Nine years in Australia

Jethro's take on his mummy: he took this 28th October 2013

Nine years ago, to the day, I arrived in Australia. It was a profound feeling. I was 41, and my life was starting over.

I remember Francis meeting me at the airport and feeling particularly awkward. I remember thinking that nothing could make him understand what was going on inside me, and that I wasn't going to try to explain. I was just going to get on with it.

I noticed that so many people leaving South Africa were running from something, and I wasn't. I was going TO something. I was going to a new life with a man I had met in Spain, learning Spanish. I was seriously starting again. Life was changing:
- from being single to being part of a couple
- from being well known to completely unknown.
 - from a life of dance and consulting to a life of little dance and no permission to work.
 - from years of experience to not being recognised for any experience.

I had left my home with four bedrooms plus a flat for a shared room in a shared unit. I had left being a landlady for being a partner of a renter. I had left a huge circle of family and friends and colleagues for a country where I knew one person well, two more people quite well, and about ten people vaguely. I had left the mountain and sea for the suburbs.
Instead of a house filled with belongings I had just one suitcase with my clothes and my cutlery (!). Instead of a car I was on foot.

Yes this was still 34 degrees South. Just not Cape Town. It was Sydney.

Some of this was apparent on the first day, and some only became apparent over time. Slowly but surely it sank in that I'd really taken this enormous step at 41. It was my sister-in-law's birthday and I wasn't there to celebrate it. Today, nine years later, it's her birthday again and I'm not there to celebrate it. But I am celebrating, instead, a nine-year journey to date.

I woke this morning thinking about the highlight of each year:
2004: Discovering the tango, flamenco, latino dance and music scene in Sydney and my first New Year's Eve fireworks over the Bridge and Opera House
2005:  A five day trip, alone and camping, to the heart-stopping beauty of New Zealand's South Island; buying our home in Heighway Avenue in Ashfield and joining Sing Australia
2006: Our wedding; visitors throughout that year from South Africa
2007: Being allowed to work. Restarting Making Things Work. Dancing Tango at Darling Harbour. 
2008: Magical trip to Europe with Francis
2009: Jethro was born. Becoming a mum at 46. Starting to work with social enterprises in earnest.
2010: Jethro's baby naming ceremony. Becoming an Ausralian Citizen. Taking Jethro to South Africa to meet the family.
2011: Marjorie's visit to Sydney; An African drumming course
2012: Moving to Oatley to the green and the blue of nature once again
2013: Marjorie in Sydney again. Embarking on the Key Person of Influence course and restarting my work as Beyond Win-Win.

And then, of course, there have been the annual highlights - Jewish high festivals on the North Short and the Eastern Suburbs, re-acquainting with cousins I knew as a child in South Africa, annual Christmas celebrations (the street party in Heighway Avenue, the Mother's Group party and the Chilean-Iranian-South African-Australian party each year), Chinese New Year and all the diversity type celebrations in Sydney. And lots, lots more.

Today I am celebrating a long journey that, in the scheme of things, is only just starting. It's amazing, though, that I've lived in Australian almost one fifth of my life. Just one more year and it will be a decade. Hah.

 

 

 

 

20 years of Freedom for Nelson Mandela

Meeting Mr Mandela at Broederstroom in 1994, at our Juvenile Justice for South Africa conference

In 1994 I had the wonderful privilege of meeting Mr Nelson Mandela. It's a story worth telling. But today I am remembering the day Nelson Mandela was released from Pollsmoor. It was the 11 February 1990, exactly twenty years ago. I was cooking at a camp for kids from my old Cape Town school, Westerford. We were in Onrust, not far from Hermanus (which is about an hour and a half from Cape Town). Someone wandered into the kitchen and announced, quite casually, that Nelson Mandela was about to be released from prison. My heart skipped a beat. It seemed completely impossible.

All over the world people would have been having the same reaction. This amazing day had seemed well nigh impossible until just before the announcement. The fight against Apartheid over the few previous years had become more and more intense, with more and more hope, yet this dream had still felt like it was a long way off. The pain and suffering of the Apartheid era was all around us, and we had seen many people detained in the late eighties. We'd heard terrible stories of beatings and torture and had known many people in hiding from the security police. Three people in my immediate family had been detained between 1985 and 1988. We knew we were amongst the lucky ones - others, mostly black people, had not been as lucky and had lost family members to the abuses of the system.

