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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781431409044 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Jacana Media |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2014 |
| Pages: | 230 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
When Hope Whispers
By Zoleka Mandela
Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd
Copyright © 2013 Zoleka MandelaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4314-0907-5
CHAPTER 1
By the time I was born, on 9 April 1980, my mother knew how to strip and assemble an AK-47 in exactly thirty-eight seconds. She was twenty years old, trained in guerilla warfare and already a full-fledged member of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
I was born to Zindziswa Nobutho Mandela and Oupa Johannes Mafanyana Seakamela at Marymount Maternity Home in Kensington, Johannesburg. My mother, Zindzi, is the second daughter of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Nomzamo Winfred Madikizela-Mandela. My grandfather, Nelson Mandela, was one of the founding members of Umkhonto we Sizwe when it formed in 1961, at a time when the African National Congress was banned under apartheid. By the late 1970s my grandmother, Nomzamo, known to others as Winnie, was using my father to pose as her driver while she trained him to recruit MK comrades. My father would hide and transport military weapons as he moved between Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho.
To say I was born in the thick of it is an understatement.
* * *
Before I was a year old, my grandmother had already smuggled me into Robben Island on her back. She says that at the time it was the only gift she could give my grandfather, who by then had not seen a baby for many years. As it was, the law of the country stipulated that only one child could visit at a time from each family, and visiting children had to be sixteen years and older. My mother had managed to visit her father because she'd been able to pass herself off as a sixteen-year-old when she was fourteen.
With my grandfather's political career - in fact, his life - unquestionably committed to an anti-apartheid South Africa, he had never been able to be the father he wanted to be for his own children. His legacy lived on in my mother, who was politically active in her own right.
When I was a toddler, my mother sent me to Swaziland for three years, where I lived with her older sister, my aunt Princess Zenani, my uncle, Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini, and my cousins. My earliest memory is from that time in Mbabane: I remember sitting on the floor in my aunt and uncle's lounge, my back against the couch. My aunt was sitting on the floor to my right, her legs straight out and crossed at the ankles, and we were watching television. As the news came on she said, "It is your birthday today. You are four years old!" I remember wondering where my mother was and why she wasn't with me.
When I think of my mother in those early years, I don't know why I remember the things I do: the times she would braid my hair as I sat between her legs, and how she parted it in the middle and plaited the one side as I rested my head on the warmth of her inner thigh; how she would put me to sleep before she left me and how pained I so often was waking up to the realisation that she was gone.
My heart aches now, thinking of this, as I remember my own daughter, Zenani, between the ages of four and five, and how she used to cry each time I left her. Especially as I know that I didn't have to leave.
My memories are elusive, like whispers, but some details of my early years come back to me: I remember that back in those days, my aunt drove a metallic blue Honda with an all-black interior. My upbringing in Swaziland resonates with nostalgic tunes, such as Gregory Abbott's "Shake You Down", Teddy Pendergrass's "In My Time," The Jacksons' "Can You Feel It", Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" and "We Are the World" by USA For Africa.
I remember that even at that young age I, like my cousins, always had black synthetic braids plaited into my hair - the older we got the more beads we placed on our braided fringes. I attended two nursery schools in Swaziland but I can't recall anything more than the walk my cousin and I would take in the mornings with our nanny: there was tall grass alongside the path, and the morning dew would some days leave wet traces on our pants. I remember how in the mornings we children had Maltabella for breakfast, but my aunt would opt for black tea and toast. She'd bite off a piece of toast, chew it a few times and then sip her tea before swallowing the toast. I always admired how eloquently she did that.
I remember how my cousins and I would get back from school first, and how excited I always was for my aunt and uncle to arrive home. The highlight of my day was seeing them, but perhaps that was because of the physical abuse my cousins and I sustained at the hands of our nanny. I soiled my bunk bed one morning and I recall how petrified I was coming home. When we were being punished, my cousins and I were instructed to go outside into the yard and pick a stick, which we then had to put in a tub to soak. Naked, we'd all lie next to one another on a bed awaiting a lashing by our nanny, who would decide whether she would start from the youngest or the oldest child. I wasn't allowed any water in the evenings due to my bed wetting, but when I was thirsty I'd drink water from the bathroom tap. If our nanny found me doing that, she'd knock my head against it, or use her knuckles on my skull. My cousins and I were always being struck with belts, hangers and cords.
CHAPTER 2In 1985, when my aunt, my uncle and my cousins moved to Boston, Massachusetts, I was returned to my mother. She was by then living with my grandmother in Brandfort, in what was then the Orange Free State - my grandmother had been living there since 1977, when she'd been banished there by the government. It was a desolate area with a few cattle, barns and chicken coops, and we lived in a dusty township outside a stark Afrikaner town. My brother, Zondwa, had been born in 1983, but soon after I arrived in Brandfort, my mother left for Johannesburg, taking my brother with her.
