Johannesburg Art Gallery

The Johannesburg Art Gallery is a strange oasis in a sea of throbbing energy: downtown Jo’burg. I’m sure many, many people have written about this before, this grand old lady who is rumoured to have been built the wrong way round, but did the architects ever think that she would be cushioned by thousands of commuters, daily, relentlessly, like an island in a wild Zambezi where you must take command of your passage, on foot, or in vehicle? Years ago Kendall “Cock” Geers did an installation in one of the big rooms and placed absolutely nothing in it, from what I recall, or it may have been a small brown suitcase, a comment on the luxury of space within these walls whilst outside people are crammed into every square meter.

It’s a bastion, solid, impenetrable, skirted by 20ft steel fencing, in some areas doubled up. I went in the back door, after a brief reconnaissance to the front where I saw no security and felt better about leaving the car round the back, which turned out to be a great idea as it is where the cops hang out. So in I went through the one official non-public entrance, and the first line of rooms was empty. The magnificent wooden doors with the elaborate brass hinges and studded brass work,  exquisite and picture enough on their own.

I snuck in another door and was suddenly right next to Irma Stern, then the various grandes dames of South African art. Jane Alexander’s dark and creepy work (does she ever see light?), and all of a sudden I am surrounded by the works of Dali, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Lichtenstein, Warhol, I guess the usual national gallery fare to some, but this gallery was practically deserted, so I had heaps of time and space to giggle and delight about where I was and how I came to be there.

Most of my friends would be horrified that I went there alone, even A, who, during my last visit, gave me an ultimatum – “Either you stop being afraid of we’re going to attract the wrong kind of attention.” Even she was a bit taken aback that I had gone downtown alone. Naivety is a great passport, but to be honest, I can’t even say that I own that one. My friends C & D worked in Joubert Park for twelve years, and they said they just saw people, and that’s what it is, just people, trying to get someplace or else watching others get someplace. Of course there are the skollies; the beautician I saw earlier this week who lives in Dobsonville, Soweto, says that every two weeks someone tries to take her bag in this area. She has got sick of it so now shouts at them, and they seem to leave her alone.

M, who cleans the house I’m currently staying in, agrees, and says that no-one will help you, so you must SHOUT.  Eish, its terrible, that no one will help you, she mutters. To that she adds, “Eh, Jo’burg is fucked up,” I am mildly surprised to hear this grandmother curse so softly.

There is a room with the Gerard Sekoto’s, soft, rhythmic pictures of longing and life as usual. The massive Jackson Hlongwane sculptures are in the same place they always were, with Jesus playing Soccer there too. I met Mr. Hlohgwane in the early nineties, when I was working with the BBC; we went to interview him in Venda, one of the most magical trips of my life.  He kindly gave me a carved spoon, which I have in my treasure chest. We sat in the veld and listened to his lengthly religious expounding, Danielesque tales of apocalypse and life beyond.

There’s a Judith Mason, strange dark creature pencilled in delicate, deft strokes. My university friends and I used to visit her in her beautiful Simonstown home, with its stone walls and central fireplace, views to the other side of False Bay, drawing dark Dante forms.

The doors to the sculpture garden were locked, so I couldn’t go and say hello to my old friends there, Andries Botha and some others. But I did make a new friend in the gallery shop, N, and we chatted about the woes of the country for twenty minutes. I’d spotted a beautiful photographic poster of a man in deep bliss, hand on his heart and a sublime smile on his full lips. The picture is titled Amen, and declares that, “In Africa, football in not a religion. But it is everything a religion should be.” I bought it for the unavailable man, but I bought it for me too, not sure how to navigate these uncertain waters when one delicious being is not as open to the other, as the other.

This morning, on my way to the gallery, I bumped into M, the cleaning lady and her granddaughter, whom she rescued from her son’s errant lover and brought to Jozi to raise. N is a lovely shy little thing who has just started school. M told me that N was so excited about school that she was up and dressed at 5am on the first day. She loves it so much!

I took M into the city as I was going to the gallery, and we had the conversation that I have with so many black people who don’t have or use cars. On average, they spend between four and six hours a day commuting.  Four and six hours a DAY???? Isn’t that outrageous?? I am shocked that there hasn’t been a revolution based on this alone, that the taxi bosses have everyone so subjugated that there is nary a protest. What a fucking disaster … I cannot imagine having to wait and deal with the tedium of getting to and from home every single day. THIS is a political issue, THIS is oppression, when people have no choice but to waste their lives in queues and at the mercy of dangerous drivers in dangerous vehicles.  To have your day thus devoured ….