I felt as if I should not show too much jubilation. 1990 was still a time of mistrust and I didn't know quite how to react. I wanted to leave immediately and watch the moment of freedom for this remarkable prisoner of 27 years. If my memory serves me, the camp organisers felt the same, and the camp ended early so we could all head back and see the big moment on TV.

I set off as fast as I could, and found myself at a petrol station on the highway at the time that we expected Mandela to be released. I parked my car and hoped I'd find a TV somewhere. There was one. It was in the tiny room that was used by the petrol attendants during night duty and had just a single bed and a small TV on a table. It was afternoon, and around10 people had crowded into the room. They were a fabulous cross-section of South Africa - black people, white people, Afrikaans, English and Xhosa speaking people. They were old, and they were young. And we were all glued to the screen.

Suddenly, there he was. The old man who noone had been was allowed to take pictures of during his 27 year stint in prison. Mr Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela taking his first steps to freedom from prison with Winnie Mandela on his arm. What a dignified man! What an aura! And what quiet power as he raised his right fist. Yes, this was the man we'd been waiting to see.

I raced back to Cape Town. Parking in District Six, about a kilometer from the city, I joined a huge group of people "toy toying" down to the Grand Parade where Mr Mandela was to address the people from the Town Hall balcony. The crowd was restless. They had been waiting there since morning. People were pushing forward, surging towards the Town Hall. Rev Allan Boesak (who was later disgraced in a funding scandal) was urging people to hold back in a bellowing, amplified voice that did nothing to still the restless crowd, but rather seemed to egg them on to a greater frenzy. The crowd pushed ever forward. I kept my distance. Crowds had always scared me, especially the mass protests of the recent years. I knew I couldn't run as fast as my friends when the cops chased us.

Finally Mr Mandela arrived. I remember him cutting such a fine figure up on that balcony. And I particularly remember his wonderful voice that we would all grow to know so well holding the attention of each and every person in the throngs of South Africans who had waited hungrily to hear his words all day, and for some, all their lives. What an utterly historic moment, and what an utter privilege to be there.

The years that followed were filled with hope and promise, and working at NICRO at the time gave me a platform for the optimism I felt so strongly. It also was directly responsible for putting me in the right place at the right time to later meet Mandela. However, things in South Africa are a bit different now, twenty years on, with crime and wide-spread poverty ravaging the country. The damage of years and years of Apartheid continue to take their toll. And worse still, an immoral President Zuma is creating an increasingly dissatisfied electorate (while providing unending fodder for my cartoonist brother, Zapiro's, pen!).  The leadership of that country is nothing compared to the years under Mandela, but political freedom continues. Mandela set the tone for perhaps the greatest modern democracy on earth, and I hope against hope that South Africa can find the Mandela factor in the coming years. The movie Invictus reminds us of where South Africa was headed, and all South Africans whether living at home or abroad, need to take responsibility to let Mandela see the South Africa of his dreams in these, his twilight years. Viva, Madiba! Viva.

Photo of Nelson Mandela and Rosemary Shapiro-Liu by Nigel Branken

Let there be logic (and freedom of speech)

Thank goodness some sense prevails in South Africa. The South African Appeals Court has overturned a high court ruling dismissing corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, the president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). In effect this means that charges against Zuma can, and might well, go ahead.

Ironically, in a rally last week Zuma announced that his party would clamp down on corruption. One hardly needs cartoons to see how ludicrous such a public announcement is, coming from him. But cartoons there have been, and cartoons there will be as this strange-but-true story unfolds in the ever dynamic South African political landscape.

Zapiro's controversial cartoon on Zuma and the Independent Judiciary (see the Zapiro website) continues to cause a great deal of debate. On Facebook where he has a huge following someone wrote today:

"As long as Zapiro is in our beloved country's newspapers I know that democracy and freedom of speech are alive and kicking in South Africa, keep it up!"

. The cartoon, and the role of the judiciary, continues to be debated on public fora, in newspapers, on the radio and at dinner tables not only around South Africa but abroad. I have heard debate on Zuma and Mbeki and the judiciary centred around the controversial cartoon here in Sydney. Zapiro is currently being charged by Jacob Zuma for defamation...

I wait with baited breath as the elections in South Africa draw close. Who knows what the next few years hold, but about one thing I am sure: South Africa remains one of the most resourceful, innovative and dynamic places I have known, and it's political stage is one of the most colourful and fascinating of the moment.

