbour took down the number plate details and phoned the police. Walus was captured almost immediately, and the gun he had used was found to belong to a senior conservative party offcial, Clive Derby-Lewis. Both men were later tried and convicted of the murder. To my horror, Derby-Lewis's journalist wife Gaye, an Australian woman, was accused of compiling a hit list, complete with names and addresses, that her husband had used as part of a plan to assassinate a number of key figures. On the list were Chris Hani, Joe Slovo and Nelson Mandela. Walus and Derby-Lewis were sentenced to life in prison for Hani's murder, but Gaye Derby-Lewis was acquitted, much to the disbelief of the majority. For a long time, I was not proud to say I was Australian.

The news of Hani's assassination spread through the country like an earthquake: Hani, Mandela's successor; Hani, the trade unionist; Hani, the soldier, leader of Umkontho we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC; Hani, the man who thinks for himself; Hani, our hope–gone. The white community, while not knowing who this man was, felt the reverberations and began to prepare themselves; gun sales went through the roof in the week leading up to his funeral. Mandela spoke to the nation, as if already the president he was soon to become, and appealed for calm. The two negotiation teams sprang into action and ultimately announced a date for the election, 27 April 1994, in an effort to demonstrate progress towards the goal of democracy.

On the eve of Hani's funeral, an all-night vigil was held at the large FNB stadium just outside Soweto in Johannesburg. As the vigil drew to a close, the anger of the crowd spilt over into the streets and some of the youth began attacking cars and burning houses near the stadium. Two people died in this violence as the riot police moved in. One of the two to die when his house was torched was a member of the AWB, a right wing Afrikaaner group led by Eugene Terreblanche. On hearing of this death, the AWB activated its East Rand commando unit based in Boksburg where the funeral was to be held the following day. In the weeks that followed, Terreblanche spoke at an AW B rally, saying that if he thought Hani's murder could incite a state of war, he would have shot him himself. The speech was captured by a news crew and charges of incitement to violence were quickly laid against Terreblanche.

Teboho and I, along with millions of others around the country, joined the funeral day marches that happened in every city in South Africa. One hundred and fifty thousand people attended his Johannesburg funeral alone. In Boksburg, where Hani was to be buried, heavily armed AWB men were standing guard over the white residential properties lining the route to the funeral. Police were forced to keep the AWB contingent apart from the mourners who commandeered buses, taxis and any vehicles they could find in their attempts to travel from the stadium to the burial site. In 'Maritzburg, what began as a peaceful protest march turned to violence when some of the youth ransacked shops and cars in the city centre. This scenario was repeated in every major city in the country as Hani's body was laid to rest in Els Park cemetery. None of us knew if this was the beginning of the end.

Thanks to Mandela's calm hand, things stayed quiet for a time, but there were two retaliation attacks by APLA in the months that followed. The Azanian People's Liberation Army, APLA, a militant left wing black organisation, opened fire on a white church congregation in Cape Town, killing eleven and wounding fifty. They followed this with an attack on a white bar in Heidelburg, just south of Johannesburg, killing four and injuring many more. Despite moving towards our first democratic election, the impact of all the violence and the killing was stifling, as if we may yet all drown in blood.

Back in 'Maritzburg, we were fast approaching the July holidays as our lives moved relentlessly forward despite the turmoil. Teboho and I were both busy with mid-year exams and looking forward to a well-earned break. We were planning a trip to Mama's house in Itsoseng. I could only take three days off now that I was working, but Teboho had a three-week break ahead. We had found a nice rhythm in our weekly routine. I had done more around the house in our first year of marriage, virtually to give me something to do, but now that we were both busy Teboho had stepped up to share all the daily chores. He proved to be a good cook and made sure the house was clean and tidy.

There is a stereotype about the poor: that poverty and filth go hand in hand. This was rarely my experience. While public spaces were often littered with paper and plastics, private homes were always kept spotless. This was certainly the case in Teboho's family. Mama and Ma Ellen had taken the slightly unusual path of requiring daughters
and
sons to clean and cook, not just the daughters, as was the case in many other households. But either way, homes were swept, mopped and dusted daily. In our home, we didn't quite have time for a daily clean, but Teboho liked to leave the house tidy. We didn't have a washing machine, but would take turns going to the laundromat. When we married, I knew Teboho wasn't a typical traditional African man, but I was delighted that he followed his words with actions. Our marriage felt like a partnership, a well-matched team.

Our busy days contrasted with quiet nights. After cooking supper together, there was plenty of time to catch up on the events of the day–we did not have a TV to distract us from spending time together. We also talked about what we wanted the future to look like. Prior to getting married, we had agreed that after Teboho finished his honours degree we would go to Sydney and both do Masters degrees, his in sociology and mine in adult education. We had applied to Macquarie University and would soon book tickets to fly over for Christmas.

Teboho was as excited as I was about the next chapter of our lives together. I was grateful he had made friends with Nat, Pete and others so that settling in wouldn't be too difficult. Our plan was to go for two years: I was keen for Teboho to have an experience of living in a country where race didn't dictate his every move. As much as we both loved South Africa, the constant tension of it could wear you down. After our stint in Australia, we were planning to return to live in Mohlakeng where the tables would turn and I could be happy that I had developed friendships with Khumo, Moss and many others to help me find my way.