I left the gallery from the front entrance, and made my way round the side. I wish I could convey the noise of the city by words or by picture, but it’s not possible. Its loud, a mixture of many different stereos dancing out their tunes, a thousand engines revving through dense pedestrian traffic, everyone fighting for their right of way. Voices, sirens, trains, a multi-track audio bouncing round the city, off the huge apartment blocks, almost visible in its thickness. 

In the vacant parking lot on the east side of the gallery are two police vehicles, I think they were known as Ratels in the bad old days, or maybe Hippos, I can’t be sure. Next to them is a trailer of coiled razor wire, waiting, silently under a jacaranda tree, and it makes me wonder about all the news we never hear about. All the horror stories that haven’t a hope in hell of making it to any newspaper, the incidents that in any other place would warrant a front page spectacular. But here, In Jozi, its like the ocean, there are big fish, small ones, careless ones and predators. And there’s a rose garden at the north entrance to the gallery, just over what looks like a moat,  with pink and white blooms set against the emerald green lawn where lovers hold each other, and others lounge about, enjoying the heat and the spectacle of the blustering slate coloured storm clouds in the north.

Today, Egypt is burning, Yemen too. The SABC pronounces that the people in north Africa have had enough of dictators, of the widening gap between between rich and poor, of not having access to resources, of corruption. As the announcer speaks, I think that these words apply here too, and I wonder what might spark from distant Arabia, if anything. Or if people will simply continue to wait, and to wait for their journey to continue. 

Illusion vs Reality

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in Jo’burg, the sky bright blue against the green lawn outside. The aural landscape is soft for a change, there is only the sound of a grass broom sweeping the pavement outside, an anonymous sweeper until I raise the drawbridge of the electric gate. Even the dogs are quiet, I imagine their owners at home are a soothing presence, but ahhh, there’s one in the distance, starting up a hard-edged insistent noise.

I wonder if the good people of Johannesburg just get used to the high pitched neurosis of their dogs, whether the calls for attention get absorbed into their audio field, much like the squawk of the hadedahs. A friend from abroad was telling me about a meeting he attended where three hadedahs were stationed outside the window and making a huge racket. He couldn’t hear what the participants of the meeting were saying over the din, but the South Africans didn’t even blink and responded to every word effortlessly.

Makes me think of our selective perceptions, how we’ll adjust ourselves to feed into our desired destinations, sometimes oblivious to the nuts and bolts reality around us. I have just emerged from such a movie, a maddeningly foolish human folly. An aspect of me took over my brain, and led the procession into the script. The reality was that I met a man, and realised on the first day that he was not available. I even wrote my girlfriends that he was interesting, but a confirmed bachelor.

A week later, within which I had kept my distance for a few days, I found I was completely disarmed, spending long hours with him, having marathon text message sessions, late night drinks that resulted in pashing on the pavement, and I was falling in love. A mere 11 days later, I was head over heels and having an utterly intolerable time being with him, as he firmly declared, “I’m not available”.

How did this happen? How did I step into a movie where I kept moving with the delicious physical energy between us, and not only allow myself but even tell a friend, “I’ve met an amazing man”. Oh dear … even at this ripe age, my heart is prone to a vigorous gallop down the sunset cliché beach, eloping, loving, calling forth. I think I have been exposed to far too much fantasy, far too much romance. I blocked out the barking dogs sending me the message to back off,  and found myself squirming with embarrassment that I had fallen so quickly, and told him so honestly that all I really want is to love a man, and be loved by a man.  Which I imagine scared him off even further.

Thank God for John Demartini … I have been applying his method since yesterday, and have hoicked myself out of great despair and into acceptance that it is all perfect, all as it should be. At least I am in Africa, where the men are handsome and flirtatious, so there is a good chance I will find another one.  I found myself laughing at my antics last night, amused at what I had done, and what a nutcase he must think me. 11 days and I’m yours, indeed!

That’s a pretty personal disclosure for a blog on returning to Africa, but really part of the context. A seduction gone pear shaped, alongside a challenging new project, couched in a nomadic existence lived out of a suitcase for the next few months and a very tender, well meaning, but occasionally clumsy heart.

The gift of my time with this lovely man was that I got to see how I long for the merge, and in that merge, how I abandon my solid ground. So yesterday I reclaimed the earth I stand on, and moved vigorously forward into planning the next steps in The Enterprise Powerhouse, my project to develop entrepreneurs from low socio -economic areas. Sound familiar? Anyone else out there revert to work when matters of the heart prove simply too complicated?

