…the lady looked pensive. Her head turned this way and that; too quickly, like a meerkat on the lookout for snakes in the veld. A quick signal—a slight of hand and a knowing look. And then a man.
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"I can only tell you things that happened as I saw them, and what the rest was about only Africa knows." – Oom Schalk Lourens
What would Nelson Mandela say about South Africa today? I want to know. And I want to know why I should love him, as the world and my country say I should. I want something more than logic; I want to feel the pain of oppression for those in South Africa who have been oppressed, without the baggage of post-’95 government directed rage.
My brothers reckoned they were G.I Joes or MacGuyver, or some such army/gadget-guy; their favourite past time was designing and implementing booby traps that would span the breadth of the road just outside our house. One day…
The ndumba was not hunting as it normally would—the beast had already nabbed a couple of people and was likely to target more. Maybe it was hungry. The boy wondered if a lion had a big enough stomach to hold an entire human—maybe a child but surely not a grown man, like dad or like Chesiwe.
I know with the clearest of certainty that of all the moments that have inflicted their personality upon the history of this world, there are some that only the three of us will ever ‘get’—rage over, cry in memory of and laugh at…
So Miss Priss proceeds to regale about Buckingham Palace and patronises the kids with babyish questions, like “Do you know who lives here?” Sick of being treated like morons from darkest Africa, the Saheti kids decide to take the guide for a ride: “Yes! This is BECKingham Palace and David Beckham lives here”. And of course everyone finds this quite funny except for the horrified Miss Priss…
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“Bloody Boere” retorted Joanna, as she recounted her walk home in our neighbour’s kitchen that day back in 199-something.
It vaulted onto her face, its limbs clinging to her soft skin. One minute we were playing in the garden, the next Kate was shrieking blue murder. There was no way that I was going near those mandibles.
I’d sneak into her garden by climbing over the low stone wall that separated our houses, then, using the Jasmine bush that flourished against the front of her house as a physical shield; I’d peer into the lounge window, my eyes barely making it to the glass, to catch a glimpse of my pal. I mean, why just knock on the door when ‘walking to the neighbours’ could be turned into a game of espionage?
I’d roll by with my window down in anticipation of the familiar greeting “Hullo Mees Unives!”. With his winning smile and smooth talking, I have no doubt that in another life my friendly pedlar would have made not only a fabulous pageant judge but an excellent salesman in a corporate conglomeration. In this life his office was the pavement and his clients were surly drivers on the way to somewhere.