Holding up the sky, p.13
Holding Up the Sky, page 13
Msizi told me early on how much he resented white people’s pets which were often treated better than the family’s black employees. I, on the other hand, had grown up with family pets and so the cottage didn’t really feel like a home without one. Mama Jenny was hopeful that our new addition would catch any mice and rats that planned to take up residence in the cottage, so while she was happy to have Sombu, she preferred her to be underfed in order to drive her to hunt. Somehow, my little cat found her way as part of our growing household. At night, she would return from wherever she had been all day and curl up on my lap as I sat reading in the lounge. She was also something of my own, not something that I shared, and in a strange way her presence gave me a stake in our community life.
We had two other additions to our community towards the end of the year: Barry and Rags (Rags being short for the fine Scottish name Morag). They had just returned from a year at a bible college in London. Barry was a white South African who grew up in Johannesburg and Rags a white Zimbabwean whose parents still owned and ran a farm there. They knew Steve through the Centre for African Renewal and were keen to do a month’s volunteering at Sizwe before returning to Johannesburg to live and work in the sprawling township of Tembisa. They were hoping to learn more about combining Christian activism and community work from the way we were doing things.
Barry and Rags were like a cleansing southeasterly wind that blew the smog out of our lives for a time. Their humour and compassion lifted the heaviness of the last few months. Rags set to work making curtains for the bunkhouses, the offices and the pit. Barry took up as Themba’s apprentice, helping him set up the self-employment workshops. These workshops had come about through Beth’s sister and her husband who lived in Lesotho, the small mountain kingdom in the middle of South Africa. They knew of a local there, Big Boy, who was willing to train Themba in tin craft. Big Boy recycled used oil cans into a variety of useful products and handicrafts and Themba had spent four days with him learning how it was done. He returned with hands covered in cuts and endless enthusiasm for the products. Barry was the first person Themba trained to help him, but soon we all wanted to learn. With my own hands covered in cuts, I proudly held up my first small suitcase made from an oil can.
Given the huge levels of township unemployment and the growing market in indigenous arts and crafts, the demand for Themba’s workshops was immediate. Barry, not yet passing Themba’s strict quality control criteria, was put to work growing the market for the workshops’ products and soon we had a strong demand for products as well as participants. The self-employment arm of our work was born. Nine months later, Themba outgrew the old workshop at Phezulu and we rented a larger factory and training space in the industrial area. Many other items soon joined the product range and are still seen in craft shops all over the country and overseas.
By the end of their month with us, Barry and Rags had clearly demonstrated the value of ‘associates’. As a result, the door was opened for a number of my Australian friends to come over and do volunteer work the following year. Their time with us also laid the foundation of a friendship between Rags and myself that still endures. Rags has a wonderful pragmatism: she is one of those rare people who needs very little sleep and would rather fill their days with activity. Rags can fix anything with a needle and thread, get a car moving again with a toothpick and piece of gum, build a house, tile a bathroom and make you feel better all at the same time. She never seems to get flustered and has been a shoulder for me more times than I care to remember. Rags is also a fabulous example of the spirit of the Zimbabwean people: resourceful, forgiving and quick to see the positives in daily life. In recent years, when things have become hard in that magnificent country, instead of whining when queuing days for bread, the ever-optimistic Zimbabweans have been heard to say, ‘It’s wonderful the people you can meet in the bread queue’.
With the school year coming to a close, we were planning to ramp up our youth leadership programs and run ten in the two months leading up to Christmas. These were run exclusively for young people in the townships and while they presented different challenges from the cross-cultural work of the dialogue and development programs, they were equally stretching for me. We talked about the consequences of good leadership and bad leadership, how to motivate others, organisational skills and time management, analytical skills and social analysis. We did a simulation exercise on power and we gave participants a project to work on over the three days that allowed them to apply what they were learning.
Many teenagers in the townships organise themselves into youth organisations in an attempt to take on local community issues. Each area within the township had a youth organisation, so we simply offered our leadership course to each group in turn. It made the organisation of the events far easier and it also meant that across Edendale, youth organisations were being equipped with a similar skill set. The work was fulflling and I was glad to see more and more young women being involved in training that was initially almost exclusively male. It seemed that word had got out and the young women didn’t want to be left out of the opportunity to further their skills.
The only downside was that I was utterly exhausted. Ten three-day workshops in eight weeks is a tidal wave of work and emotional investment, and looking after Sipho’s rehabilitation on top of that took every last drop of my reserve. It was not that I resented Sipho’s presence: he participated in the workshops, much to the participants’ delight, as he was a bit of a legend in the area. He was still a comedian and philosopher and therefore good company. It was just that he physically needed so much support in those early months that I was constantly on my feet. By the time December rolled around, I was longing to take a break, longing for family. I was booked to fly out from Jo’burg and, as was to become my habit, stayed with Barry and Rags for a day or two to unwind before leaving.