I made my way to Ivory Park, an hour away from where I am staying. I travelled up the N1, spent 15 minutes getting off the Allandale off-ramp (the person who gave me directions said to factor this in – traffic chaos here is a bit like the dog barking; simply part of a ragged, furious city, an annoyance caused by maddening incompetency, that one must get past). Through industrial areas and bits of leftover grassland, past a construction of an enormous mosque that will be beautiful, and will stand out on the horizon for miles. Is it the Wahhabis, or who is building this, I wonder?  Men like ants sure footedly, lazily walking around its dome, harness free (Australian authorities would be red faced and outraged by now, having located which minister to blame and be going for their jugular in parliament and talk radio before 4pm).

To my right is the massive township of Tembisa, Ivory Park sits on its edge, a mix of shacks and RDP houses. I pass the vehicle licensing office, and have to weave around the touts who want to take my photo for my licence, or print forms to sell me in their van on the dusty side of the road. I want neither, and am just trying to find Pretorius Street, SOON, as I have 5 minutes before the learners I am interviewing finish their exam and I don’t want to miss them.

I drive fast down what is now a country road, turn right into a road with no name but bears a resemblance to something on my map, and am now driving straight into the township. I know that the training facility is on the edges of the township, so I know I’m wrong. I have a curious mix of feelings mainly hovering around caution. I don’t want to end up in the thick of the township on my own, until I know where I am and what I’m dealing with. The last time I was around this township I had a very bad experience where I nearly died, a distant memory by now but feeds in a little heartbeat. I drive a bit further and pull over at a tuckshop. There’s a guy generating lovely soapsuds washing a car, a woman getting a table ready to cook food on, two men sitting on plastic chairs drinking long necks of beer. I approach the woman, who has pale green eyes and ask her for directions. A few people gather round, and then the drinkers call me over and explain where to go.

Five minutes later I am at the school, and thankfully the students had started their exam late so I can relax. M, who runs the centre, sets me up at a computer so I can check my mail, and in between, we talk about what I am planning to do and what she suggests. She says South Africans are lazy; 30% of their students are Zimbabweans, prepared to work for their lives and to start businesses, whereas the South Africans just want to sit in a swivel chair and work for Vodacom.  She’s funny, describes how she lost her job and started her own hair-braiding business before coming to run this centre, and she is South African, so its not across the board now is it?!

When the learners complete their test, I go and introduce myself, in English, and ask if anyone has thought of starting a business. Five people come forward, and we have a chat, which is mostly me chatting. There are four women and a man from the Northern Cape. He’s an entrepreneur – he has juice, impetus, a plan. I want him on board. The ladies are excruciatingly shy, they tell me their names, and their ideas for businesses – a gym, a spa offering manicures and pedicures and a laundry. Nice ideas – I like them, but it is very hard to have a conversation, as they are so shy. I know this from other interactions, and curse myself for not being fluent in an African language. I resolve to start studying this week.

So my first steps are taken. I have a venue, an IT training company behind me, a social enterprise that is working that wants to partner, a friend who loves the BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) Code, and who wants to work with me to integrate it into our project. There is much to be done, many meetings to be had, so it is just as well that my rapid fire love affair has ended, so that I can focus on the business of reality, which is doing the work I am meant to be doing, that I dreamed about two years ago and that I am now moving into.  Not merging, but swimming, with strong strokes.

Razor wire tunnel dove

Generous

It is good to be home. So good to be cutting through the maze of warnings that come pre-packaged with any trip to South Africa. When my friend R was here from Australia, I drove great distances to avoid HIllbrow and central Johannesburg, mapping our journey according family and friends’ advice, according to an ancient history of when I lived here and got robbed there, smash ‘n’ grabbed there, and there. 

There’s this mist of a movie that can be projected up onto the streetscapes of Jo'burg, that looks something like …  me, a lone whitey, driving down a busy city street, where I am suddenly helpless as some predatory young man makes his way to me, to impose theft, murder or rape on me.

The art of living here is to dissolve those kind of scripts, remain present, and yes, be careful, but DRIVE. LIVE. BE. Like the province of Gauteng the cityscapes move quickly. What was once a smash ‘n’ grab hotspot is still the same underpass, but the pillars holding the throbbing freeway up are beautifully mosaic-ed, and yesterday there was a lazy Sunday air with people  walking, sitting, waiting, praying – the church ladies in their beautiful white and green cottons seated in a circle near the intersection, softly singing, probably waiting.  Allelujah.

For how many years have I avoided that underpass? Because once, about 15 years ago, the passenger window was smashed and my bag removed. I got such a fright, as did the drivers around me, that we all stopped to talk and recover, the Indian couple behind me was as shocked as I at how swift the thief had been, and pulled over to check if I was ok. It was the beginning of the flavour of crime that was to seep into our city, before the protective film for car glass, now available, to thwart the smash ‘n’ grabbers, before the myriad of beggars and concocted street life of today.

