North of the Zambezi

This morning at 8am I stepped onto my yoga mat, preparing for the day I prostrated to the north-west, “Haq”, I bow to the truth. Trucks rumbling in the background, the sound of the building supervisor’s voice became louder and louder as the concrete mixer rotated. He started yelling and I was reminded, I’m north of the Zambezi, as my friend B put it, north of the line that separates Jo’burg and Rosebank to the south, to everything in the north. I am WAY north of the Zambezi, here in Irene, surrounded by Centurion, rapidly becoming one of my least favourite places on the planet.

When I heard the supervisor scream, “Come on man, you fucking useless, hurry up,” my rage surged. Off the mat I marched to the building site in my yoga gear, passing A, the old Zulu man in his overall who works in this complex full time, who was standing watching the performance from a distance. “Eish, hy vloek die manne, ne?” (“he’s cursing the men hey?”)

“Eish,”  he replied.

I tried to get the supervisor’s attention to let him know that we could hear him and could he tone it down. He ignored me, so I got a bit of paper and a pen and started taking down the company details, ready to burn his sorry ass. At which point he came over and asked what the problem was. By this time I was furious, and let him have it, which I don’t often do.

“Its unacceptable that you are talking to these men like this and telling them they’re fucking useless. We can hear you loud and clear …” I went on, basically in a fury telling him they deserved dignity and we didn’t want to hear his abuse. He apologised, and when I stormed off, I realised that what I’d wanted to say was that this kind of behaviour is why some black people hate white people so much. Remember Eugene Terreblanche? What is with these kind of South Africans that they can’t see the correlation between violent crime and command language, control behaviour, treating people like dumb animals? What does this fellow think the consequences of his vitriol will be?

God, this place is heavy. This far north of the Zambezi does my head in. Its ugly, lacks progressive thought, makes me want to flee south, to the arms of Jozi where less of this goes on, I like to think.

Mind you, when I was furniture shopping near Northcliff, I think the area was called Albertskroon, with my friend last week, the blonde Afrikaans lady who served us, ciggie in one hand coffee in the other, not an ounce of fat on her tiny body, declared her dominion by leading us to the workshop at the back of the shop and yelling at the top of her voice, “Hey … WARASSA! Shut up, julle raas,” (“you’re making a noise”) to a group of black men crafting tables, chairs, cabinets. Ugly, unnecessary, she was quietly embarrassed when she realised we didn’t occupy the same side of the Great Divide as she did.

Awful, dark country this is. Awful and dark when the men choose to stay in the employ of the Nazi, as we now refer to her, where these confounding relationships are perpetuated, where the filth of dominion, disdain, disregard and victimhood smears itself over our days. Oh I’m dark today, I apologise, but I feel terribly, terribly dark.

My friend pulled me up on the weekend, on what I said about the risk of the current socio-political discourse becoming a cliché. He identifies as black, so takes a righteous pedestal, and feels to correct me about this: he thought I was saying that the post-apartheid discourse was a cliché, and that I was, like a typical whitefella, disregarding the suffering of the blackfellas. This is not at all what I was saying; I am looking for tangents, byways, other avenues of the cultural discourse, to reveal some enlightening perspectives. I realise I have the freedom to do this, by virtue of my historical privilege, bolstered by the deeply entrenched sense of entitlement that strides within me. 

But from this morning’s horrible story, and from the daily scenes of black people being berated, commanded, ignored, corrected, badgered, diminished by white people, those backroom scenes, sometimes in public, but often I guess lonely, humiliating scenes, I recognise that there is a need for the solid post/anti-apartheid discourse  to hold firm, to remain rooted deep in the earth and not be shaken, even though some people switch off, some roll their eyes, glaze over, some simply observe.  That perhaps now, more than ever, is a time for vigilance, whilst we distil and implement the constitutional and legal process, perhaps it is timely to break out fresh language around human rights.

Unfortunately we are often ruled by the dictates of the markets, our virtual Hitler, with all the fear mongering and manipulating of the national psyche around job numbers. Hallowed job numbers. These numbers are part of the game, critical aspects to dividends and prospects, quarterly earnings and political sales pitches. Without brilliant leadership, which is absent, the one way we can move this society into empowerment is through individuals affecting local pockets and the ripple effect that will result. Economic policy is meaningless to the guy spreading the liquid concrete under the viper tongue of the supervisor and his black moustache; he will probably only get paid R50 or R100 for the days work anyway. My contribution is a program to develop entrepreneurs, inshAllah, as I don’t believe in relying on job creation or being an employee to free your soul or your pocket.

