It was the occasion
of the most aligned ANC Conference in Polokwane. I found myself in foreign territory
literally and metaphorically. Transport was scarce and everybody and their
uncle were on their way to Polokwane for this most important occasion in our
history.
I was
summoned to the NAPWA Head Office for an emergency meeting where I was asked
for assistance. I was required to escort the trip with my bakkie carrying some
delegates and much needed supplies.
My wife was
worried it was 15 December, the roads were busy and my health was not the best.
That is how I got onto the road to Polokwane not knowing I am becoming part of
history. The Aids Activists were trekking to Polokwane on a mission, a mission
to get rid of president Mbeki because of
his stance on HIV.
How was I
to know we were going to stay in a black Township and if I knew would I still
be a willing participant? How was I to know that we had to sleep in my vehicle waiting
for the bus in a small dorp en route ?
How was I
to know we would not be staying far from the home of Julius Malema’s
grandmother and that the SG was going to meet with him? I did not now all these
things.
I did not
know how far reaching the consequences of this Conference was going to be for
South Africa. It was just a number, 52 and this year it would be another number
for another ANC Conference during December ten years later.
I am not a
political animal. I am a humanitarian and I naturally aligned with the cause of
these passionate young people. I was well versed on the subject of HIV and my
wife and I were intimately involved in fighting this scourge to humanity.
I was not important;
I was a driver of a support vehicle. My function was to fetch and carry and
that I did willingly. My first indication of the scope and seriousness of the
matter was more than ten kilometres before Polokwane when a host of youngsters
and some not so young alighted from the bus and started running in the searing
heat.
Their green
T shirts reading “I suffer, I sacrifice” suddenly had meaning, a whole lot of
meaning. I kept them hydrated driving slowly behind them carrying bottled
water.
The
Important people passed us in their blaring blue light motorcades some waving
at the youth others speeding past without noticing.
I was part
of history unknowingly so. I was hot and bothered and tired when I finally
settled down in a house on the outskirts of Polokwane. I was to share a room
with some of the girls and women inside the house. The young men were sleeping
on mattresses in the Garage.
They
prepared food. Pap and gravy and I ate with them. I bought a bottle of wine en route
that I kept in my Navarra. I had to open it with a kitchen knife and sipped it
unnoticed outside not wanting to offend my hosts.
During the
night I decided to have a bath or maybe I should say a wash. The bathroom had
no door and the taps in the bath were not connected. I filled a plastic container
with water from the washbasin and stood in it in the bath, the way I have
learned on a visit to a township in Maputo.
The problem
was the light worked and I put it off to camouflage my nakedness as I was scared
someone might need the toilet while I hastily got rid from sweaty dust caking
on my body. I nearly feinted while being so busy trying to clean myself with
haste, the light went on and a girl entered the bathroom and went straight for
the toilet. It was nature calling and an urgent call it was as it sounded like a waterfall gushing.
She farted; men often do when we leak and simply said “Sorry Uncle.”
Was she
sorry she needed to pee?, was she sorry I was standing naked in a plastic
container ?, was she sorry she farted ? , Or all of the above. I was many years
her senior and she was a beautiful young black woman. Imagine it for a second. A
middle aged white man, naked in a plastic bucket, in a bathroom,
in a black township and this girl relieving herself right next to him farting.
We all now
know what happened during that conference in Polokwane. We all feel the effects
of the decisions made that day. We all know how Jacob Zuma was thrust upon the
nation and we all know how he ousted Mbeki.
I am not a
card carrying member of any political party. I hate politics for the dirty
business it is. I do not know where the SG was, most of the time. He was a VIP
I was a driver of a support vehicle.
Finally it
was time to go back to Johannesburg, My girl companions and I in my Navarra and
the rest in the bus. We listened to a CD of the NAPWA singers and sipped “Polokwane
water”. I arrived home safely and carried on with my life not knowing I was
part of history.
Oh yes and
I never forgot a girl farting.
No comments:
Post a Comment