But I was saying, how I love to be back. How very lucky I am to be here, and how very blessed it feels to be inhabiting this life. Last week I got my new South African passport, with great ease and efficiency at Centurion Home Affairs. I was thrilled. To me it was a sign, that I am home, that this is my country, my earth, my place of belonging.  

Passport tucked into my bag, I went to my mother’s house to see my family, my visiting cousin and her husband and children who were heading back to Toronto shortly.  My cousin and I had spoken at length about what it means to leave, to come back. She and her husband did not want to raise their children in South Africa – they wanted them to be free of racial discrimination. Which is honorable, as it is so inbuilt in our experience of this country. It doesn’t seem to be possible to spend a day with a group of people without someone referring to blacks or whites.

On this family day, the man who works in my mother’s garden, A, a tall, older Zulu man, was finishing his planting and trimming. He came to the door to speak to my mother, and P, my six year old Canadian nephew ran across the room to greet him and yelled out, “Are you family?” My cousin and I were so moved, it was incredibly precious that he perceived A to be our people. Onse mense.

On top of this warm occurrence, I’ve made a friend who is also new to Johannesburg – a brilliant, funny, warm and delicious man with the most glorious manners and the wickedest hooligan streak I have seen in a while. An authentic hooligan, but one who can dance and whose southern accent melts me into the moment. What exquisite fun it is to be moving around the city with him, talking about race, culture, heart stories, plans, prospects. I feel so very loved by existence to have this person in my life, to come and colour in the places that were left in outline, where I’ve been waiting for the quality masculine to take space. I won’t say more about that, as it is a little complicated, but what I will say is thank you, gracias, baie dankie for coming this way, hooligan. 

Having someone like this is like a tide that washes in and out – it shapes me, and then leaves and I find my ground again, and as I’m formulating an idea he gently comes in again and tells me some other interesting story about his ancestors or his family, about slaves who rose to surgeons, about perceptions of race and I love that finally I have someone to talk to, who is firm in his ideology, but willing to stretch and listen and breathe in the stories that insert themselves into my psyche, the stories that bring poignancy and a surprise to  what we think we knew.

One such story I told him yesterday was about my father, my kind, gregarious and generous father who retired about 20 years ago and couldn’t stand the inertia of being homebound, so went to work for our neighbour, who owned a significant advertising agency.  Dad died a few years later, shockingly suddenly, and in those days of mourning that followed, a small group of black staff from the advertising agency arrived at my mother’s house, to express their condolences. They did this by handing over an envelope, to which every black staff member had contributed cash, to express their respect for my father and their support of my mother. Of course, my mother did not need the money, but of course, was deeply profoundly touched by this humble, generous act.

From this and other stories I know my father was a good man, I know he would help people where he could and was generous. He would slip a R10 note to a man who was standing at the meat counter, counting coins to see what he could afford. So yes, my lovely hooligan, in this system where we whites benefitted from the oppression of millions, these little gestures of kindness hold value. They were too small and could’ve been grander, but this, my father helping a man, thank God keeps a flame of compassion alive. I can hear a cynical voice that would say it’s pathetic, a gesture that would be a one off help to a man who lived a miserable existence of endless poverty with no hope of prosperity. But to me, my father’s gestures are meaningful, the envelope brought to my grieving mother meaningful, that in this vulgar system of degradation and exploitation, small acts of kindness are the pennies that contribute to our survival here, now. Inshallah.

Meadowlands, Soweto

Saturday saw us in Orlando West, Soweto, at Lebo’s backpackers. What a fantastic business he has built up. He’s used his family home to create a space for foreigners to experience Soweto. There’s a tropical feel with bamboo walls, a pool table and space to hang out that just screams, “Good Times!” And they’ve resurrected the park over the road which is spotlessly clean with children’s play equipment and a long row of bicycles. It’s a real pleasure to see, most inspiring.

Our guide for the day was S, a 24 year old raised in Pretoria West and Soweto. We were on a cycling tour of Soweto (tell that to the punters and see what reactions you get, for example, an American, "That's great! I love Soweto!" A member of my family, "I hope you can ride fast...")

I loved the bike I got to ride – it had raised handlebars like Easy Rider, which means you can sit up straight and not have to lean into the bike, a very cruisey way to travel. We started at Class 3 Meadowlands – at the notorious Mzimhlope hostels, which I believe were occupied by IFP men in previous years. We stood on the very battleground which I remember seeing on various images, the terrifying stories of the conflict between the ANC and IFP. S told us that the hostels have been converted into family units. The area was littered and definitely not receiving services. We rode around some back streets, where people keep their yards immaculate, but the pile of trash in the street and the stinking water flowing through them betrays these peoples’ intention to keep this place in order. The area down at the hostels feels bleak – a vacant plot with bits of broken concrete and people lounging around on them, a sullen air.