I arrived in London three days before Christmas. My brother had spent the last few months working in Geneva on a large bank fraud investigation and was in need of a holiday himself. I found Heathrow airport disorientating as I stood waiting for Jon’s familiar face to appear among what looked like a swarm of bees. Relief surged over me when I saw him and I felt close to tears. I had held back the tears for months now, not feeling that I had a right to cry; other people’s funerals, other people’s shootings, other people’s pain, not my own. But seeing my big brother’s smiling face was like a licence to feel it all and the tears began to flow. It was early evening and he took me back to the large apartment he shared with a friend who, fortunately, wasn’t at home. We had some time for a quick catch-up but he already seemed to understand that I was fragile and needed looking after. So he disappeared to the small supermarket across the street and returned bearing a ready-made meal for us to share.
The following day was Jon’s last at work for the year and I was happy to relax until he finished up for the day. After no more than half an hour’s sleep on the plane, I didn’t surface until almost noon. The chill of the night before compared to the African summer I had left behind made me reluctant to venture outside. But I also felt a need to stay safely indoors with no demands on me, no need to watch my back nor worry about anyone else. So I tucked myself up on the couch with a book all afternoon and waited for my brother’s return.
At about 5.30, he breezed in to say that I should get dressed as we were going out for drinks with his workmates at a pub on the Thames. Pubs had never held much attraction for me, as someone who never smokes and rarely drinks, but I did want to be with my brother. So I changed and we jumped into one of those big black English taxis that I had only seen in the movies. That night, the tables were turned from our childhood holiday routine, with Jon being the talker and myself uncharacteristically shy.
After spending a few hours at the pub, we went on to a nearby restaurant with about half a dozen of Jon’s friends who had no reason to go home. As we sat around the table chatting, I listened to the conversations of these young professionals a few years older than myself and felt a world away. They were all accountants and spoke about the world of business and finance in a way that I could not fathom, partly because the technical terminology sounded like a foreign language and partly because the things they were passionate about seemed completely unimportant in the reality I was immersed in. But his friends were kind and tried to include me, asking questions about what I was doing in Africa and about our holiday plans. Seeing my discomfort at the thought of small talk about township violence in an English pub, Jon steered the conversation to our trip. After Christmas with his girlfriend’s family, we were off to the Lakes District and then on to Stirling Castle for Hogmanay, Scotland’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.
We called it a night at about 11.00 and took the train back home. The next day, Jon showed me a little of London and I found it oddly claustrophobic. As we walked down the narrow streets, it seemed to me that the houses and buildings bent towards each other to meet like a canopy of trees, blocking out the sky. A striking aspect of Africa is the sense of space. The sky is stretched high and blue, with cities and towns mere anthills on the rolling savannah. Everywhere there is space and an openness that pulls you out of the city landscape and into the landscape beyond. London seemed completely opposite, with its majestic buildings and urban landmarks drawing you ever deeper into the city.
After walking the streets all morning, we met up with Helen, Jon’s girlfriend, for a late lunch. Jon had dated a bit towards the end of high school and through university, but I mostly remember him having a circle of close female friends who all came to him for advice on a wide range of subjects–including other men. As Jon had never had a long-term girlfriend that I knew of, meeting Helen was a new experience for me. I don’t believe it is an easy thing for a sister to see a beloved brother develop a closeness to another that will, by necessity, exclude you. However, on meeting Helen, I saw that she was both generous and grounded and that there would be space in my brother’s life for both of us. Helen had short dark hair surrounding a square, pretty face, and a flawless English complexion. I liked her immediately and saw that my brother did too. I knew Jon was built for marriage, for faithfulness and that he had the ability to compromise that was so necessary for a long-term relationship. I wondered whether Helen might be the one he chose.
The following day, we drove north to Helen’s parents’ house for Christmas. I was hoping for my first white Christmas and while it felt cold enough to herald a new ice age, the family assured me it was not cold enough for snow. Helen believed we would see some when we headed north the following day. For lunch, we sat around the family table and enjoyed a traditional English feast with Helen’s parents, her younger brother, Helen, Jon and myself.
It stood in stark contrast to our Aussie Christmases at my uncle and aunt’s house on the northern beaches of Sydney. All the kids would be wearing whatever new clothes we had found under the tree that morning, more often than not shorts and T-shirts with new swimsuits underneath. My aunt would put on a vast spread: seafood, cold ham and turkey, salads and breads. Between courses, there would be time for a swim in the backyard pool and the opening of more presents. Other relatives and family friends would pop by later and the adults retired to the lounge room to sip wine and chat. We kids would wolf down dessert before returning to the pool for the rest of the afternoon, playing water polo with our cousins. Our parents would eventually find their way down to the pool to referee a match and perhaps, if they succumbed to our begging, our fathers might join in. At sunset, we would be dragged from the pool, prunelike, and doze on the thirty-minute drive home, presents stashed protectively under our arms.
