The contraction
of the Sepedi phrase created Modimolle, a proper noun and legendary name Africans
gave to the revered natural feature. Apart from the danger of disappearing in
the mountain, the mountain's foothills, which are traversed by the N1, the equally fabled
highway to Polokwane and beyond, also pose a formidable danger in neverending
vehicle accidents. The locals believe that the cars, buses and trucks which regularly
crash on this part of the N1 do so because of the spirts of the mountain which
need to be appeased.
When motorists drive past Modimolle,
they hardly realise that they are actually climbing the lower rungs of
Modimolle. Some locals, even the authorities in the province, strongly believe
that the accident rate on the N1 is highest between Mokopane and Bela Bela,
Limpopo towns which sandwhich the Modimolle mountain.
In obvious support of this theory,
that vehicles heading north or south along the N1,drive over parts of
Modimolle, causing headlines grabbing accidents, churches and government
regularly hold prayer sessions to calm the displeased gods of the mountain.
We need prayers,
they say as the people of Limpopo join the chorus seeking divine intervention
for the accidents. Some weekends groups of Apostolic churches – Mapostola – also known as Zionists in
South African parlance, can be seen early in the morning at the bottom of the
mountain, further up from the highway, wrapping up their all-night prayer
gatherings.
Father
forgive thy children
For Satan's affliction of pride
has led them astray
Many of thy poor children
Do not even know
about the mistakes of many years ago
when this road was built
on the home of thy Holy Family
who look after thy mountain, oh Lord...
We pray thee, asking for forgiveness
and blessings to pray closer to thee
on thy Holy Mountain
Amen.
"We pray to
God to help us appease the spirit of the mountain, so that he can forgive
humankind for trespassing on his hallowed ground," one of the priests
explains their mountain pilgrimage at the end of an all-night prayer meeting
one Sunday morning.
Wide-eyed and
wearing a green coat with imprints of red crosses, white doves and yellow fish,
the priest's words are clear despite coming from a mouth covered by a bushy
beard.
"The green
of the jacket stands for the earth and its natural environment to which we
return when we die, until we are called to join the heavenly spiritual family
at resurrection.
"The
crosses represent the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The doves
stand for peace and understanding among humans, and from humans towards the
natural environment.
"The fish
represent spiritual fulfillment and good health for the body and mind. The
three – spirit, mind and body – must
always strike a healthy balance, lest humankind is doomed," says the
priest in a soft and yet commanding voice.
He oozes so much
calm, the ultimate beauty of humankind, as he continues with his post-worship
sermon to a curious traveller.
"Now innocent people die... just because they drove on Modimolle, the mountain of no return."
About 150 years earlier, another
priest in a different group of people looked up Modimolle and was overwhelmed
by a revelation.
"Ons
zijn in het beloofde land eindelijk," a Jerusalemgangers priest, also
heavily bearded, declared in the mix of Dutch and Afrikaans on arrival in the
area.
We are in
Promised Land at last, he exclaimed.
Jerusalemgangers,
or the Jerusalem-bound ones, were a group of religious zealots who left the
Eastern Cape on a journey to reach Jerusalem in Israel or Palestine. They were
in rejection of the British rule, first moving to Natal and later moved again as
the British solidified their rule there in 1844.
The language of the Jerusalem group
was mixed like that after a decade of travel into the hinterland had eroded
their original Dutch, the language of their ancestors in Holland and fellow
settlers in the Cape. Some in the group though were originally French,
descendants of the Huguenots who fled religious persecution in Europe. They go
by surnames such as Du Toit, De Klerk, Lombard, Basson and so on. There were some
Germans too who just happened to trek along.
Thinking the
mountain was a pyramid reshaped by the weather over a period of time, and
seeing a local stream flowing northwards, the Voortrekkers were convinced they
had sighted the Nile River, or Nyl in Afrikaans. They thought the two natural
features, the mountain and the river, were sacred signs indicating that they
had reached the Promised Land, for which they had left the Cape many years
earlier.
By 1870 the
group of white settlers, largely seen as mavericks by other Dutch
communities, were already an organised community and named their
settlement Nylstroom (Nile stream), and their "pyramid" Kranskop,
meaning "crown hill".