Our first stop was a shebeen, just up from the hostels, a corrugated iron shack, with benches round the edges, a group of sorry looking drinkers summonsed up a bit of jolly to greet us. A curious way to start the tour, but the point of it was to share a pot of umqombothi, the bitter traditional beer made of sorghum, yeast, bread. A foul taste, for our delicate western palates, but we appreciated the sentiment of passing the pot, the other patrons imbibed in fitful gulps. I couldn’t get out of the shack soon enough – I’m not into alcoholism anyway, and there is something particularly tragic about a tour to meet the locals whose faces are purple hued and bloated. Maybe I’m missing something here, but this was not the highlight.  

From 3^rd class we passed through 2^nd and then 1^st, or Beverly Hills, where Winnie Madikizela-Mandela lives (one of the old ladies in Centurion asked me if I saw the restaurant she runs on her pavement, which I think is supposed to be a bad or scandalous thing, but there was no such providor). Then past Bishop Tutu’s house, which is on a really busy corner of the famous Vilakazi Drive, where Mandela’s old red brick house stands, now a flash museum.

Sol took us past the station where a beer hall once stood, and explained to us that the students in the uprising destroyed the beer halls because they needed their fathers to help them, and to sober up and not be instigating domestic violence. It made me think about Mandrax, Black Label, and how drugs and alcohol are political. And what the story is now, with tik and heroin here, and whatever else people are shrinking their brains with, and what level of official involvement supports this trade and disempowerment. A good film to make, methinks.

I got terribly sad throughout the day, as every corner we turned, every group of people we drove past, smiled and greeted us. The kids chased us for high fives and the old mamas waved to us. This country crashes my understanding, I cannot comprehend what has occurred here, I have not been present to integrate the emotional progress that allows a friend I bumped into in 7^th Street, Melville, who, when I told her how sad I had become at seeing pictures of the occupied townships in the seventies, waved her hand and said, “Everyone’s forgotten about that, apartheid, we’ve moved on.”

That night, as I sat in bed digesting the day, I thought that maybe that’s my job, or the job of us who left, maybe we are the ones to remember. Such tremendous events could never be forgotten, certainly compartmentalised or defused, but, for instance, the images at the Hector Pietersen Museum had me devastated. The green Cortina carrying the snipers who felled random Africans, the tanks and the white soldiers with their tear gas and guns to deliver rubber bullets and live ammunition. I’m sorry dear people, even if you have moved on, I have not.

I related this concern to my friend E, from whom I learned many Yiddish phrases, and said that perhaps some of us had to leave, so that we would retain the memory.  She sat up straight and said, “Yad Vashem – Lest we forget”, which I believe is appropriate. Who of us will remember, whilst we move forward at such a terrifying pace? Who will remember so that never again, we must never again allow it to happen, ever again.

Pretoria, Tshwane

Pretoria

On a trip to Pretoria two weeks ago, my friend and I visited Church Square. It was a hot day and stately Victorian buildings stood sentinel to the beautiful park; the Palace of Justice, the Old Capitol Theatre where my mother used to watch films as a child, the Old Post Office towering over immaculate lawns and flowerbeds, over humans lounging on the lawn, plying their trade as roving photographers, their Canon printers standing by to deliver the moment in tangible form.  Prize place in the very centre of the square is a statue of Paul Kruger, Boer hero leader and President of the South African Republic, father of a nation to some. Beneath him on the plinth are Boer soldiers, bearded men with hats and a bush-worn look about them.

What made me stop and sink into a pure South African moment, was observing the black families posing with the statues, the little children sitting in the laps of the old Boer soldiers with their sad eyes, staring to the horizon. I wondered if the families knew who they were photographing, I’m sure they did, and I wondered why they were so enthusiastic about photographing them, when the government is determined to tear the statues down, relocate them or replace them with more contemporary heroes.

It was moving, to see the citizens of South Africa appreciating the gardens and the memorials. It always feels as if something deeper is at work here, with that kind of interaction. One could dismiss the people posing and photographing as uninformed, or simply appreciating the formidable monument; I could have asked them but I was not sure what to ask, and didn’t want to be insulting, patronising, strange.

I am somewhat attached to the picture of the little black girl posing in the lap of the Boer soldier and how it looked as if she belonged there, she was perfectly comfortable, and he was protecting her. Is there room for manipulation of mythology here? Is there space for this interpretation?

Is there any opportunity to acknowledge those Boers who perhaps have and do contribute to the establishment, growth and the wellbeing of the nation, and that perhaps, it would not only be possible, but also respectful, courageous to leave them there, and in doing so open up cultural possibilities beyond the aching habit of standard apartheid discourse? To perhaps consider, if we don’t control every aspect of our perception and impose yet another ideology onto our citizens, and if we  leave some of it open to the unpredictable flows of life, what might emerge, if we let go of our dogma, what would evolve?