In Brandfort I developed a very close bond with a girl called Naledi, whose house was situated next to ours. Back then there were no fancy gates or fences to separate the houses; neither were there toilets, baths or showers in the houses, and on some occasions Naledi and I would share a bath in a big steel tub on her family's stoep. I remember how Naledi and I were once playing at the front of a neighbour's house, and how quickly we ran when he stormed towards us with a pointed gun. I remember the smell of the toilets, which were more like long drops in those days, and how these were emptied once a week. My grandmother used to make atchar, which she sold to the neighbours in big, round yellow tubs with handles. I would sit in the kitchen watching her decanting the atchar. To this day I can eat an entire tub of atchar from a glass jar if I want to.
My grandmother and my mother were very busy with service-orientated projects. As there was no other clinic in the township, my grandmother had, with the assistance of the Anglican Church, built a clinic in our yard, and two doctors would drive from Johannesburg to treat the patients. My mother worked for Operation Hunger and she passed on food supplies to my grandmother, who in turn gave them out to the community.
There was a lot of activity when I was at home in exile.
* * *
I wasn't in Brandfort for long, although my grandmother had been there for nine years, because in 1986 my family moved back to my grandparents' home, 8115 Vilakazi Street, Orlando West - in what is now the Nelson Mandela Museum. Once in Soweto, I started at a Montessori primary school because my grandmother preferred the child-focused Montessori method over more conventional types of schooling.
The school was situated on the outskirts of Johannesburg, in Woodmead. We school children used to fill an entire minibus as we travelled back and forth between our school in the suburbs and our homes in Soweto, where our families were distributed across Orlando, Rockville, Diepkloof, Pimville and other areas. It was always the same driver who drove us. He sold us biltong sticks, and would alternate the order of drop-offs depending on who he had collected first: so sometimes those of us at school in Woodmead would be the last bunch to get dropped off at school, having spent what felt like hours in the taxi.
In our free time at the Montessori primary school we built forts in the woods in the school grounds, and I enjoyed cooking lessons and eating pomegranates. We loved playing with our teacher's brown dog, and I recall being so alarmed and sad one afternoon when a snake squirted its lethal venom into one of his eyes.
My first boyfriend taught me how to kiss and hold hands; I "dated" him for a year and a half from the tender age of nine. We used the same transport, and so we would save seats for each other if we didn't get to the taxi at the same time.
From that very young age I felt quite different from the other children, and I suppose in reality I was. I was obsessed with pregnant women, and my grandmother and mother were called into my school by my teacher after it was noted that I had been drawing images of pregnant women in my school book. Playing with my Barbie in my bedroom at home, I was always grabbing pieces of cloth or Barbie's clothing, rolling it up into a ball in my hand and putting it underneath whatever dress or top Barbie was dressed in to show that she was pregnant.
* * *
Our house at 8115 was extremely small: it consisted of one bedroom, a kitchen, one bathroom directly opposite the kitchen, a dining room and a sitting room. I can recall my grandmother, mother and my brother Zondwa and I all sleeping in that one bed.
We spent some of our time watching television in the lounge, but mostly we children could be found playing outside with the rest of the children in the neighbourhood - the same children who would later feature in Brenda Fassie's music video "Ag Shame, Lovey". My two girl cousins were visiting from the States at the time, and we narrowly missed the opportunity to be in the music video when it was decided that it would be inappropriate for us to participate. We already had our matching leotards, leg warmers and head bands, and I remember how disappointed I was not to be in Aunty Brenda's video.
Every day we had to be back home by five to have a bath, and I remember how the dust would literally cling to our bodies after a game of morabaraba, bhati, black mampatile or mogusha. Afterwards it felt like we'd been dipped into a human-sized Vaseline tub: you could always tell when we had washed because we left the house with extremely glossy skin.
In 1989 our house at 8115 was burned to the ground. On the day it happened, my brother Zondwa and I left school and, unusually, were taken to my grandmother's office instead of straight home. There, the parking lot was filled with journalists. We were ushered into her office and it was only then that we were told why we couldn't go home. I remember being most excited about the new clothes Zondwa and I would now have to get! While it was being rebuilt, we moved to the home of a family friend in Dube, just a few streets away from my father's family home, although we didn't stay there for very long.
We then stayed in a house in Diepkloof Extension Phase 2, and it was in this year that my brother Bambatha was born. This home was more spacious than our house at 8115. I had my own room, where I hung a school photo of my boyfriend, who used to pay me visits there. When I had mumps, I sat cooped up in my bedroom for hours, while everyone else played outside. As warm as the weather was, I was self-conscious enough to conceal the swelling of the lower part of my face and jaw with a scarf.
