Into the light

In South Africa I first heard a quote attributed to Nelson Mandela’s 1994 inaugural address. Mandela never actually said these words; they are from American peace activist Marianne Williamson. But the sentiment hasn’t been harmed by the association.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of a higher power that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

It has been a decade since I lived with a black South African family, but watching the township scenes from Invictus yesterday took me back there in a heartbeat.

At 6AM I awaken, shivering against the cold of the Highveld, and stumble into the kitchen. Ma is already awake. She scrapes out the last of last night’s ashes into the metal bucket and hands it to me. I carry it outside and exchange it for a bucket of the coal that is heaped between the concrete house and the concrete fence which encircles the property, the fence which separates our house from a maze of similar houses crowding each other like a heap of squirming puppies. Soon the water to bathe the little ones is steaming on the fire and I walk across the small concrete courtyard to the bedroom. Brian is already up and gone to work, Bongani is still snoring, and I am grateful for the chance to wake Zama, 8, and Wandile, 4. I try to wake them the way my own mother woke me when I was their age: tenderly. In the township, the “location” as it is called by everyone living there, there is precious little space for tenderness.

After bathing the children Ma serves them a hot porridge of oats. Wandile, having momentarily opened his eyes in the metal basin of bathwater, is now falling asleep in his oats. Zama pokes him and Wandile lets out a cry. Soon it will be time for school.

While the children eat I take my daily walk. Our house is close to the edge of the location proper, and soon I am crossing the earthen dam that serves as a walkway across the swamp. The location was built on a swamp. No: it was relocated to the swamp. As I climb the hill on the other side, I walk among ruins. These are the ruins of houses built before Apartheid, houses razed to create a separation between the current low location and the high Afrikaaner farming town. Now, 50 years later, the new Mandela government is trying to erase that separation by once again building on the slope, throwing up a restless but orderly row of brick dwellings.

From the crest of the hill where the railroad runs its load of coal I look upon my home.

In the crisp morning air a pall of smoke hangs over the location. It burns the eyes, dirties the pastels of the concrete houses, sullies the clothes hung to dry. It strikes me that the only thing about the township that is not black are its people. They know: they are children of God. They are not afraid to let their light shine. For generations they have waited for this day. And just as they did during the long years of Apartheid, they will start this day by taking care of their little ones. They will bathe them. Dress them. Feed them. Send them up the hill through the bones of their ancestors, to school, where against all odds some of them will make it.