Holding Up the Sky (14 page)

We danced in the street for what seemed like hours. I was determined to embrace the experience, as in my own upbringing such abandon was rare. I loved feeling part of a bigger whole where there was no question of shyness or having to impress.

Finally, we exhausted ourselves and delivered our charges safely back to Zonke's house where the tables for the feast were waiting. Just as they had yesterday, the whole community flocked to join the family for a celebratory meal. I was thankful that this time I wasn't singled out for any special treatment and when I was finally handed a plate heavy with food, I was able to find a quiet spot where I could eat and enjoy the moment. Robbie found me not long after and we sat in companionable silence for a time. Dessert followed with more tea and wedding biscuits and before I knew it, it was time to start thinking about heading back. My energy was spent and I was sorely in need of some serious sleep but I felt privileged to have been invited.

I knew it was impossible to up and leave African hospitality quickly, so I began slowly ‘asking the way' of the various hosts, indicating our intention to leave some time in the next hour. Each member of the family I spoke to asked if I had enjoyed myself, whether I'd had enough to eat, and wished me a safe journey and a speedy return. Once all the formalities were complete and we had collected a bakkie full of guests, we headed back to 'Maritzburg. It was very symbolic to all of us that Zonke and Skhumbuzo were finally married. Many were surprised he had lived this long, and their marriage represented a level of faith in the future. Robbie and I chatted about this and a great many other things as we headed south towards home.

On 8 February 1992 Skhumbuzo Ngwenya was gunned down outside a Pietermaritzburg restaurant in the centre of town.

At the time, he was working for a local community development organisation and had taken some international funders out to dinner to talk about funding reconstruction and development programs in Imbali. Mandela was free and negotiations were under way for a new constitution that would facilitate the first multiracial elections in the country's history. The worst now appeared to be over. Yet Skhumbuzo was gunned down as he was leaving a restaurant. It was as shocking to me then as if it had happened on the streets of Sydney. Zonke and her children were alone again. Inkatha were accused of carrying out the assassination but no one was ever charged.

THINGS
IN THE TOWNSHIP WERE TENSE WHEN I RETURNED TO 'MARITZBURG, AS IF THE WEDDING HAD BEEN THE EYE OF A STORM, A MOMENT OF NORMALITY FOR US ALL, SIPHO AND A FEW OTHERS WENT UNDERGROUND. HE HAD BEEN ON THE RUN FOR ABOUT A WEEK WHEN I GOT A CALL TO COME AND COLLECT HIM. I DROVE INTO THE TOWNSHIP TO THE AGREED MEETING POINT, PICKED HIM UP AND DROVE BACK TO PHEZULU. IT FELT SURREAL—BUT I DIDN'T DOUBT THAT WE NEEDED TO TAKE CARE. THAT EVENING WE KEPT THE LIGHTS OFF IN THE COTTAGE AND WAITED, LISTENING FOR THE SOUNDS OF TYRES OR FEET ON THE GRAVEL OUTSIDE. SIPHO SPENT THE NIGHT UNDER THE BED IN THE SPARE ROOM, JUST IN CASE. HE STAYED WITH ME FOR TWO DAYS, SLEEPING AND STAYING OUT OF SIGHT DURING THE DAY, WATCHING AND LISTENING IN THE EVENINGS. WHEN HE ASKED ME TO TAKE HIM TO ANOTHER SAFE HOUSE I WAS CONCERNED AND RELIEVED IN EQUAL PARTS. I DROPPED HIM OFF, HOPING TO SEE HIM AGAIN SOON.

In the days that followed, rumours spread about the police increasing their presence in the township. To this day, I can't explain why Sipho went home, but he did. The next day I received another call, this time asking me to come to the hospital.

Edendale hospital was located on the main road that swept through the township on its way out to the rural areas beyond. The urban townships were predominantly ANC and rural areas predominantly Inkatha. All traffic, ANC and Inkatha alike, came along Edendale Road right past the hospital. Likewise, the hospital serviced both communities.