Kranskop is also
the name of the tollgate in the area previously known as Nylstroom, the first
one to be built on the N1 highway in then Northern Transvaal.
Exactly 132
years later, the new black government in South Africa has renamed the town
Modimolle, the name local African communities have always used for the
mountain, before the pyramid confusion.
Today life is
still quite a slog in the farming town, which in recent years has reinvented
itself as outdoors getaway through its countless game farms and lodges.
But all this has
not brightened the life of Matlakala, a single mother of four. She is only 32
but deep furrows of sorrow and pain have reconfigured her face, giving her the
look of a saturnine middle-aged woman.
She's unemployed
like many in the black township of Phagameng. It's worse for women, who can
only work as domestics or farm hands. The better educated - or better
connected, as some see it - can get government jobs.
Matlakala's
situation however is aggravated by her poor formal education, as she left
school a year before high school.
She left school
early because her parents had arranged for her to train as a sangoma - a
diviner.
"Matlakala
o na le badimo (is troubled by ancestors)," her mother would
explain her daughter's timid and withdrawn nature. Some times the poor girl
would scream in her sleep, pleading with someone to leave her alone.
Her teachers
complained about her absent-mindedness and sleepy nature in class, and advised
her parents to do something "Sesotho way".
"Ngwana
oo o na le badimo (this child is troubled by
ancestors)," Matlakala's teacher once told her mother during a visit
to the family.
Three years
later Matlakala is 15 when her father is jailed for rape and incest. It turns
out he is the ogre she was screaming at in her sleep to leave her alone.
Matlakala's father was the architect of her psychological problems and languor
in the classroom.
Her mother did
not help ease her daughter's mind, calling her sefebe - a
whore. Matlakala's mother repeated this bitter accusation during her husband's
trial, when Matlakala, seeking motherly comfort and love in the midst of the
intimidating court procedure, asked her mother: "Mma, le be le sa kwe
ge papa a nkata?" (Didn't you hear when father raped me?)
"Shut your
mouth you little whore. I have lost a man because of you."
Matlakala's
sexual abuse cases came to court through the work of a dedicated social worker.
She, the social worker, had been called to the school by Mr Mathibela, the
principal. Mathibela was alerted to Matlakala's situation by another teacher
who was vigilant and loving enough to notice her pupil's troubles.
It would emerge
during the trial that Matlakala's mother knew about her daughter's ordeal at
home. With no proper family support, Matlakala dropped out of school.
She had already been let go at training to be a healer. The ancestors
never called her after all, so said her gobela - the sangoma
trainer.
A year later
Matlakala is pregnant. The father is a 20-year-old high school dropout, a
serial loafer and already a father somewhere else in Phagameng. The young man does
not bother to know about the progress of his child, or of Matlakala's
pregnancy. His only drive is to search and find places where he can get free
booze. Any alcohol will do for him, including illicit brews whose drinkers age
prematurely and end up not eating food at all, leading to sore feet and legs
leaking nasty fluids.
"Knock
knock, anybody home?"
"Oh, Ntate Principal,
what happened? Is Daniel in trouble?"
"No
Matlakala my child, Daniel is not in trouble. I am here to avoid that
happening."
"Ao,
Principal, what do you mean?"
"Can we sit
down and talk? I need a few minutes to explain what is on my mind."
The school
principal is still standing in the kitchen, with the door behind him still
ajar. Normally, an important visitor like him would be led to the living
room-cum dining room-cum lounge, and a bedroom at night at some households
overflowing with family members. Matlakala is numbed by embarrassment because
of the condition of the house; she does not offer any suggestion to the
headmaster.
Mathibela ends
the impasse, with a tongue lashing on her former pupil whose troubles he
knew very well.
.
"Ausinyana (little lady), I am not judging you but how
possible your house is so messed up? It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon already...
what have you been doing all day?"
Mathibela
snapped at her like a true headmaster. Noticing her pain, Mathibela changed
tact.
"Anyway, we
know that a woman's work is never done. It's better we sit outside, under the
shade of the tree; it's very hot today," he adds as Matlakala leads him
out of the messy kitchen to the yard outside, with two plastic chairs held
under her arms.