For my English Christmas, I was dressed a little more warmly than shorts and a T-shirt and instead of retiring to the pool, we retired to the local pub where friends and neighbours had all gathered to enjoy a lazy afternoon together. I was persuaded to try my hand at darts, with Jon and I losing the England vs Australia match in a whitewash. We returned from the pub to pick off a few leftovers before bed, Helen’s parents having kindly offered to put us up for the night.
A day later, the three of us set off for the Lake District. Jon had hired a small cottage on the edge of a country town in the centre of the District, allowing us to explore its delights on a number of day trips. That first afternoon, Jon and Helen went walking alone. After the buzz of London and the containment of a family Christmas, the tranquil expanse of the Lake District allowed me to unwind and, with that unwinding, the stress of the year surfaced. I didn’t want to leave the cottage, content to rest and read on the couch.
In reality, I felt safe being inside. No police, no violence, no gunshots, no red minivans, no death. While my childhood premonition of dying young strangely allowed me to find peace with the thought of a short, full life, having death surround me as it had–violent, raw and messy–had filled me with fear. In the safety of that quiet cottage, the shock of the last six months emerged, jagged and rough, tearing through my defences, leaving me feeling completely exposed.
Without explanation, Jon understood and tried to convince Helen that what I needed was space and some time to recover. However, I think my behaviour offended her, as she felt somehow responsible for showing me the wonders of the District. I know this created tension between them, with Jon trying to protect me and Helen, believing that I was having a breakdown, urging me outside as a way of helping me pull myself together.
On the third day, I agreed to an afternoon drive and a walk around a nearby lake. To my surprise, I felt weary despite a few days with my feet up and so we took a slow stroll around the lakeside. We watched the colours of the day change to purples and pinks as the light faded over the dark lake. There was even snow on the ground. We hardly saw another soul but the air was crisp and fresh enough to remind me that I was alive. The colours of the land– browns and greens, the grey of the rocks–unchanged in centuries, convinced me that wars come and go but the earth is steadfast. Perhaps the struggles of people around the world for freedom and self-determination were just a shadow that passes fleetingly over the surface of the land, soon forgotten as the earth slowly turns, millennium after millennium.
Jon had planned for us to meet up with ten other friends from work and celebrate Hogmanay at Stirling Castle. I don’t remember much about Stirling itself, just that it was old beyond all my points of reference, with stone walls and cobbled streets. Of the evening at the castle, I remember long tables full of food, the music, red and black tartan, highland dancing, the presentation of the haggis. I remember my brother looking fine in full Scottish regalia, and the beautiful gowns and tuxedos of his friends, and I remember feeling incredibly grateful that Jon had brought me here, as I was not likely to experience such a thing again.
After our return from Scotland, I planned to catch up with my dear Canadian friend Elaine, who was now married and living in Paris. She had married an engineer whose latest role was to build the castle at Euro Disney. She had offered to have me come and stay for five days. Feeling a little recovered after our trip north and therefore more able to handle the thought of travelling alone in a foreign country, I boarded the train to take me to the ferry that crosses the channel. From there, I caught another train to Paris and then on to the station near Elaine’s work.
The journey itself was peaceful and scenic, giving me plenty of time to read and stare out the window at the passing world. I managed to find the right platform when I changed trains in Paris, though I was truly lost when I arrived at Elaine’s station only to find that my French currency was useless on all the phones. I would need to buy a phone card. No problem, I thought: six years of schoolgirl French should see me right with the fundamentals at least. Jon’s last words of advice to me were to speak French, not English, as the French don’t take kindly to foreigners who don’t make an effort. Each time I opened my mouth to ask for assistance, however, the last language to enter my head, Zulu, was the first language to leave my mouth, causing great embarrassment on my part and confusion for the good Samaritans who were trying to help me. Ultimately, after resorting to the universal language of smiles and charades, someone kindly gave me their phone card, though I suspect it was the shortest route to put some distance between them and a somewhat emotional me.
I encountered the same language problems when I phoned Elaine’s work, but was eventually told that Elaine was on her way to fetch me and we would all meet up at a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was with a rush of relief that I hugged Elaine twenty minutes later and poured out the story of my misadventures. Soon enough, she had me ensconced in a cosy restaurant with half a dozen of her friends from work, laughing about the trials and tribulations of building an American icon in France.
Elaine and I spent the next five days sightseeing, shopping, visiting museums and galleries, eating at cafes for lunch and dining in restaurants at night with Anthony, her husband. We drove down Paris’s narrow streets, risked the traffic circle in the Arc de Triomphe just for fun, and could never seem to find a place to park. After the first two days, my Zulu retreated and my French returned. To celebrate, I spoke to anyone who would stop and chat along the way. I loved Paris. Most of all, I remember that heart-stopping moment when, following a tourist map of the city, I turned a corner and in front of me was Notre Dame. I wept for the sheer joy of seeing this magnificent cathedral that my teacher had spoken of so often and with such love. I spent hours devouring every inch of the monument and all it had to offer, each stained glass window, each gargoyle, each statue. I loved it all.
