Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life
© Emma Mashinini 2012
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1
EARLY YEARS
I was born on 21 August 1929 at 18 Diagonal Street, Rosettenville, a white suburb in south Johannesburg. My mother, Joana, although to my knowledge had never been a domestic worker, did some housework in order to pay for our accommodation. We lived in the backyard. My father, Elias Mhlolo Ngwenya, was working for a dairy and had to start out at dawn, so we didn’t see much of him at the time. I was the third child of a big family, with six sisters and a brother. My elder sister, Beauty, died at a young age and was buried in the Brixton cemetery, which was later to become exclusively for whites. Even our cemeteries became segregated.
When I was six years old we moved to Prospect Township in City Deep, south-east of Johannesburg. My mother became a dressmaker of repute, sewing clothes for people in the community, and since both my parents were working very hard and doing quite well for themselves, we children started school early – that is, at what would be the normal age for white children. We also went to the better schools available; although my parents had never received much in the way of formal education, they did everything to ensure their children did. For this I remain very grateful.
So I attended City Deep Methodist School on Heidelberg Road in Johannesburg until 1936, when we suffered our first forced removal to make way for a white suburb. I was too young to remember much of our time there, but I do recall our home. My mother sold milk, supplied by our father through the dairy, from the stoep and although it was only a one-bedroom house, we somehow managed to live comfortably there. We were happy in our home.
We could have moved to Orlando, which is now part of Soweto, but my parents chose instead to go to Sophiatown, which in those days was a racially mixed area, apart from whites, with many African, Indian and Chinese families all living harmoniously together. Our home was in Toby Street. On the corner of Toby and Edward streets lived a distinguished black doctor, Dr Xuma, one-time President of the ANC, who was married to a black American, Madie Beatrice Hall, who was responsible for founding the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) centre in Soweto. Sophiatown was owned by Herman Tobiansky, who named it after his wife, Sophia, and some of the streets after his children, Bertha, Edith, Gerty, Sol and Toby. Toby Street was the first street of Sophiatown. Just across a vacant field from us was the white suburb of Westdene. The field was there to divide us, but black and white children used to meet there regularly and play with one another. It seemed the most natural thing to do.
That vibrant community of Sophiatown also disappeared, a few years later, when Sophiatown was declared a white area. The whole population passively resisted and was forcibly and mercilessly crushed by 2 500 police and soldiers. That ill-fated population was moved out of sight and put in Meadowlands, about 15 kilometres away, out of sight of Johannesburg. But the home of Dr Xuma still stands as a silent witness to this outrage.
The whites gloatingly rechristened Sophiatown and called it Triomf (‘Triumph’), but Don Mattera, our black South African poet, who lived in Sophiatown, wrote:
From Sophiatown I was now sent to a Salvation Army school in the Western Native Township nearby, where I discovered how few of my classmates had started school at the correct age. My family was fortunate in other ways, too. I don’t remember any of us running around without shoes, and I had a raincoat, unlike many of the children, although since I was sickly in those days I knew that whenever it rained I’d get tonsillitis anyway, and be unable to go to school.
After Standard Six2 I went on to Bantu High School in Western Native Township, which was headed by Mr Madibane, whilst my eldest sister, Elizabeth, was at St Peter’s Anglican Boarding School in Rosettenville, which was a far superior school. But my family could not afford two children at boarding school.
The memory of our little house in Toby Street always fills me with happiness, and with gratitude to my mother for creating such a home for us. Our home was so welcoming that teachers from every school I attended would follow us there and become family friends.
There was one room and a kitchen. That was all. This one room served as a dining room and a bedroom, and in order for my parents to have some privacy they erected a curtain separating their bed from the rest of the room. Six of us slept on the other side of this curtain, on the floor, with thick blankets as mattresses. The kitchen had room for a table and two long wooden benches which were scrubbed daily, and we had a black coal stove which stood shining in its corner. On our kitchen dresser hung blue Delft china cups, and on its shelves were crystal glasses and shining brass vases. From my childhood, and because of my mother, I grew to love beautiful things.
Of course, we had no bathroom or running water in the house, but there was a tap in the yard, and we used a tin tub to bathe in. When it was raining, because of my tonsillitis, my mother would not allow me to wash myself but would lovingly rub me down. She made all our clothes, and again because of my tonsillitis she would make my clothes from a warmer material. My petticoats were of striped flannelette.