Get me out of here. Out of this headspace and into something softer. But this, snor city, (moustache city), this Pretoria,  is what I chose when I arranged to stay here for these days. I trust my soul, I trust these distastefully uncomfortable situations that ignite my ire. These days fuel my fire around injustice and abuse, and bring into close range the power that I gained from my cultural heritage that I can harness and use for good now. It is risky, stepping into the warzone of race and human dynamics, I may get annihilated, I may be humiliated. I may be responding to historical triggers that are unresolved in me. But what I do know is that I can’t stand by, I cannot simply observe people’s struggles. As much as I wish someone would help me, even rescue me, love me, respect me, care for me, protect me, so I must do for others when situations arise.

Usually I am more cautious, circumspect before entering the fray, but I am further fueled by the ferocious energy of Gauteng, of this land that has been ravaged by mining concessions, and pays us back with toxic acid water. Bakes us with heat, submits to our manic highways and byways, only to drive us forward with the urgency of creation on the edge. I do not know any other city in the world that propels its citizens with such raw, voracious, insatiable energy.

What I do know is, here, north of the Zambezi, I miss the progress of Jozi, I miss the embrace of my old lover and can’t breathe much in the mist of the Afrikaner population that manages this environment. I’m sorry to be racist, I particularly apologise to my Afrikaans family, but this is an old feeling, an old distaste that carries with it all that appalling legacy, and when I see it re-enacted it brings a whole Mail & Guardian, Vrye Weekblad history and vigilance, and I want to be done with the contractions of the past, done with the need to diminish and control  each other, done with the division of labour that has not really changed, in for example, the building industry.

Tell me – am I simply a naïve woman? Gone too long and too sensitive? What I am interested in is a life beyond fear of each other, and with every abusive encounter, how we set ourselves back to a fearful, bitter, back-biting society. Maybe I’m too much of an idealist, or I believe too much in alchemy, what can evolve from merging disparate elements. Maybe I spend too much time on my own, so that I can entertain ideals. Maybe I’m out of touch, but my curiosity is heartfelt, as is my frustration with the days that fail to produce the possibilities that I hold. 

Emaciated

Today I gave three ladies a lift. The sky was bruising, dark, with lightning snaking in the south, thunder shaking the earth right across the Gauteng. I’d been in a shopping mall, in a supermarket with maddeningly flickering lights, you know those fluorescents that set off epileptic fits? Shopping for my mother’s 80^th birthday proved a lengthy process, just finding the right ingredients for the cake, then the wine, the birthday cake candles, the cream cheese, the lollies. Mostly quite foreign to me, the placement of items according to some other logic. The whole supermarket landscape annoyingly unfamiliar, I didn’t want to hang around, browsing, so impatient and efficient am I, in my Western way.

I’d been previously irritated by having to walk a long way to the bank, and then with a tedious, repetitive half hour conversation at my hateful airtime/data provider, Vodaphone. Driving home I took photographs of the sky to the south, the cold functional landscape, giving the finger to any aesthetic, no heed for the eye’s connection to the soul. Only highways, construction, showrooms, advertising; vulgar, shamelessly self serving, adding nothing to the environment but a blurting call, void of care what anyone may think, of the impact on the senses.

Like the beggars who push themselves into your space, the theatre at the traffic lights or on certain streets. The young man who stood within a meter of a man and I who were about to melt into a passionate 11.50pm kiss on a street of cafes and bars, all wildly alive and drunk. The young man inserted himself into our passion, insistent that we support his cause, give him money. Beyond chutzpah, the only way we could shake him was to pace down the street and swerve into a nightclub. It was a stupendous act of carelessness, a kiss I’d been waiting for for months. He got no money from me.

Gauteng’s streets are alive with sales – mostly stuff you really don’t need, mobile phone chargers, sunglasses, superglue, feather dusters. Rarely do the traffic light vendors take no for an answer; today one did. He had unusual wares, looked like he was from the north east of Africa, rosaries draped from his left arm, while his right proffered pumice stones. I regretted not buying a stone, purely because he conversed with me and didn’t pull out his performance to guilt me into giving him money.

I was feeling bleak on the drive home, grumpy, as if grit was lining my veins and I had suddenly reached my limit in the aesthetic vacuum of Gauteng. How considerate Australian society is, or is that just law abiding? I find myself wanting to instigate campaigns against people who put their little advertising boards up on the few remaining unspoilt country roads, grumpy, an old woman I am becoming.

