Africa Day

As I drove through the Geldenhuys interchange late in the afternoon on my way to Germiston City Hall I was distracted by the sun that caught the wings of the birds flying home for the night in their organised v-pattern. I am a passionate advocate for a world without borders and how envious I was of the birds as they flew overhead, unaware of the geographical and political limitations and hostilities that restrain those of us on terra firma.

This morning I read the Sunday papers in bed, and I noticed that the names heading the list for aid agencies were the sexy names. The Red Cross only arrived at Germiston on Friday and we haven’t seen them again. Medicin Sans Frontiers – now that’s French sexy – arrived on Saturday.  The Gift of the Givers and The Jewish Board of Deputies have been immediate in their response when a call for help has been made. Top of my list are the ordinary South Africans whose generosity make me proud to be an African on Africa Day.

Tomorrow our school will open its doors. There are many new children that have been brought in. Children are the most vulnerable in this crisis. One of the churches has offered to host the school, but that means walking them a good five blocks through town. The school committee discusses it and decides that keeping the children within the confines of the city hall is the safest option. I don’t host the meeting of the school committee, I just get briefed by Partson who is the head of the committee and I thank the teachers for their dedication. I ask for a list of what is still required, but I am so grateful to see a box of school supplies already available. On every occasion that I send out an sms or an email asking friends and business colleagues for help, our requests are fulfilled. We needed a gas stove, twenty gas stoves were delivered. A bus was needed to consolidate a particular group of migrants, we’ve just delivered that group from Primrose to Germiston thanks to the generosity of a private company sponsor. I had a sleepless night wondering where we’d get blackboards for our school and Jill sms’ed me to say she has purchased three.

The philanthropic actions of all South Africans has restored my faith in both God and humanity. I wear a small silver charm around my neck, it’s a little shoe that I purchased while travelling two years ago. When I touch the little filigree shoe I realise that it is the perfect symbol of the travellers that find themselves displaced. It will always be my reminder not to be complacent about refugees.

Not every aspect of life at City Hall is pleasing or pleasant. Many of the refugees are double refugees, twice they have been forced to run away; this doubles their sense of hopelessness. A young mother who has appeared emotionally disturbed for the past three days has tried to strangle her four-month-old baby girl in the toilets several times. When other refugees rescued the baby, the mother fled. Nomsa, the nursing sister who oversees the infants centre, slept at the centre last night and cared for the abandoned baby. She is a beautiful child, petite and responsive, smiling at us out of her pink papoose. There are willing foster parents but matters get complicated when a suggestion is made about a private adoption agency. My internal alarm rings and I want to suggest that Child Welfare is called in. The foster parents’s housekeeper decides to spend the night with the mothers and babies in the infants centre.

Today Carrington and Bodicea came to live with us. They will live in a small wooden house in our garden that my children felt would be insulting to them; they were delighted. In less than an hour they have transformed the unused wooden house into a cosy home through the tasteful placement of decorative grass mats, fluffy blankets and a spirit lamp. They pulled a bench up next to the tree and, as I write this, Carrington is banging away as he fits a lock onto the door.

My geyser hasn’t been repaired yet and our soup burned when we were called back to City Hall.

Another Day at City Hall

Trucks are arriving with supplies and other trucks are leaving with people. “Ai, goodbye South Africa, you are a bad place,” says an angry man before he boards the bus for Inhambane, Mozambique. After almost a week of handing out relief supplies and listening to stories and phoning consulates, I almost burst into tears. It is understandable that he and many of his compatriots leave with a similar sentiment, but it is difficult not to take the criticism personally.

Not everyone wants to leave. Felipe has been the chief griller at Nando’s since 1992, he has a two month old daughter Marta and a beautiful young wife Paulina. They got out of Dikatole, Germiston before the fighting started and were fortunate enough to salvage many of their possessions. Tomorrow we will collect their double bed, wardrobes, fridge and microwave and keep them and Felipe’s mamba green Nissan at our home until he feels it is safe enough to return. The car has been damaged and even if Felipe had the money for petrol and oil it’s not safe for him to use the car to travel home to Beira – the car isn’t reliable and who knows if the route home is safe?

The Malawian Commissioner Mr Kumbemba and Deputy Commissioner Alescius Goddia from Malawi arrive within an hour of my husband speaking to them. They are gracious to their citizens who respond with calmness and gratitude and sit under the trees on the pavement in Lambert Street to listen with respect. Samuel Banda removes himself from the group and calls me aside. His hair is shot with grey and his hands tremble as he explains his dilemma. He’s been a productive citizen of South Africa for many, many years. He is entitled to financial benefits from his employers and if he leaves now he forfeits all his rights to those benefits. I understand his dilemma but have no advice to offer. He looks into my eyes and I can read the disbelief: how is it that we can get the Consul and his entourage to arrive within an hour of the request from the Malawian refugees yet I cannot attend to his occupational and financial dilemma? He will not believe that the commissary were already en-route and sits down heavily to hear what they have to say.