I am the only child of my mother’s to have inherited her dark skincolour, and my features are identical to hers. I love to dress well, also, and when I think of my mother I always remember how when she went to town she would wear gloves and high heels, and how she would always return holding a bunch of flowers and a cake. She was also extremely strict. If we had visitors and we children were fidgeting she didn’t have to say anything: one look was sufficient! She would never allow us to go barefoot, either. We always wore socks and shoes. Amongst poor people this was a particular pride.
And there was music in that home. In the bedroom/dining room we had an organ, and on this my younger sister would play hymns. There was a wind-up HMV gramophone on which my mother would play her Columbia records of African choral music. But what I remember with utmost joy was the front stoep. This was of red polished cement, glittering around the straw mat in the centre, with two cut-in-half paraffin tins painted bright green and filled with the plants my mother always called ‘elephant’s ears’ but which today I know as rubber plants. On either side of the front door, also painted green, stood large half-drums, each filled with ‘Xmas’ plants (hydrangeas) which flowered pink and blue in December in the height of our summer. And in the middle of our stoep, in a hanging cage, was a singing yellow canary.
The happiness of this home was shattered when my parents separated. This came as a terrible shock to me, even though we weren’t seeing much of my father at the time, since he was still working for the same dairy as before, seven days a week, and since he was provided with living quarters there he would return home only once a week. Even then he would return late at night and leave around 3 a.m. to cycle back to work.
But when my father disappeared completely, my family broke up. My mother and youngest sister went to live in Cape Town with an elder sister, while my brother and my other sisters went to Volksrust, the town where my mother was born, on the old road about halfway between Johannesburg and Durban, to stay with our grandparents. I, at the age of about fifteen, was the only one who decided to stay near Johannesburg, and try to find my father.
Due to the break-up of my parents’ marriage our funds deteriorated and I was forced to leave school before completing my Junior Certificate. I had tried very hard to remain at school, and would babysit white children in the suburbs after school was over, earning R3 per month, but finally I had no alternative but to leave. Even then I would not give up my search for my father. I was determined to find him, and I did eventually manage to track him down with the help of the dairy owner, whose son, a building contractor in Florida, west of Johannesburg, my father was now working for. When I visited my father he said he’d visit me in Alexandra, where I was staying with an aunt. He never did. The next time I saw him was after another search, a year and a half later, by which time he’d moved to Pretoria. He kept on making commitments, but never followed them up. I think that was my first fight for human rights, my own right to have a father.
When eventually he came to live in Alexandra I was already starting to work on my own, cleaning, and I visited him regularly. But my education was over, and perhaps that was one of the reasons I married so young, at the age of seventeen: I had no school to go to, and no stable home of my own. But I am proud I didn’t have to get married. The children came afterwards.
Although he hadn’t been a perfect parent, I loved my father dearly. For one thing, as an old man he was very good-natured, and a good grandfather. Despite his age, he continued to build new rooms onto his house for my family to stay in, in case they should ever need to. And although he didn’t provide a home and shelter for me when I was young and most needed it, I stayed with him for a long time when my first marriage broke up. He gave me comfort then. I suppose he must have known I didn’t hold any grudge against him for leaving us when he did and for his many years of neglect, and perhaps he appreciated that, and that was why we remained so close. We had a long, good relationship. He was a pillar of strength to my family and a central figure to all his neighbours, supporting himself until his last day on the pension he received from a German company, where he had been a general worker.
My father understood what kind of work I did, and appreciated it. The only time there was any debate was when I was released from detention and he said, ‘Don’t you think it’s time to stop?’ But my brother said, ‘No. It’s not the right time. It would be like giving in to them, or selling out.’ We ended by saying, ‘Just one more year.’ But one year became two, and eventually four. My father was concerned for me, but never ashamed. He knew I never committed any crime. He died in October 1987 at the age of 87.
My mother had died 27 years before, at the age of 51, having suffered from high blood pressure. She also died in October. Her grave is in Muizenberg, Cape Town.