Hamba Kahle, Mama Africa Miriam Makeba

Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba, has died at 76. To our family she was an icon. We learnt the Click song as children, struggling with the challenges of the clicks, and trying to imitate as closely as possible the complex sounds.

There was a picture of an African lady that hung facing our front door was, in my young eyes, Miriam Makeba. It wasn't her, but when I heard the Click Song I would imagine that picture singing. She now hangs in my older sister Yvonne's house. And next to my front door in Sydney is another wonderful oil painting of an African woman. Sometimes if I listen carefully, I think I can hear her sing too.

The introduction to the song is as potent to me as the extraoardinary clicks throughout the song. From memory, this is what it says:
"In my native village in Johannesburg there is a song we always sing when a young girl gets married. It's called the Click Song by the English because they cannot say QONGQOTHWANE".

Our wedding video opens with Miram Makeba singing the Click Song. The picture pans to Marjorie Mbokoma, a special friend who was our nanny when I was a child. Marjorie was my surrogate mother at our wedding as my parents had both passed away. It is almost as if Marjorie is singing in that DVD.

About ten years ago I watched Miriam Makeba perform. She seemed tired, her voice was scratchy and I think she was not very well. I was horrified that people hurled abuse at her - and even some tin cans. I have had this memory for some time, and I wish I could apologise to her on behalf of those hooligans.

My abiding memory is her dulcit tones and the way those catchy rhythms got us dancing in our lounge. For me she will continue to represent the mama's of Africa. Hamba Kahle, Mama Africa.

Malplaas orange

MALPLAAS. Near Botrivier, Western Cape... Now THIS is what I call an inviting establishment. I've not been there, I've just seen it for the first time on the internet today. I intend to make it a priority to get there the next time I am back in Cape Town.

There's something about the innovation of people in South Africa, the resourcefulness, the love of life that I love. My experience of South Africa, and I suppose that would mostly be Cape Town, is one of Can Do. If it needs to be done, it will be done. If it can be whacky and fun, all the better. If it can involve some major passion or passions (in this case Orange, Animals and the Great Outdoors), then it scores top marks.

I don't know who runs Malplaas (funny farm). Or why they started it. But it looks wonderful, complete with a carbon offset project. What a zest for life. And their website is wonderful, to boot.

If you go there, please let me know what it's like.

And to all of you at Malplaas - Go For It! You put a big orange smile on my dial.

Xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa

I feel sick to my stomach. Not since the deepest, darkest days of Apartheid have I felt the churning I now feel in my belly. Foreigners from other African nations have been hacked to death and burnt by ordinary South Africans in a xenophobic frenzy. Thousands of people are fleeing for their lives. They are displaced, terrified, and like so many who watch, are horrified. Families are being torn apart. Even employers of foreigners (alleged or real) are not safe.

South Africa has boiled over. The seething difficulties fuelled by recent price hikes and the worsening situation in Zimbabwe and hence increased numbers of foreigners entering South Africa are the final blows to an already tense-to-breaking-point nation. Disappointed, frustrated and unheard, thousands of South Africans have sunk to new levels of venting and violence.

I can write no sense on this one. I expect few people can. The blame game is too easy, the sadness too immense. Instead I laud those who are assisting, those who migh be able to mediate, those who can assist with money, food, shelter. And most of all I laud those leaders in the community who can, and I am sure will, find a way of talking people down and restoring the balance. I hope that they are helped by measured intervention from the army, and I implore the government of the day to declare a state of emergency and to act, fast and decisively.

South Africans visiting Sydney - costs

For a South African visiting Sydney, here is an idea of costs. The rand is between R5,80 and R6 per Aussie dollar.

• coffee $3 (if you're lucky $2,80 but can go up to $4,40 for the shmancy ones)
  
• train from inner west into city, after 9am, return $4.40
• meal in a food court $6 to $11, without drink usually
• meal in a cafe $12 to $19
• breakfast with all the bits in a cafe about $10 - 12
• ferry tickets - best to buy a pack of ten for inner harbour ferries - $27 for 10
  
• swim in a public pool - between $4 and $5,50, book of 10 about $37
• $1.80 for the Sydney Morning Herald
• tango milonga $15 - $20
• tango lesson $15 - $20 (combine a group lesson with a milonga to save costs)
• RSL Clubs (no, not Rosemary Shapiro-Liu clubs - these are Retired Servicemen Leagues) offer cheap but often good meals, often in an eat-all-you-like format - about $12 - 15 for lunch and $15 - $18 for dinner (if you join, usually for $2, those meals will cost a few dollars less)