Most of the relief workers are not trained to deal with the humanitarian needs of the displaced. It’s been a true school of life for me, I’ve learned to shut up and do what I made myself available for – to help where possible. As I leave the Germiston City Hall, I am approached by a frowning woman who asks to talk to me. “That woman can’t talk nicely to me,” she says, pointing to a hard-working volunteer whose brashness has been reported to me before. I try to explain the pressures that volunteers feel. Strong, loud women are necessary to keep control. It’s a complicated situation. Then the woman bursts into tears, drops her head on my shoulders and sobs. Like my youngest son, her son is in his final year at school. Her son’s future is pinned upon his successful completion of the year; my son has been accepted at Wits pending his final exam result. We are mothers with the same concerns, I cannot walk away. “What do you want?” I ask. “I don’t know, but I can’t leave now, my son will have no future if he does not finish matric,” she says. I take her to someone who is overseeing the international repatriations, he assures me he will attend to her dilemma. I return ten minutes later, dragged by the arm by Paulina who wants to show me where I will find her belongings tomorrow. The woman whom I was assured would be attended to, is sitting wiping her tears; she has been told to sit and wait. All I can do is to offer her my reassurance that I will be back tomorrow, and, if her situation has not been solved I will consult with my husband and we will find some way and someone who will help us to alleviate her stress. But at that particular moment he is on the phone trying to speed up the delivery of portable toilets.

The sanitation facilities at the Germiston City Hall are limited. Scaw Metals delivers a skip for refuse, but there are no showers or portable toilets. One of the ordinary South Africans who saw our appeal for items on the 702 website delivers the buckets we requested and a savvy supplies marshall immediately allocates them for use by mothers in which to bathe their children. I feel like dancing with joy as I hand him the packets of colouring in books and crayons for the children. Local clinic staff have been put in charge of a crèche for the pre-school children, perhaps the games and activities will reduce the weight of anxiety that bears down on the parents who feel hopeless,

A woman phones me to ask if I can help her get travel documents, she is from Cameroon. She cannot go back to Cameroon because she is a refugee but she wants travel documents in case she needs to leave South Africa. I tell her to email me her details so that I might apply my mind to her predicament in the solitude of my study at home where I’m not being asked for jackets and food. There is no email when I get home, so I make a note to phone her back.

Gift of the Givers arrives again with the supplies we requested. Monique and Helen deliver a car load of provisions that they have purchased. Michelle and Roger and their employees drive in convoy to deliver the goods that their clients have donated. Two worn out women in an exhausted car deliver packets of meat and loaves of bread; the butcher wouldn’t let them pay for the meat. While they wait for the officials to remove the provisions from their car they include me in a socio-political conversation about the dilemma this crisis has provoked. Amanda, a young electrical engineer from Soweto arrives with sanitaryware for women as the wounded sky darkens and people draw their green and yellow striped blankets around themselves.

At home I run a bath from a hosepipe attached to the hot tap in the kitchen, our geyser has coughed and collapsed. Cathy phones to say she has a plan to stop the violence and she doesn’t “mind sitting down with Thabo to explain it to him”. She admits that she’s not the sole architect of her plan, God has helped her. We suggest the best we can do is fax it to the authorities, but she doesn’t fax it through to us.

In warm socks and a comfortable tracksuit I settle down to watch the American Idols final. Although the entertainment is distracting and enjoyable, it is impossible not to think of the people we have met over the past week. Joseph is the chief co-ordinator of staff at the City Hall and Sharon’s a local clinic sister who’s roped in her aunt to help her sort out the supplies that come in. Two private paramedics have set up a health clinic of their own volition. These unremarkable citizens are just a few of the remarkable stars at City Hall. When the news comes on Mark and I glance at each other when Myanmar citizens complain that aid is not reaching them; their frustrations are the same as ours. Appeals to The Gates Foundation and Oxfam were met with computer-generated responses. Some local embassies don’t answer their phone or else they pick up the receiver and then immediately replace it. I haven’t seen any Red Cross aid workers.

I wake up after a night filled with dreams of people grabbing my arm. I dash to the loo; I have gippo-guts. I take an immodium. A German man on the radio says that local people will attack aid workers who are helping the needy. I switch off the radio, I will be ready when Mark fetches me at ten. There’s a mother who is waiting to see if we can help solve her problem.