I had so many questions for Linda’s father, Mike.  He is a deeply reflective observer and participant in all that has transpired over these last twenty or thirty years in South Africa.  These political events affect every aspect of life in South Africa.

    We talked about international sanctions, divestment, banned sports teams (and the renegade teams that would take on different names in order to go on tours and then the large political demonstrations that followed them).  We talked about acts of terrorism, the repressive regime, the ANC’s reprisals against collaborators.  The 80’s were a difficult time for South Africa according to Mike.  Perhaps this was the reason for PW Botha’s unyielding, repressive presidency.  This hardened international and local efforts to overthrow apartheid.  From Mike’s perspective English-speaking white South Africans really didn’t have a part in the government and this made the Africaaner’s minority even more dramatic.  FW de Klerck dismantled apartheid, first by making the ANC legal, then by releasing Nelson Mandela.  Everything snowballed and the country experienced the most radical change almost overnight.

    Mike has met Nelson Mandela and shook his hand.  He especially admires him for his grace and forgiveness after decades in prison.  Mandela didn’t seek revenge for all those years of his life that were taken away.  We talked about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the latter nineties.  To me this is one of the most interesting aspects of political life in South Africa but Mike didn’t say much beyond the importance of remembering that the proceedings included both security officers and ANC leaders.

    Miek seems genuinely glad that apartheid is over.  As I said earlier one of his greatest gifts is the way that he shows every person respect.  He has a deep sense of the dignity of all people and one can see this in his children too.  At the same time Mike has seen his personal situation and many aspects of civic life decline severely.

    Within a year of the political changeover Miek returned to his civil service job from vacation to find that all the whites in the highest ranking positions had been replaced by black South Africans who essentially did not have the technical skills for their jobs or the work ethic to obtain them or to even function normally in an office environment.  A white colleague, Mike’s former supervisor told him that under no circumstances would Mike ever be promoted or given greater responsibility again.  SO Mike took a very, very early retirement in his mid-fifties with a miniscule pension.  Now, he has two jobs.  He loves his work in a museum of South African sports.  I would love to visit the museum he runs but it is near his home about 45 minutes away.

    The other element that he points out is the radical inefficiencies now prevalent in all aspects of government.  The black Africans often have no idea how to do their jobs so they hire, as consultants at exorbitant rates, the same people that they just replaced.  Everything, everywhere is running down from the sidewalks, to the powerstations, to the ports and presumably the airports.  Nepotism is rife, people are hired fofr jobs because the participated in the struggle, not because they have any aptitude in the work they are supposed to do.  This inefficiency characterizes government contracts too.

 

Tea Time

 

    Micah and Melia are playing chapel.  I’m sure that every child does it.  Right now they are reenacting Godly Play using their stuffed animals and the new Noah’s ark set that Micah bought this afternoon at the market.  As they continue to play, let me finish my recollections of South Africa.

    Mike knows of one situation in which the government solicited bids for a road construction project.  The black South African bid was something like 13 million rand, the white one was 7 million.  The government accepted the 13 million bidder who in turn approached the 7 million man with his offer to make him the subcontractor on the deal.

    I wonder if South Africa will benefit from the experience of the other African nations that attained independence in the late fifties and early sixties.  The country has such a well-developed infrastructure and very talented people.  I don’t know whether these resources will be enough to stop a downward slide.  The sense of security that middle class people enjoy in the US is such an extraordinary blessing.  It is hard to conceive of real freedom without it.  Rural peasants in Malawi although subject to severe economic distress and disease can at least feel relatively free from violence and can enjoy moving around their society in peace.

    Flying into Lilongwe one can see all the paths worn by walkers, the extraordinary loads carried on bicycles, the lack of so much of what we associate with modern life.

    The people lined up at the airplane, boarded a bus that traveled about 200 yards to the terminal.  The other passengers seeing this just walked across the tarmack themselves.  It did strike us that there was a large number of Americans onboard the plane.  I wondered about all the factors that lead people from one country to such heavy  involvement in one particular other country.  Billions of dollars in aid have been poured into this continent and I don’t know how much good it all has done to alleviate suffering.  I suppose like everything else in society the modern industrial economies  need to learn how to give wisely just as they have learned how to deliver mail, regulate electricity, administer healthcare, operate trains, buses, etc.  Perhaps in a world of such sophistications in transportation and telecommunication can work out more satisfactory solutions to these problems.  Personally, I feel torn between a strong conviction that if life is going to get better it has to be the work of all the people and not just a plan imposed from the outside or from above, and an awful sense of respect for how severe the suffering is here.  It would be simply cruel to tell the boy in tattered clothing along the roadside whose parents had died of AIDS, to simply pull himself together.

    In South Africa there are a few people always walking along the super highway.  Here there are no superhighways and very few paved roads and nearly everyone is walking or riding a bicycle.  People are dressed as nicely as they can manage but the poverty is evident even from their clothes.

