Venda Sun 11
The third
trip to South Africa - end November 2004 to mid January 2005
 |
| Risenga and his mother, Flora Street, Kensington summer 2012 |
Rich shows
the cat at the window in a shell ravaged school with terrified children, but as
the notes at the back reveal, she’s a poet with a commitment to the history of
ideas, the world and literature.
This diary starts, as the others did, on the plane and with notes for a review of a collection of poetry by Adrienne Rich, The School Among the Ruins. Later, in the review for Mslexia magazine, I quote from an essay by Rich: "“My work is for people who want to imagine and claim wider horizons and carry on about them into the night, rather than rehearse the landlocked details of personal quandaries or the price for which the house next door just sold.”
This diary starts, as the others did, on the plane and with notes for a review of a collection of poetry by Adrienne Rich, The School Among the Ruins. Later, in the review for Mslexia magazine, I quote from an essay by Rich: "“My work is for people who want to imagine and claim wider horizons and carry on about them into the night, rather than rehearse the landlocked details of personal quandaries or the price for which the house next door just sold.”
There are many
things I don't know about this trip when we're in the air on our
way to the stopover at Dubai. I don't know it will be the last time the four of
us visit together and I don't know that the next time I am in South Africa,
Risenga and I will be separated. None of us knows that it will be the last time
Mrisi, Giya and I see Risenga's brother Petrus. He never told us, but when we
were there, he knew he had AIDS, that he was dying.
Mrisi's in
year 8 at secondary school and Giya's in her last year of primary school; I jump through hoops again with both
schools to persuade them of the importance of this trip. It already seems too
short for what it's costing but as it turns out, the next time Mrisi and Giya
visit, separately, they'll both be young adults. Mrisi actually turned 18 during his next trip to South Africa.
I feel each
trip places a different marker, taps into a different area of memory. The
first, if it is in their memories, will be deep and probably never rise
to the surface. It will live in photos and stories Risenga and I have told
them. It will live in my diary, my interpretation, the poems that came out of
it, which exist separate to my children. It lives too
in the family that we all joined when Mrisi was born, a family from Gazankulu
and Venda that ended up scattered, some in Johannesburg, some in the
countryside, as were so many South African families. It's a family with strong loyalties and fault lines, a family with gaps in it and mysteries, like all families. But that trip was almost like baptising the children with the atmosphere of the southern hemisphere, imbuing them with sounds, smells, textures of the languages, fruit, giving them a sense of belonging that was tangible and could be located in Orange Farm, Palm Springs, Mashau.
The second
trip is already fading. It lives for me in 35mm photos, in Jackson's wooden
fish that hangs in our kitchen, in my continuing love of Venda, my fondness for
Grace, Risenga's cousin and an unshakeable memory of the sky at night. For
Mrisi and Giya, this trip was their true introduction to the family, an
introduction they might remember among the many sensations that this country delivers. If there's a
metaphor for that trip, it's like priming wood before painting - it established
a surface, I hope, for their own memories, a screen perhaps on which they could
play their own thoughts of the country, the other side of their family, their
heritage. I was most afraid for my children in primary school that they might
feel lost, set apart, because they were so far away from the South African
family, their cousins, grandma, uncles, aunts and my family in England was so
sparse.
So this third trip feels like a consolidation, like proper travelling into the family and country, a trip they might go back to find solutions in, if they need to in future. It's not as if they are detached from South African culture - Risenga is a musician and they often
meet his friends. But there's a seam of sadness in the lives of the South
Africans who stayed.
I've just finished a poetry residency in Aldeburgh, read at the poetry
festival with one of the writers I most admire, Michael Longley, and spent two
weeks in solitude when I started writing my fourth collection of poetry, Commandments.
But in June
2004, my brother was killed in a plane crash and shortly before we are due to
travel, my stepfather dies. We'd bought the tickets, Mum persuades us to go and
books a trip to visit her brother in Florida, but I am troubled by our
decision. The last few months have been traumatic.
30 November 2004
We’re in the
air above Africa. We set out yesterday from home at about 4 pm and at 5ish (our
time) we're swimming in Dubai airport. God how wealthy it is, gold and so much
money. It just oozes wealth and how scruffy I feel. Landing this morning the
sun was coming up and the sky was strips of blue and red. We were zombies and
the pool was very hot so not quite refreshing.
Today we’ve
been spotting spits, villages in the mountains to start with, then rivers in a
delta and the Comares islands with beautiful deep blue lagoons, long sandy
beaches and lines of surf. Clouds too and trying to decide what’s mainland.
Last night we flew over Baghdad and Fallujah – the map was so
stark, just names and mountains with a representation of our plane on it. There
was an Irish pub and fake palm trees in the airport at Dubai. I was given a
chicken roll when I asked for a vegetarian snack. I watched Spiderman with
Mrisi and some other dreadful rubbish. I’m exhausted but the
swim was a good idea.
Weds 1 December
I sleep on
Risenga's mum's floor. Everything’s changed in Orange Farm. It’s like a country
suburb with paved roads, space and trees. The wild, loose horses
are gone, so’s the coalman. There’s a big smart school and church down the road
that opens at 6 am.
Petrus met us
at the airport but it was dark by the time we arrived at R’s mum's house. In the
morning R looked at the car and realised the front tyres were bald. We took it
back today but now we’re sitting in KFC near Southgate Mall and Soweto because
the gear stick on the replacement car is broken. It’s ridiculous. The place is
packed and we’ve been waiting nearly 2 hours.
The children are
with Margaret and their cousins in Palm Springs. But we have to go and get them.
In KFC we’re listening to inane house music and sharing a can of coke while the
KFC for R’s mum and kids gets cold.
Today is World
Aids Day and the South African courts have given the go ahead for two women to
marry. So many people here are young. It’s energetic and buzzing.
Thursday 2 December
We’re at Ellis
Park Stadium. The replacement car’s a Chevrolet with a scratch down the side
but it’s newer than the other two. But the pool’s lovely and the kids are
swimming with Diran. There’s a guy in the stands who’s shaking a cowbell. Were
were very late back last night so it seems relaxed here, just to do nothing. R’s
gone off to the shopping centre to buy an adaptor and phone card. The rand is
stronger so it’s not as cheap as last time. Everywhere we go there’s new building and loads of squatter
camps but apparently they’re putting water and electricity into Orange Farm.
Friday 3 December
We went to R’s
uncle in El Dorado park. All these housing developments have bizarre Spanish
style names and villa architecture….We passed a place called Fun Valley and
Mrisi cynically asked what that might be like. There are some amazing shops,
barbers and shoe repairers.
Last night
there was a terrible storm – water came in through the bedroom ceiling, just as
I remembered.
I had a
horrendous dream, woke up feeling disturbed and angry. Mani’s new neighbour told us a story
last night about a woman who was so angry with her husband she put sand and
dirt in his food, bed, clothes – all over the house. She put a layer of dirt
and water under the sheet so when he got into bed he was covered in mud. Another
neighbour couldn’t stop talking about his illnesses. There’s a lot of diabetes
here - too much sugar, drinking, a change in diet.
It’s hot
today. Lunch was for 16, most of them children. R’s aunt, Sarah, has been
staying. Thunder and forked lightning. An Afrikaner guy has opened a b&b in
shacks in Soweto to give people an authentic experience.
I walk to the
park and shop with Sarah and thunder’s rumbling overhead. R’s sitting at the
shop with Petrus, local guys and his drum. The skin’s cracked. The rain
comes at 5 pm pummeling on the roof and the heat disappears. It’s cool on my
back. The children play outside when it calms down. For a while it’s all
thunder and flashes, then the storm moves across the plains.
This is
seventh heaven for the kids, splashing in mud and the gutter outside Mani’s
house not worrying about getting dirty. Clothes dry in an hour in the midday
sun.
The horse and
carts are still around and the drivers look as if they’re in charge of stagecoaches.
There’s something about a man with a horse and cart, especially when the horse
is trotting fast, its mane’s out, the head is up and it looks proud and
looked after. There are lots of celebrations this time. A wedding in Venda on
December 18, Mpho’s 21st birthday tomorrow, Christmas, New Year.
Saturday 4 December
We go into
Vereeniging early, I’m up at 6, too hot to sleep and do some washing so it will
dry before the rain. The rain didn’t come. Vereeniging has changed totally from
being a kind of white frontier town five years ago, the shopping centre’s
almost exclusively full of African people. We try and change money at the bank
but are told they can’t do it on a Saturday! First National Bank….The first
question we’re asked is where we got our money from. So nothing’s changed.
Jo'burg seems
different, more affluent, relaxed, but these country areas are going to be
horrendous. So while I’m looking forward to peace and quiet, I’m dreading the
looks and the hassle. I think Giya’s finding it hard being on show.
I take her to
Wimpey after doing the shopping and partly so we don’t have to stand with R
while he has a row with a guy making him sandals. We have a meal and I go off
to buy Mrisi some mangoes. Come back and have food and then R and Petrus turn
up and I go to see if the cashpoint works.
When I get
back everything’s changed. A family sitting in the smoking area's having a kids'
party and have face paints out. The mother and father paint swastika signs on
their children's faces and the woman paints one on her own with a finger on the
other cheek.
R complains to
the manageress who says there’s nothing she can do about it. When we go to pay,
we complain again, but she says they’ve been drinking and she couldn’t confront
them. These people terrify us. They are so unpredictable and vile. I only
wanted to go there to avoid having to drive into J’burg again. The roads are so
busy going into the city and make me nervous.