* * *
I married in 1947, and then I stayed at home. I was a housewife. My first child was born in 1949, and thereafter I had another baby in 1951, another in 1952 and another in 1954, so it was just babies, babies, all the time. My last baby was born in 1956. I bore six children in all, but three died within days of their birth. I didn’t know at the time what had caused their deaths, although I can see now it must have been yellow jaundice. Then, in my ignorance, I didn’t see that anything was wrong with them. At that time black people wanted their skin to be lighter. Those children seemed to me beautiful, with their lovely light yellow complexions. And the jaundice was never diagnosed.
It might surprise some people that I could lose three babies, each soon after birth, and not know the cause. But it is typical of white doctors working in our black hospitals to treat patients, and cram them with pills and medicines, without ever telling them the cause of their illness. Even when you are brave enough to ask, the doctor gets irritable and asks you not to waste his time. I don’t know whether it’s because our hospitals are overcrowded and therefore the doctors cannot cope with the workload; or if they think they are doing us a favour because black doctors are few, and so we should be grateful and shut up. To me, on the contrary, it seems that we are doing them a favour, because all our hospitals are training hospitals attached to their medical schools, and with all the peculiar diseases we suffer from, we make excellent guinea pigs. Sadly, though, some of our own black nurses have fallen victim to this bad habit of not discussing the patient’s illness and are spiteful when you ask what is wrong with you. They have even coined a word for a patient who wants information: they call her ‘iGraju’, meaning you are a graduate, too educated for your own good.
I remember when the first of my children died. The nurse came from the clinic to wash the baby and so forth. I think it was the third day or so that she’d visited, and she said we must go to the clinic. I asked why, and then thought it must be something to do with the baby’s pinkie finger, which they’d tied off, to cut off the circulation.
When we got to the clinic we were taken by ambulance to Baragwanath Hospital. I was holding this lovely baby of mine – she was very plump, and everybody was taking her hand saying, ‘Look at this lovely baby.’ I wasn’t the only one who thought she was beautiful. Then the doctors took her and examined her, and said they had to rush her to the ward. And when I got to the ward, that lovely yellow baby of mine had turned almost blue, and no one told me why. There was a drip. I was upset and I remember my husband had come looking for me – and the next thing the baby was dead. That beautiful yellow baby.
This thinking that anything that is light-skinned is beautiful has caused so much harm. I don’t think anyone escaped it. I myself used skin lighteners when I was working, but I’m one of the lucky people who didn’t get cancer from them.3 Most of my people have damaged skins, just because we thought that if we were light we’d have the same privileges as the whites. When you’re working side by side with someone with a lighter skin in a factory and you find they’re given preference, it’s hard not to believe a lighter skin is better for you. Now black consciousness has saved us from hating the colour of our skin. We used to wear wigs, too, to help give the appearance of being fair, and we used to have terrible struggles with our own hair,to make it straighter. And when we had our photographs taken, the negatives would be lightened for us, to make us look as much like white people as possible. I have a photograph of myself wearing my wig, and it saddens me. Even then, looking at my face, I don’t think that wig made me too happy.
The only thing we still have a quarrel with, even today, is our weight, and that we continue to fight against, because to be overweight is bad for our health. We know it is the food we eat that is to blame, and that the cheapest food is the most fattening food, and the least nutritious. So we can fight this problem with pride, because we want to be healthy and to look good as people – not as white people. Many young black people are very slim, including my own children. They take exercise, where we just worked and didn’t have enough money for food, let alone sport.
When I met my first husband, Roger, I thought he was very nice because he was handsome and he used to dress well. And when he chose me to be his wife I was proud, because he had chosen me out of all the women he could have had.
It was the tradition then that a newly married woman should spend much of her time staying with her in-laws, without her husband. It was a point of pride to be able to say, ‘I am well accepted. My in-laws love me.’ If your husband sent money to you, he didn’t have to send it to you as his wife, but he would send it to his mother, who would tell you, or not tell you, about it. I was lucky with my mother-in-law, who lived in a rural area in what was once known as Mafeking. She would pass everything he sent on to me, and although she wasn’t working, she was ploughing and had some cattle and so on, so we lived from all that she could get as produce. I went to live with her when I had Molly, and I lived quite well there.