As the thunder shook out a dark dome over all of our heads, I turned onto Nelmapius Road, which runs along the border of the Centurion Golf and Country Estate, one of many security/golf villages, which people seem to like. A genteel country existence encircled by razor wire, electric fence and Africans paid to secure the perimeters. Depressing. To me, anyway.

Grumbling to myself, aware that I needed to police my own thinking, that too much of a good time on the weekend left me depleted, wakening to the sadness of another vacuum, my friends in Australia, who embody love, kindness, acceptance, empathy, for whom I don’t have to perform, adjust myself  or watch my tongue. My friends who love me regardless. It’s hard work here – and I seem to attract self absorbed people, narcissists (who probably reflect my self absorption ....) Currently, there are a few of them, whom I can spend a few hours with and who will not enquire how I am doing, in this big transition. Its all action: what needs to be done, what has been done, business, home improvements, furniture purchases, complaints, dull, dull conversation that could be knocked off in seven minutes but takes an hour. I know I don’t divulge too readily, as I am cautious, particularly around new friends. What I am used to is a deep empathic holding from my circle, a gentle availability to hear me, each other. 


A recent new friendship here is a caricature embodiment of the masculine – although its not that amusing to inhabit the dynamic – he senses I am triggered by something, demands I immediately disclose what is going on, and then moves straight into either repair mode, “what have I done wrong now?”/martyr mode, or straightforward ultimatum mode. Zero empathy. Its like exposure therapy, where you re-experience the stimulus of the trauma over and over until you don’t react. Shock therapy. God knows what I have been doing in that relationship. Some kind of resilience experiment, I imagine.

But I digress, with my somewhat emaciated relational life, enough of that. Let me tell you about the ladies I gave a lift to, the one whose proud face is beautifully burned into my memory. There is no really interesting story to tell, aside from the broiling threat of a storm stretching from beneath the earth and above our heavens. Simply that I turned into Nelmapius, and pulled up in front of two ladies who I guessed would be walking to the station, some 30-40minutes walk away. There are no taxis on this route, and there are always pedestrians, such a wasted business opportunity, such a wasted civilian opportunity to help each other. These ladies were my age, and had been working in Irene Estate, happy for the lift. We stopped halfway down the road to pick up an older lady who got in laughing and greeted us in Sesotho, and there was much chatter, which I liked, instead of shy, deferential silence. I chatted to the lady next to me, a beautiful upright woman with an open radiant face, her green headscarf framing this exquisite countenance.

“Hopefully you won’t have long to wait for your train,” I said. “Maybe three hours,” she said, and my bile rose again, how these people are held hostage by the transport authorities. What a bunch of bullshit, I just can’t tolerate this lack of protest from the commuters and the lack of integrity from the providers, including the taxi mafia.

The ladies live in Tembisa; the one with the headscarf inquired as to where I am staying, and I said up the road with my mum, and that I have been living overseas. “Ha,” she said, beaming into me, “people from here never offer us lifts, only from overseas.” She was beaming love into me, gratitude and respect from a very radiant, upright place, for such a small gesture as a lift. It makes me want to drive up and down that road giving people lifts so I can chat to them, find out who they are and where they live.

Ordinary people, but people inhabiting and rooted in this place.

This weekend just passed, I went to a rather fabulous braai which had a different group of people, exotic, with a whole other sense of entitlement, but the most charming manners. An American friend was having his housewarming in the posh northern suburbs. I’d helped him select furniture for the big empty spaces, and prepare the food for an unknown number of people. What a glorious assortment arrived: quite a few African Americans, one delightful lawyer from New York who said she’d done so many  African studies that she eventually thought, lets just GO to Africa! Another born in Liberia and raised in the US, an exquisite Rwandan woman married to a handsome American man, a magnificent Egyptian woman, a polite man from Cote d’Ivoire who can’t figure out why South African s don’t travel much. An assortment of South Africans bearing Jozi passports, all of us citizens of Jozi, zero’d in from Mafikeng, KZN, East Rand, Cape Town, Pretoria, UK. All of us at home in this glorious city, dancing to the fabulous beats of the DJ under a clear night sky, laughing, singing along, dancing sexy, drinking, making fun. Every now and then my heart would surge up and spray out to existence how grateful I am to be home, how delicious it is to be in this exciting metropolis, in the arms of my dirty old lover, how loved I feel to be simply on the earth that gave me birth. Weaving with the people who now call this place home, winding around them, every now and then a physical connection, a lovely embrace of our human flesh, alive in Africa.