* * *
In many ways my life in those very early years was untainted and innocent. Some memories cause my heart to smile, despite the strained political times in which we were living.
Home, after all, was home.
There was even an advantage to having my Aunt Zenani and cousins living abroad: they always ensured that we had the best toys, clothing, magazines and music. The fact that it all came from America was such a big deal - especially to the other kids in the neighbourhood. When my cousins had returned to the States after visiting us in Diepkloof, I was often teased about my wonderful new possessions.
It was also in Diepkloof Extension that I developed a liking for BMX bicycles. I had one in blue, which I rode up and down the long street with a bunch of other kids - they could perform the most admirable tricks on them, which I couldn't. Quite the tomboy, I often played with my brother Zandwa and a son of one my grandmother's confidants, a former agent from the time of her banishment. In fact, in an open area just opposite my home I once accidentally cut myself with a wire, deep on the inside of my right thigh while we were trapping pigeons to eat - I was usually responsible for stealing spices from the house while the boys killed and removed the feathers from the bird before making a small fire to cook it on. In my own spare time, you would find me pulling apart yellow-and-black ladybirds when I found them mating esgangeni (the open area where we used to play) because it made me so sick to my stomach.
In our Diepkloof home I would join my grandmother, my mother and the comrades at the back of the house near our glossy blue Jacuzzi, where we'd sing freedom songs every evening. I got used to seeing the cadres hiding with their weapons in the house, because it was also what my grandmother called a "transit camp", which was then being used to recruit for Umkhonto we Sizwe. There was never one particular group of comrades, but an influx of new faces almost every day, with a few female comrades also thrown into the mix.
I am reminded of the lunches we shared with the cadres, and it felt like we were one big family. We would occupy the upstairs seating area of the Mike's Kitchen restaurant on St Andrews Road in Parktown. Sitting in the privacy of that space, there was always much drinking and laughing, and we always all ordered the same meal: the half-rib-and-prawn combo with French fries. The meal was good, but the love shared around that table was even better!
On one occasion my mother took me along with some of the comrades to fetch my grandmother from the airport. My grandmother describes how on this particular day - a day on which my mother had had a hand grenade in her possession - I spared her a life sentence. I am told that on the return trip, when the car in which we were travelling was surrounded by police, I boldly offered to conceal a hand grenade in my school bag - even at the age of nine I knew that my bag would be the last place the police would look. Thinking back, I remember how often my mother boastfully related this story, and how tired I became of hearing it. It always felt like something so important to her; in her eyes, it was something that I should have been extremely proud of.
My grandmother was arrested by the police yet again that day - this time for returning to Johannesburg while she was still banned to Brandfort, even though her home there had been burnt down too. Thinking back, I realise how often it happened, and how she resisted arrest every single time. In Diepkloof Extension I often saw the cadres being arrested themselves by the police, although I don't recall ever shedding a tear. I had grown very close to a cadre called Monde; but I didn't cry even when he was taken away, for it all to become just another incurable childhood memory.
"He was quite fond of you, darling, and I think you transferred your father figure emotions onto him," my grandmother told me later.
It seems I was already becoming used to loving, and losing.
* * *
In Diepkloof we didn't have a swimming pool, and my brother Zondwa and I would have to ask permission from Dr Nthato Motlana to swim in his. Sure, we had a pool at the Montessori school - it was actually there that I was taught to swim - but it was always so exciting to have the opportunity to swim in a pool close to home. We often used to walk from 8115 to the public swimming pool in Orlando West. Almost as often, we would be crushed to discover that for whatever reason they had closed early.
In the late 1980s I was taken to visit my grandfather at the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl in Cape Town. After being treated for TB in hospital, he had been transferred there from Pollsmoor Prison, having left Robben Island in 1982, and was staying in a private house. The government had made this move so they could soften him up and begin talks with the ANC in private.
For my part, I remember how breathtaking the elongated blue pool was there, and the beautiful table setting that was laid for lunch that afternoon, with two types of glasses, two types of knives and forks, cotton serviettes and a tablecloth large enough to cover the huge table. I don't remember the conversation we had, but I do recall that the house at Victor Verster was face brick, with a pastel-coloured lounge where we sat with my grandfather before and after lunch.
We all used to dress up to visit our grandfather in those days, and I remember all my cousins and me, along with our aunts, our mothers and our grandfather all sitting down to the most scrumptious food, including a fully glazed duck as the central attraction. There had never been any black wardens at the time of my grandfather's imprisonment, so none of us were shocked to have a white warden serving us, or a white chef cooking our meal.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from When Hope Whispers by Zoleka Mandela. Copyright © 2013 Zoleka Mandela. Excerpted by permission of Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd.
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