Then I went back to my husband and brought up our children in our one-room house in Kliptown. We lived behind the landlord’s cottage, in one of the rooms at the back of the yard. There were three rooms like ours facing the front, and three almost facing the back. Ours was a corner room facing the back. A fence divided one from the other. I had a bed and a wardrobe, and I’d put empty appleboxes one on top of another. In the bottom one I’d store my pots, and in the top one the plates and cups, and on top of these boxes I’d put two water buckets and a pot and kettle, which were all aluminium. We had a small black stove in the corner, and two benches and a table.
I would spend the whole day at that table. There were the nappies to be changed, and the children and myself to feed, and then I’d polish those buckets and the pot and kettle with Brasso or whatever until they glittered like mirrors. And I’d polish the black stove, and scrub the benches and the tables. Cleanliness, you see, was another matter of pride among us. We polished in order to keep some self-respect, because the conditions we lived in were so terrible.
I was fortunate that in the yard where I was living there was a well. The others had to come to this same well, and some people had to travel a long way for water. Then came a time when we were told we shouldn’t drink the water, as it was polluted, but should use it only for household and laundry work. So I would put my glittering bucket on my head and travel a long way to another well to draw water, but we could never be sure that that well was clean, and whether or not the person doing the inspection was reliable. Looking back, I realise how often my children were ill, and wonder about that water. And, of course, the toilets were also in the yard, and they weren’t drained properly but were really just another well. They smelled very bad.
To my disappointment, within five years I had to admit that my marriage was no longer what it had been. There were just too many quarrels. It would always be one problem that would lead to the quarrels, and that was money. He was working in the clothing industry, in the cutting room, and so was earning slightly more than some of his colleagues, but still we could not manage on his pay. It would be used up before pay day and there would be no money to pay for food for the babies. And the thing that made me most furious was that while we were going without small things for the home he would still manage to be such a natty dresser. That was something none of us could fathom about our men in those days, especiallythe uneducated ones, who would spend all their money on clothes imported from America. Perhaps they were trying to maintain their dignity, which they felt was stripped from them in the terrible oppression we suffered, and they needed to look smart in those imported clothes, as if to say, ‘Look, I’m so smart, I am human after all.’ And I know that Roger felt very moody sometimes after work because they may have screamed and shouted at him for some mistake that anyone could have made. But the fact remained that we were poor, and we could not afford to waste any part of our money.
In 1955 we moved into our own four-room house in Orlando West. The arrangement was that you would pay rent, and if you could afford to pay for 30 years then you would be granted the lease of the house, but never the freehold, because the law forbids black people to own freeholds. That is the privilege of whites only.
Well, it was our pride to have such a big house. Such luxury! We even had our own yard, for a garden or vegetable patch. But financial problems came with us. These new homes were not electrified, and this added to our difficulties, because just to have light in the evening cost us money we did not have, and the rent was always increasing.
I kept on thinking, ‘It will improve.’ When we had our fights, I would try hard to get money together so that I could take my kids and travel to Mafeking, which was just twelve hours by train, to go to my mother-in-law, who always welcomed me.
In our tradition, when a girl married she was married, body and soul, into her husband’s family. And after the wedding, before she went to live with her husband, all the elderly women – grannies, aunties, mothers – would convene a meeting where she was told what to do when she got to her new home. All the taboos were spelled out – how to behave to her husband and her parents-in-law. And especially, she was told never to expose the dirty linen in public. This is why it was always to my mother-in-law that I would go when things got really bad between Roger and me, because wife-battering was regarded as dirty linen, and a woman would suffer that in silence and never admit to a doctor what the real cause of her injuries was.
Only nowadays, and this I am pleased to be able to say, this practice has been exposed to such an extent that we have refuge centres in our townships, something that was unheard of a few years ago. But then I would say to the doctors, ‘I fell’, or ‘I tripped’. And his mother would be furious, and even when he’d calmed down and wanted me to come back she’d say, ‘No’, but she didn’t mention divorce. That wasn’t the language we spoke. For her, the way for me to get away from him was to stay with her.
But one day we started arguing and I said to my husband, ‘I’m going to leave you. I’m going home.’
And this man knew I cared about my family, my family unit, and he thought I’d never leave him. So he just said, ‘If you want to go, why don’t you?’
I took my bag – no clothes or suitcases – and I left. I walked to the bus stop and took a bus all the way to my father’s place, and that’s the last time I walked away from my husband.
My children followed afterwards. My people had to go and fetch them. It was not possible to do it any other way.
Notes