They sit down
facing to the east, a middle aged man of wisdom alongside a semi-literate young
woman who looks middle aged. White long-sleeved shirt with a brown tie, against
green doek and dusty bare feet. Glowing well-fed face versus haggard,
undernourished physique.
"Tomorrow
is not a normal school day because we are having an athletics competition at
Ephraim Mogale Stadium. Apart from participating athletes, other children are
not expected to report to school but go straight to the stadium.
"We had problems in the past on such a day. We have information Daniel and
his friends are planning to brew trouble at the stadium tomorrow. It's not
clear what they are planning to do. But according to our informant, Daniel and
his gang were talking about bringing large amounts of beer to the stadium, to
drink during the athletics event.
"We can't
say Daniel must be stopped from going to Ephraim Mogale. The local police have
promised to be at the stadium to watch over all of us. But they are not going
to be searching people going into the stadium."
After a brief
pause, Mathibela continues: "Ausinyana, I am asking you not to give
any money to Daniel tomorrow. At least pack him some sandwiches so that he can
have something to eat during the day at the stadium. I hope my explanation and
request about the money are clear and make sense."
"Aowa Principal,
it does not make sense. How can I ever give Daniel money when I hardly have any
myself? I don't even have money for the clothes he wears. I am suffering with
the children because their fathers do not care if their children are dead or
alive.
"The only
time there's cash here is after the social grants have been paid, for the
second and last born children. There's no grant for Daniel because he does not
have a birth certificate. Mhlupheki's grant is given on interim basis until I
get an ID number for him. His hand-written birth certificate does not have the
13-digit ID number like other kids. His grant is renewed periodically but
this may not last long unless his ID number is issued.
The ID
application for Daniel's sister Kedibone, the third born, was rejected because
another child in North West province is drawing the grant with the ID number
similar to Kedibone's.
"Some
people say the duplicate was probably created by a nurse or home affairs
official to create a ghost grant recipient. I reported the matter to the police
but they say I must apply for a new ID because there's nothing they can do
about the duplicate in North West.
"I have
been applying for IDs for Daniel and his little brother Mhlupheki, the last
born. How will applying for Kedibone help? They say their fathers must make
affidavits at the police station to confirm parenthood, and I must bring the
papers to home affairs.
"Daniel
sees his father all the time because his way to school passes by the beer hall,
where his father drinks sorghum brew almost every day. I doubt if they say
anything to each other because Daniel also does not care if his father lives or
dies.
"Kedibone's
father died a long time ago and his family buried him in Ga-Matlala. I have
never been there or any other place in Polokwane. At least one of his brothers
could act on his behalf to sign the papers, so that Kedibone can have an ID and
get her grant.
"One of the
brothers works in Bela-Bela. He does come to Phagameng on weekends some times,
but only to have a good with his homeboys who stay here. Once I asked him to
help me with Kedibone, and Koena, her uncle, said: 'We don't know Kedibone. My
brother never told us about such child. When we were burying him, all his
children were there... so where was this Kedibone of yours?'
"Mhlupheki
was not issued the proper certificate because the clinic said their machine had
broken down when they discharged me after childbirth. They said I must come
back as soon as I felt stronger.
"Three
weeks later I went to the clinic but they told me Wednesdays they deal with
diabetes cases only. Certificate matters are for Mondays. The nurse also
scolded me for going up and down with a newly born baby.
"The
following Monday I did not go to the clinic because I had no one to look after
the baby. Then the Monday on the fifth week was a public holiday, Freedom Day.
The clinic was open only for emergencies, they told me so.
"The Monday
in the sixth week of Mhlupheki's birth I went again. You know what they told
me Ntate Principal," Matlakala asked rhetorically, as she
feverishly stroked her beaded strings around her left wrist, remnants of her
short-lived sangoma career.
Her tiny,
undernourished body also catches the shakes. Her trembling becomes so violent
that Mr Mathibela, the principal, catches her as she is about to fall off her
chair. She grips tightly onto the headmaster's forearm and passes out.
She looks a heap
of peace, lying there on the bare ground, like she is in the embrace of Mother
Earth who is comforting her. Mathibela reaches out for his cellphone to call
for an ambulance. He then walks towards the kitchen door, hoping to find any
vessel he can use to cup water with from the tap outside.