I made my way somewhat conspicuously through the hospital grounds, the only other white people being the few foreign doctors on staff. In the men's ward I began moving from bed to bed looking for Sipho. A few beds down, my search ended–not because I had seen him but because I had spotted the two black policemen guarding him. As I'm not known for being able to hide what I'm thinking, my face must have told him that he looked as horrific as he felt. Sipho was unrecognisable. He had been shot and badly beaten. His face had ballooned to twice its size and he was covered in bruises. His eyes were swollen almost shut and his lips split and bleeding. There was a tube in the side of his chest that was draining bloody fluid from his body. I had no words and struggled to manage my feelings, flipping between rage and compassion. With the police watching me carefully–clearly, mine was an unlikely face to find in the middle of a black township hospital–I sat down and asked Sipho to tell me what had happened.

He told me a few fragments then, and more later. After a week, as soon as he could be moved, we took him back to Phezulu to recuperate. He told me that he feared for his life in hospital as many of the staff were Inkatha; somehow, Steve arranged for us to get him out. Perhaps they thought their goal of removing him from circulation was sufficiently achieved, I don't know. Unknown faces regularly appeared at his bedside and he was unsure whether they had come to finish him off or just to gloat.

Because he was unable to walk or care for himself we moved him into the cottage so that I could look after him. Over the next few days, he told me more of his story. Exhausted and hungry, he had stayed at his parents' home that night, arriving well after dark. After taking some food, he had slept and was woken at dawn by the police hammering down their door. Since the police raided the homes of activists regularly perhaps they were just lucky to find him this day. More likely, one of the many informers in the neighbourhood had earned their money the night before. Hearing the noise Sipho leapt out of bed, fully clothed as always, and ran out the back door of the small four-roomed house. He vaulted over the wire fence and ran down the narrow lane behind a row of identical houses.

He could hear the police giving chase behind him, two maybe three men, shouting for him to stop and then firing. He clambered over a corrugated iron fence at the end of the lane and as he lifted his body up, was shot by the policemen waiting on the other side. They shot at his chest five times and the others shot from behind, one bullet lodging in his lung and the other sliding in under his chin. He fell forward into the road and they pounced on him. Then they beat him and took him away, thinking that they had killed him. He remembers them discussing it over his body, saying he was dead. He doesn't know where they took him in the van except that it wasn't the police station. Wherever they took him, he said that they tortured him once they realised he was still alive. But he would not speak of it beyond that. He had been tortured before and told me of it, so I knew this was worse.

Alleged torture at the hands of the South African police has included beatings, electrocution, being sprayed with water while a bag is over your head suffocating you, and being made to stand for days on end or be beaten should you fall over. They were said to have other methods if they wanted you dead. Whatever they did I will never know, only that he emerged from it alive but changed.

Later that day, they dragged him into hospital and put two guards on him while staff tried to assess the extent of his injuries. To their surprise and later to mine, they found the five bullet holes in the front of his shirt, neatly clustered around the pocket over his heart. Yet when they peeled the shirt back, there were no corresponding wounds. The only wounds he had were from the two bullets in his back and head and the terrible beating he had received which left him essentially crippled. Sipho's mother was a deeply religious woman who attended church services and prayer meetings on a weekly basis. Sipho featured daily in her prayers, and not without reason. As he fed the house that day, she prayed fervently for his life. She heard the shots, begged God to save his life and then ran out into the street. There she heard the policemen telling each other that Sipho was dead. She would not believe it and continued her silent vigil. Then one policeman bent over to check the body and shouted that he was still alive. As they loaded him into the van, Sipho's mother was thanking God, knowing her prayers had been answered but also knowing that he would still need her prayers. She later told me it was her prayers that protected Sipho from the bullets–a miracle. Despite having grown up in the Anglican church myself, I was struggling to fathom what had happened. While Sipho didn't doubt his mother's version, he had another explanation.