Some kind of weird alchemy that goes beyond what is and what and how we perceive it should be, perhaps.

I would like to open these questions, to open the door to the confined space that our ideology affords us. Sure, this democracy provides a far more breathe-able country to live in. On one hand it is a reaction to an atrocious system that, thank God, is relegated to museums and memory, wafts of it still evident depending on where you stand. The ideology provides safety from that system, but what lies beyond it? What could we expand into, I wonder, that is not simply safe, but authentic?  What if it were true, as an ex boyfriend once said to me, that we are all valid?

African Rain

                                                                                    

I walked down Jan Smuts Avenue in Irene this afternoon, past the giant regal gum tree someone had nailed a “Paintball!” sign to, down past the Weyers’ home, the Twin Rivers Estate, beneath the enormous oaks, poplars and plane trees that disperse shade and light, settling an air of peace over anyone who walks or drives slowly enough to absorb it.

Down to the little bridge crossing the creek, I stopped about ten meters before it as the trees create a dense cover. The ladies my mum and I pick up when we are driving often speak about the skelms* who steal their money or food, so I did a u-turn and headed back up the quiet road to the Jan Smuts property. It is such a place of peace, this Irene; mum says that’s what the word means, peace. This is the land that the former Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, lived on. The beautiful old corrugated iron house was originally built in India, but they dissembled it and brought it here, to this farm between Pretoria and Johannesburg. It is now a monument, housing the original furniture, his library and herbarium. If you’re feeling brave you can follow the Ou Baas trail up the koppie and do a loop to the entrance of the property. If you’re feeling brave or can build up a sound wall to the locals who warn of robbery and rape in these fair hills.

There are magnificent trees on the grounds – many indigenous ones planted by General Smuts, as well as oak, pomegranate, a variety of eucalypts and majestic pines that shed their needles and cones and the fine fragrance of their oils.  I walked over this soft brown carpet towards the koppie, and then lay around the Place of Quiet, a shelter built in honour of Jan Smuts and the land he loved. The view from this monument to the north looks onto the next koppie, unfortunately now covered with Tuscan McMansions in the spanking new suburb of Cornwall Hill, or Irene Farm Villages, a bitter reminder that the suburbanites have now destroyed the farm and village surrounds.

The stately gum and pine trees create a bit of a filter to these vulgar developments, and I wonder how much longer there will be any free land here? Will any of the residents ever protest the rapid hemming in of the veld by these ‘burbs that blare “MONEY”!!! and must be a magnet for the violent crime wave that is sweeping the area?

At the border of the Smuts land, down below towards the creek and the graveyard of the Boers held in the British concentration camp, a small troupe of monkeys explored the pine cone needles. There are few creatures left here – some snakes, tortoise, a few buck and some lovely bird life. It is blissful to have a portion of nature to retreat to in the metallic intensity that is Gauteng.

Last evening I sat on the wall that encloses my mother’s laundry to watch the show – the spread of lightning from the south and west at sunset, creating clouds of palest dusky pink against a granite sky, some soft blue highlights flecking through. It was an epic storm that chased me inside, my beer and biltong hastily finished as the big drops hurled themselves down.

Today again, slate grey clouds came from the south and the air turned cold after a perfect Highveld day, an amicable 29 degrees. The first giant globules shattered on the brick driveway, and then it came down in sheets, massive drops, driving down. I love it, this, everything in Africa so big, booming thunder and lightning that cracks you out of your seat. I love how nature reminds us of her magnitude by the throaty booms that rattle the windowpanes, make you freeze for a moment, instantaneously grateful that you have shelter.

To the south and east people will be flooded again, shacks washed away, hopefully no-one dies tonight, but that’s unlikely in Gauteng.

There’s a brutality that exists here, in the elements, in the hearts of some of the people, which lives side by side some terrible vulnerability, like the beggars at the traffic lights, some blind some burnt, as I say, a terrible vulnerability that nonetheless seems to survive the fumes and fury of a city on its own private mission, lit up by skyfire and shaken by the surge of nature’s power. Tender deep inside and skin deep, we mere humans, like ants, on the surface of a rough African skin. Home again.  

*thugs/crooks

Return to South Africa

I arrived in South Africa in late November, and started recording my thoughts a few weeks later ….

16^th December, 2010

Well hello there! How are you in the run up to Christmas? I hope it’s very jolly in your part of the world. People here in Johannesburg are strongly fixed on the point of departure: Christmas holidays are everything and Jo’burg is starting to empty out, which is fabulous, as the horrendous traffic starts to thin.