    There are people everywhere, selling maize at the crossroads, bicycling and walking on thousands of unknown errands, carrying plastic bags and big packages on their heads.  Thousands of narrow little paths lead off into the bush from the main roads.  I wonder what a map would look like that showed all the places here everyone goes according to how many people travel there.

    Kumabali means outskirts, border, the middle of nowhere.  That is where I am sitting right now.  On our way here from the airport we stopped to visit the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) offices.   I’ve never seen such a new building look already so old.  The concrete bordered planters in the parking lot were not finished but one couldn’t tell whether it was just an old building that had deteriorated.  The building reminds me of university buildings erected in the sixties and seventies except that there is no elevator in the lobby and the halls seemed especially narrow and dark.  GAIA has two spartanly furnished offices with bookcases filled with case files in binders.  A man came in looking for work while Sister Gertrude was out.  He asked me questions about GAIA as if I had some authority over how things are done.  I explained that I’d only been in the country for about an hour.

    Kumbali Lodge is full of surprises.  It is very near the enormous Presidential Palace.  The farm originally connected to the house here is still operating and it is surrounded by tiny rural villages – but this gives the wrong impression.  The place looks pristine like it might have looked years and years ago.  Nothing modern can be seen on most of the horizon.  The farm down the hill from the cottages has tons of old junk around it.  We went to see the cows milked at 3:00 p.m. yesterday, right after arriving.  One worker per cow was shooting milk into old used plastic gallon ice cream containers, then transferred into a large tin vat.

    From there Micah, Melia and I walked down the dirt road, enjoying a freedom to walk and meet people that wasn’t possible in urban Durban.  This is a much safer setting and we felt blessed to spread our wings and explore.

    Along the road we met three women with huge plastic containers on their heads (and a little baby on one of their backs).  We stopped and talked – I didn’t want to delay them with such heavy loads.  I also had a very difficult time understanding what they were saying.  For the next mile or so I thought about what it would be like to expend so much of your life and energy everyday carrying water home from the river.  As I said we all had a difficult time understanding them.  Micah thought they were saying, “Don’t come there” and that meant we should return to the hotel immediately.  Melia on the other hand and then all afternoon every fifteen minutes kept insisting that she wanted to meet more Africans.  She was seeking out every stranger she could find in order to make friends.  For the first walk in my life, she was the one in favor of pressing on while Micah and I suggested that we go back.  The only way I could get her to turn around was to tell her that there were more Africans down by the river.  So we turned back and then off the main road to a path that followed the center of the hill down to a little creek.

    As I alluded to earlier, we were hardly alone.  Every ten minutes or so we’d pass other walkers and bikers going steadily off on unknown errands, mildly bemused to see three Europeans out of their car and on their feet.  We passed several African men painting (very slowly and frequently visited by friends) what looked like eucalyptus fence logs with dark tar.

    We followed the eroded trail down the hill.  As we approached the water Micah even more strongly wanted to return home just as Melia wanted to make more friends.  On the rocks at the river we saw all the washing laid out.  As women worked in the stream about 20 kids in tattered clothes and naked played.  The kids swarmed around us.  Melia loved the attention even more than Micah hated it.  This brought back so many memories for me.  Kids are so wacky that it is hard to tell whether they are just glad to see you or whether they are teasing you.  A couple said, “please give me money,” in that poorly polished aggressive kind of way that is familiar to me from other trips, while most of the others asked for the children’s names  Those children were so interested in our children.  They had incredible energy.

    To Micah’s alarm they followed us almost all the way back up the hill wildly yelling and gesticulating.  Saying Melia’s name, trying to make contact in some way, perhaps teasing a little.  A woman from the village yelled at them and they all rushed off down to the river.  I think Melia loved it.

    We came back to find Heidi looking for us at the vegetable gardens and took her off walking in the opposite direction away from town.  This was one of the most spectacular walks in my life.  With rugged, lonely looking mountains far off in the distance  and the clouds against the dark sky we could see other little villages in the distance but absolutely no sign of modern life anywhere.  I could walk for miles there.  I’d love to have it in my dreams during this green season on that perfect day.

    We returned for a bath and supper cooked by the South African chef mentioned on their website, Jessica, who is also Maureen and Guy’s daughter.  Candlelight, sloped roof veranda opening out to the beautiful gardens outside, ceiling fans, white linen, “Baker Stree” playing from right out of my childhood on Emerson Street in Belmont, MA.  Our bedtime is pretty consistently 8:00 p.m. if we can make it that long.  In South Africa there is a man named Kingsley Holgate who celebrated the end of apartheid with a journey north along Africa’s waterways carrying a beaded gourd of water from Cape Town and spilling it out in the Mediterranean in Cairo after traveling by inflateable boat and a truck north with his family and other crew.