Like many black South Africans, he lived in the space between the old and the new. Many people were equal parts traditionalist and Christian, respecting ancestors and traditional medicines as well as biblical teachings. They would go to the
Sangoma,
or traditional healer, on Saturdays and church on Sundays. Sipho and a number of other young men had been going to a local
Sangoma
to ask for protection in the conflict. They believed firmly in the powers of ritual and muti, or herbal medicines, to keep them safe. They had sought a particular kind of protection this night, one that was rendered useless unless combined with their own courage. The
Sangoma
splashed the
muti
over them, muttering prayers of protection to the ancestors, before they leapt through the fames of a fire that had been built a little earlier. They repeated this exercise a number of times to ensure the protection was complete. This
muti
only worked from the front: if they ran from their enemies instead of having the courage to face them, they would be unprotected from behind.

Therefore it was no surprise to Sipho that the bullets which had entered his body did so from behind–into his lung and neck. Doctors had removed the bullet from his chest but had left the one lodged under his chin. Sipho wore it as a good luck charm, lifting hand to jaw to feel the lump there. My good luck charm was the shirt he had been wearing that day. As we sat discussing
muti
versus prayer, I would put my fingers in the holes in the front pocket, counting each of them in turn.

This was the first of a number of strange incidents that happened during my years in Africa. When I arrived, I was firm in my faith and world view. Over time, I simply learnt to hold it all more lightly.

After the shooting, Sipho needed another miracle. He had been so badly injured by the beating and torture that he was forced to re-learn simple tasks. He had a severe tremor in his right arm and struggled to feed and dress himself. He needed help to learn how to walk again and for many months after, could only walk with a cane. His speech was also affected, slower than before, as he struggled for the words he wanted. He had been reduced to both a baby and an old man in the same broken body.

In the weeks that followed, we spent many hours in each other's company. Some days, Sipho was light hearted and would joke about needing to be able to walk again so as to chase pretty girls. Other days, he was quiet and seemed deeply humiliated by his dependence on me for the simplest things.

Slowly, Sipho's body healed, but the spark was gone. He lived with me for many months and after he finally moved out of the cottage, he began tentatively casting around for ways to pick up the threads of his life. He was asked to work as a counsellor for young people in a similar situation of loss and damage. He did this sporadically, but spent most of his time at home despite the very real danger of re-detention. I think in the end it was out of a combination of concern for his physical and psychological well being that Monica organised a scholarship for Sipho to study in Canada. We needed to get him out, but I was afraid that a separation from everything familiar would not help his spirit heal. He left all the same and I never saw him again.

JON
WROTE TO ME FROM LONDON, OFFERING TO FLY ME OUT FOR CHRISTMAS. I HAD TOLD HIM MUCH OF WHAT WAS GOING ON AND HE KNEW I NEEDED A BREAK, SO I WAS QUICK TO AGREE. SIPHO'S PRESENCE HAD BEEN A CONSTANT REMINDER OF THE SERIOUSNESS OF LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA. SOMETIMES THE FIGHT AGAINST THE APARTHEID GOVERNMENT FELT LIKE A GAME, LIKE RUNNING THE GAUNTLET IN SOME ADOLESCENT RITE OF PASSAGE—BUT IT WAS NOT. JON'S OFFER WAS A WAY FOR ME TO FEEL SAFE, EVEN FOR A FEW WEEKS, AND I WAS SO GRATEFUL FOR IT. I WAS ALSO AWARE, HOWEVER, THAT ROBBIE, MDU AND SKHUMBUZO HAD NO WEALTHY BROTHERS WHO COULD GIVE THEM A HOLIDAY IN LONDON. FOR THEM THERE WAS NO ESCAPE, NO DETOUR; THE ONLY WAY WAS STRAIGHT THROUGH.

Despite looking forward to seeing Jon in a few months, I began to realise I was no longer just visiting South Africa as I had done the year before; I was now living here. I needed to make a home for myself. In an effort at normality, I went to the local animal shelter and bought myself a pet. There were already two dogs at Phezulu and Beth did not want a third, so I chose a cat to keep me company. As it was one of my Mondays off, I decided to call her
Msombuluku
– Monday in
Zulu
–and
Sombu
for short. She was a tiny thing even though she was almost a year old. She looked as if she had walked under a ladder causing paint to splatter on her white coat. Sipho wasn't as fond of her as I was–few people in the township had pets. Township animals were purely functional. Guard dogs for the most part, they were often scrawny and underfed and chained up near the gate to bark at passers-by or potential intruders.

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.