On one hand, I love being here … I am completely intrigued by what my country has become. My friends say its like being in a time warp talking to me, as I left in 1999 and South Africa has a decade of development under its belt. I’m intrigued to observe how my mind is still working from a really old reference point, and wonder how long it will take to catch up. So many cues dictate the evolution – clothing, hairstyles, expert commentators on television, people’s very presence. The country is populated by African leaders – I glimpsed the impact of these changes in my visits here over the years, but now, African people run every sector of the country. Being a child of the apartheid era, this is a bit of a brain warp for me, and please, no offense meant here, it’s just that I am caught in a delay until I catch up. What I do like to see is people in their dignity, and because I look with fresh eyes, I can see how quickly the psycho-social transformation has taken place. Of course there are areas where things have regressed to an appalling state - poverty, housing, crime, but it is a very different country where there is a sense of belonging and ownership foreign in the early eighties.

Another observation that’s surfaced into some kind of understanding for me is gender relations. On the enneagram personality typing system, South Africa would be an 8, the Bully in an unhealthy state, Brilliant Leader in a healthy state. Corruption is off the Richter scale here, but there is a very strong print tradition – a couple of excellent newspapers that are committed to transparency and the democratic process. One paper has a team called Amabhungane, meaning, the dung beetle, muck-rakers, gathering dirt, that expose many of the astonishing corruption stories, and so tackle the bullies.

Back to gender stuff. I find the men solid, masculine, very different to Aussies. Its great to be around decisiveness, which can easily slip into bullying, if you let it. I hired a car to get me to a five day training program with John Demartini in Sandton – as I’m on a budget I went with (lets call it) Rent a Tin Can on Wheels, whose offices are based under a flyover in downtown Jo’burg, which most honkies I’ve spoken to consider a no-go zone, or at least a cloud passes over their face when I mention it.

The picture is that the southern end of the city is margined by old mine dumps, you won’t see a tree for a while, perhaps some old skinny gum trees which were used in the mines. You take the M1 freeway, which winds south and then east, circling the city and providing a fabulous view of the cityscape and giant Mary Sibanda artworks draped across buildings. You descend into the belly of old Jo’burg on the Joe Slovo offramp, a magnificent piece of engineering design which sees you driving parallel to the elevated windows of apartment blocks right next to the freeway.

There seems always to be a woman next to a smoky fire roasting corn in African space, and here she sits, directly beneath the flyover and her smoke provides another atmospheric element to the concrete jigsaw puzzle.

The buildings in this area are mainly from the 50’s, 60’s 70’s, big old apartment and office blocks, utilised but not cared for. Because people didn’t pay their rent, electricity and water services, owners of some of these buildings abandoned them as they were more hassle than worth any real money, so people remained living in unserviced structures. Unscrupulous cartels hijacked certain buildings, operating like slumlords, determining who does and doesn’t stay. Mostly there are foreigners in these buildings, refugees and asylum seekers. Medicines Sans Frontiers says that this area is in major crisis, that people are living below international refugee guidelines. Isn’t that extraordinary, when you think of refugee camps in Kenya with tens of thousands of people in some remote, deserted spot, tents and dust everywhere? Here its happening in dense inner city – they’ve identified 82 buildings housing approximately 50-60 000 people with no water, no power, living in terrible filth and danger. Imagine that in downtown Melbourne.

Anyway, this is the area I had to get to to pick up my car.  On the day I’m nervous, fed on stories of how terrifying downtown Jo’burg is, so I get the company to come and pick me up from Fournos, my temporary head quarters, a pleasant café in an upmarket area I used to frequent when I lived here. As we drove into the city area, my jaw dropped at these hijacked buildings – windows are broken, people use anything to cover the holes, cardboard, fabric, plastic, and they have the appearance of being stuffed with stuff and muffled humanity. Jo’burg that I grew up in has become a full-blown African city. And it moves so fast, at its own anarchic pace, that it is very easy to get left behind.

The guys in the car rental office are big black men, and want me to leave two blank signed credit card slips plus a deposit for the shitbox they are renting me. I cannot believe they are serious – who on earth would do that in Africa? Eventually all three of them are trying to calm me down, “Mama, please, let’s all just cool down, its completely normal, everyone does it, we have been running for 46 years.” This is evident, in the ancient triangular office. There is not a computer in sight. Grubby books detailing accounts, cars, agreements line the walls, thankfully there are no girly calendars. Eventually I figure I’ll give them a debit card which I can ensure will only ever have $200 dollars on it, calm down, and get in the car. My heart is pounding. I have to find my way out of the city, I thought there would be a map in the car but they suggest I go to a newsagent and buy my own map. Fair enough; for R140 a day (AU$20), I can see the need for the customer to supply their own map.