Matlakala raises
her head as Mathibela approaches her with the yellow enamel steel cup. She
drinks heartily, like someone who has just been rescued after being lost in the
desert.
"About
Daniel," Matlakala continues, clearly having lost her train of thought.
Before fainting, she was explaining her hardship with Mhlupheki's birth
certificate. Even if she has lost her way, her neighbours, including their cats
and dogs, chickens and peach trees, know the story to its conclusion. That on
the Monday of the sixth week, the nurses at the clinic told her the matter of
the birth certificate was no longer in their hands.
"It is too
late now; why did you wait so long to claim the baby's certificate? You must
now apply for it at the Home Affairs office in town," the nurses told
her.
The story goes that when Matlakala finally managed to string together enough
rands to travel to town, the Home Affairs official barked at her: "Where
is the baby's father? How can we trust you have not stolen this baby? If you
say you gave birth at the Community Health Centre, why then you never got the
certificate there, as usual?"
That's where her
fainting episodes started, even though some peers remember her fainting at
school years ago. But she was not the only pupil to faint on that extremely
hot, dry November day in Grade 3.
"He is now
the man of the house. There's nothing I can tell Daniel anymore. He drinks, he
smokes, sometimes he does not sleep at home. A girl in Extension 2 is pregnant
by him, that's what the neighbours say. I don't know.
"Daniel
also wears expensive shoes, I don't know how. Ntate Principal,
his father was never around. He came to live with us briefly here after my
mother gave me this RDP house. When he left again a few months later, I was
pregnant with my third child, Kedibone.
"Kedibone's
father had come to live with us after the father of Johannes, the second born,
got sick and died. People say he was poisoned by another woman. I don't know.
What I know is that he was good, responsible man who helped me a lot. That's
why Johannes never had a grant problem because his father went with me to apply
for the grant.
"Even
Mhlupheki's father did not stay here. He too left and the only places he was
seen were the local shebeens. He later died, after complaining of swollen legs
or feet. I don't know."
Matlakala had
been perspiring as she was rattling off her story of suffering with her
children and their fathers. After using the short sleeves of her washed out top
to wipe the sweat off her forehead and sides of her face, she continued, this
time in a rather subdued voice.
"Ntate Mathibela,
if you and the male teachers at school cannot show Daniel the right way I, as
his mother, am powerless to discipline him. He's been setting his own rules for
far too long for a 16-year-old boy. He even commands boys older than him. Even
the pregnant girl, I hear she's 18. I don't know Ntate, I really
don't know. I am struggling."
The ambulance
finally arrives but the paramedics get annoyed seeing the supposed
patient relaxed, chatting and... dirty from the dust she picked up when she
laid on the ground after fainting in Mathibela's arms.
"What do
you mean you are going back without her," Mathibela snaps at the ambulance
staff after they said Matlakala looked fine.
"You take
her to hospital now so that the doctors find out why she fainted. That is not
your prerogative to judge her. If you refuse to carry out your job, I am going
to have to report you for negligence, and clumsy approach to your job."
Changing her
focus to Matlakala, Mathibela said: "MaDaniel, who can you trust to
come here to look after your younger children when you leave with the
ambulance?"
"Ntate Principal,
you have shown enough caring and I thank you. I am not going to the hospital.
It's worse that these ambulance people sneer at me like they are doing right
here at my home. How is it going to be at the hospital?
"I will
warn Daniel to behave at the stadium tomorrow."
"Why is
just the two of you; where is Tuks," demands Daniel as he greets his crew
at the dark street corner at Phagameng township.
"Guys the plan I discussed with you is clear; three of us must corner
Ahmed inside his shop. It must be three guys, to eliminate any element of
surprise.
"One guy
must be on the lookout outside, and also hold back customers until we run out
of the shop with the money. It's not even 8 o'clock yet, so let's go chill at
Tools tavern until we leave for Ahmed at 8.45pm sharp."
Daniel continues
outlining his robbery strategy over three beers from brown 750ml bottles. It's
a mystery how they and other boys already boozing at Tools seem to always have
money for beer.
"It should
take us 10 minutes to reach the spaza shop," Daniel addresses his crew,
with the loud music providing cover for his criminal plans.
