361- Madiba Magic, by SheBee

Being a young child in the Eighties I recall memories of the Apartheid era.  Fair enough I was lucky enough to come from a home that wasn’t racist.  My parents were Youth Leaders (being only in their early twenties) and we lived in a small town full of colourful people from all walks of life.

I went to school with coloured children, I went to church with white children who had black brothers and sisters.  In fact, I remember the day I was expelled from Sunday school for sitting in a tree singing ‘Lets talk about Sex, baby’ my biggest side kick was with me, Leon – a coloured boy who has since become the gayest man I know. 

We had a ‘nanny’ who lived in the staff quarters and as a child, her room seemed so much more inviting than mine and often my father had to call me into the house at night as I would have been quite happy to sit there and eat Putu and listen to her wireless station telling old Zulu tales which she would translate if I got lost on an odd word.  We would giggle and laugh and she would knit. 

My favourite aunty also had a nanny called Eunice.  All of my cousins and I would race to Younie (as she was fondly dubbed) when we arrived for the weekend.  She would entertain us and laugh when we teased cousin Daniel, who was the youngest, about crying for Younie to come wipe his bum.

I was in standard 2 in 1990.  Our teacher explained to the class what ‘politics’ meant and how the world was changing and we should all be prepared.  For the first time, to quote Cath in a story she told me, I noticed that we didn’t have ‘blacks’ in the new school I was at.  It had never been an issue for me, my parents pretty much kept us far away from the Apartheid drama, and other than experiencing the humility of black people around my father, and them calling him Baas – I didn’t know the meaning of this word ‘Racism’. 

Our first black student was Sabelo.  I’ve written about him before, he was my best friend all through Primary, Senior & High School.  Subs arrived with attitude, took over the school and had everyone (including the teachers) wrapped around his fingers.

When Madiba was released from Prison, our class room celebrated.  I later found out that our teacher, Miss Robin, was called in for a disciplinary hearing.  None of us cared though – we had the black boy in our class!  That made us extremely cool.  And yes, Subs did put up with hard times, bullying, teasing & out casting at school, but not for very long. 

If Nelson hadn’t fought for his freedom and that of every other South African, I would never have met my friend Sabelo.  We would never have broken out of my home at sixteen to go swimming in the middle of the night.  My mom would never have had to ground me for smuggling alcohol into the house that Subs and I had won at a work incentive.  I would never have had to fight with my step father in order to allow me to be the first white girl to attend the Debutants Ball with a black boy.  I would never had the opportunity to have Subs take my hand, cross our fingers and dub us Cadbury’s TopDeck.  I would never have gotten to witness Subs holding my daughter, joking that there was a mistake because she was too white.

The man who made all of that possible is South Africa’s oldest modern day hero and it is his special day today.  Together as a country we celebrate Madiba’s 90th birthday . The man who fought for freedom to give me Sabelo.

~ by SheBee on July 18, 2008.