The old white Jewish man wearing a yarmulke has been sitting quietly at the next desk, arranging his rental, and now asks G, one of the workers, for directions. G tells him but he insists he is going to drive through the centre of town. Even G shakes his head; this is not a good thing to do. Its seriously dangerous, the Commissioner Street of yesteryear is a very different street. But the old man is insistent. 

I’m struck when the owner of the business arrives, a pink man in denim shorts inserts himself behind a desk, at home, also Jewish, and it comes back to me how deeply layered is this multicultural society. The Jews pretty much built Jo’burg, and there are a few left here, who didn’t flee for Sydney or Melbourne.  It’s a scene from 1979, this funny grubby little office with its Africans and assorted Jewry.

Rattled by my experience, I make my way to 44 Stanley St, an apparently groovy development in the part of town housing film studios, hip. I can’t find it. The roadworks, which were in the same state when I came here in June, are still diverting traffic to a place I don’t want to be in. I ask a seedy Indian man in his seedy café (milk bar), and he sends me somewhere I’m pretty sure is not right. After driving around and thinking about the free 60km I’m using up (I’m a tight arse, I know…) I listen to my instinct, and drive straight to the Stanley Street. There is even a parking place directly outside the door which is a blessing, and a curse (all the other cars are Lexus, BMW, Porsches … I am after all, in Egoli, the City of Gold, and I am driving a bronze 1986 Mazda that screams “skorokoro”, meaning, roughly, shitbox).

I swallow my pride, get out the car, the ancient alarm goes off as soon as I step out and I fumble with an immobiliser I remember from my childhood. Thank God alarms are the birdsong of Jo’burg so no-one pays too much attention. I’m still shaking. Feeling very rattled by the intense energy of the city, the furious driving, the hooting taxis trying to attract passengers, the electric pace of everyone pushing to get somewhere. My little sensitive being is feeling invaded, and I know that this will have to change if I am to spend time here.

Stepping into 44 Stanley Street is like entering an oasis. Its calm, a small complex with terribly stylish shops and cafes, people have coffee under young trees in delicate cafes. And the people are GORGEOUS. A woman resembling Grace Jones walks past, massive Gucci shades and viciously sharp shoulders to her jacket, her stilettos under her strict command. Bright young creative things are in intense conversation, a few faces I remember from my life in the film business tweak my memory. Can’t remember their names. Don’t expect them to remember me.

I’m meeting R, my old mate from years ago; we were headhunted to work for a big media corporation around the time of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I adore R, he’s funny, clever, with a clear take on things. We’re both going grey, I comment when we see each other, I just have enough hair for a comb-over to hide my silver strands.

Its lovely to see him, we always liked each other, and he tells me about Birth, a book he’s reading about 1994, when Mandela was released and the country was changing. We were all doing interesting film and television stuff, for the BBC, Channel4, Discovery, and he tells me he is shocked to read what was ACTUALLY going on, how close the country was to civil war. “And we were getting drunk,” he reminds me. It’s true. We were very, very drunk and not remotely aware of the danger, or perhaps we needed to be drunk to keep on working and living BECAUSE we sensed the danger.

Anyway, I was trying to tell you about gender stuff here. I have noticed that the women are very sexual in their presentation. Across the races, there’s a lot of money spent on hair, make-up, clothes … it’s a high value here to be sexy. I realised how lax I am about clothing, and how relaxed we are in Australia. And the men. Stubborn. Total blokes. When I returned the car to Rent a Tin Can on Monday, I told the solid black bloke that the petrol gauge wasn’t working. He insisted that it was – an Aussie guy would have listened to what I said and showed a bit of respect. After telling Solid five times that it was definitely not working I realised it was easier just to give up and walk away. Sometime, you just have to say Fuckit, right?

In between getting ready for Christmas, I am following up on work stuff, just taking my projects slowly as there is not a whole lot happening in December. Everything takes three times as long as my internet connection is excruciatingly slow (that’s another deeply boring story of terrible service, they’re a dime a dozen here). So no work with clients is being done, which is actually a very good thing for me; now I shall arrange myself on my mother’s couch and be fed Christmas mince pies.

Whilst dealing with the urban scenarios, I’m reading extraordinary books about shamans and fabulous African stories. It is good for me to be here. To be with my mum and to explore what it is I’ve been missing all the time I’ve been in Australia. To see how I’ve infatuated with South Africa and the illusion I’ve built up around it. To meet the people who have stayed here and to get the sense, the feeling and knowing of where I come from, and what makes these people who they are, what these personalities are all about. To take some time before I have to make it all work here, business, life, love. Wish me luck!