"When we
get there we survey the goings-on around the spaza. Five Past Nine me and Frans
we walk in, and you Nare, you stay outside. That time there's no more
traffic of customers, but Ahmed will stay open till 9.30pm, as usual."
Daniel fumes as
he recalls that one of them, Tumelo, also known as Tuks in the streets, did not
pitch for the mission.
"Tuks has messed up our plan but I will deal with him tomorrow. He just
has to see Lerato to know what's coming his way. Since I planted the Okapi into
that thick head, Lerato is still on his bum, thinking the sky is yellow."
Two things are
giving this night something unusual around Ahmed's shop.
"Guys,
something is fishy here," says the ever alert Daniel as they come around
the dark corner to face Ahmed's shop.
"This time
Ahmed always closes one half of the security gate at the door. Now both sides
of the gate are still flung open like during the day.
"And why there's that car parked there. It is not parked exactly at the
shop but we can't say it's not parked at the shop. Dodgy.
"Hey Timmy what car is that."
"It's a Corolla, boss, the old model liked by the Ethiopians," replies
Thomas, aka Timmy, though elsewhere he would have been called Tommy instead.
"Ok, but
Ahmed told me he is Somalian. I think he's lying. He's Indian like all his
homeboys who always visit him at the shop. And Timmy, what do you mean
Ethiopian?"
"I always
see Ethiopian shop owners drive this kind. They love this old Corolla. Even my
grandfather has one. He sings the car's praises about saving petrol, low
maintenance costs and so on," says Thomas.
"I suspect Ahmed has called for back-up, guys. They are waiting for us.
Tuks has informed on us. I think we should drop the mission."
"Timmy, do
you realise you are speaking against the ancestors? Are you doubting Ntate Mlambo's
bones and cleanser? Do you want to vanish from the face of the earth, like someone
who went up the Modimolle mountain? Mlambo's muthi is potent, I fear for your
future because the old man will know you doubted him. Besides, what will we eat
and drink at the stadium tomorrow if we turn back now?
"Let's
move. Timmy, you wait outside as I walk in with Letsatsi. Your Okapis must be
ready boys. My gun is ready too. Let's do this!"
"Hello
Daniel, Ahmed told me not to close because you will be coming to bring the
money your mother owes for the sugar she bought on credit two months ago,"
says Adam, the Ethiopian who also trades in another part of Phagameng.
Ethiopian and
Somali traders are known for their rivalry wherever they trade in South African
townships and villages. Their customers however see them as one people, and
call them Makula, from Coolie, an old colonial and derogatory term
given to Indians. It's incredible black South Africans still use this term, and
have even extended the term to Ethiopians and Somalians, fellow Africans. And
no one in authority has rebuked this habit.
In Phagameng,
however, the spaza shop owners from the two Horn of Africa nations were
one, following the messy attacks on their businesses by locals in 2013.
The spark for the attacks was a Pakistani trader being accused of the murder of
his girlfriend, a Phagameng youth. The African foreign traders also bore the
brunt of the community's anger. Being accommodated at the same shelter by the
authorities helped forge unusual solidarity among the Somali and Ethiopians.
This situation allowed them to drop the traditional animosity towards
each other in favour of surviving together in a foreign country.
"Hands up,
bloody shit. Hand over all the money, cigarettes and airtime now,"
commands Daniel in a voice and poise belying his 16 years.
Lights go off
and . . . bang, bang, bang!
"Allahu
akbar!" (God is greater). Another infidel falls to God's judgment,"
cries Ahmed Ayaan Danyal, the Somali, from the verandah of his shop, after
emerging from the back of the shop where he was hiding and waiting.
The bodies of
two boys, Daniel and Letsatsi, lie on the opposite sides of the shop verandah,
where they fell in their desperate attempts to run away. They had made similar
runs before...
The irony of
Daniel and Ahmed, two Africans from different parts of the continent, having
something uniquely common beyond being African is lost in the brief, deadly
moment of violence. As the Somali shopkeeper, smoking gun still in hand, steps
over the sprawled Daniel there is no telling if he knew his surname carried the
same meaning as Daniel - God is my judge.
Father
forgive thy children... in Modimolle.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment