To Survive and Succeed - Mkhuseli Jack

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boys I had met by chance in Humansdorp. One was a shy and a polite fellow named Hintsa Swartbooi and he was already at Loyiso High in Port Elizabeth. He was one of the first boys I befriended from the Humansdorp township. He was focused, interesting and always impeccably dressed. He later became a police commissioner and was put in charge of the police training division in Graaff-Reinet. The other guy I met was Dumile Mateza, who was already enrolled in one of the posh Port Elizabeth high schools. Dumile was the complete opposite of Hintsa: he was talkative and liked to show off, and he too was immaculately dressed.

      One of my most memorable encounters with Dumile was at a rugby match between the township’s All Blacks team and the Swallows from Kruisfontein, the so-called coloured township. Dumile paced up and down the side of the field, commentating for whoever cared to listen. His articulate analysis was outstanding.

      While trying to find a solution to my schooling dilemma, I remembered that one of my grandfather’s children stayed in Port Elizabeth. This was the only family we knew in any city anywhere in South Africa. I persuaded my mother that we should follow his lead. While a lot of people in our community supported me, many tried to counsel me against having high expectations because I would have to dodge the pass law bullet in order to stay there. This did not deter me and we eventually got hold of my uncle’s address. But I wasn’t going to take this journey alone: I begged my mother to accompany me. She was very sceptical about my plan, but did not want to dampen my spirits.

      CHAPTER 6

      An outlaw in the city

      My stoic mother and I left Oyster Bay very early in the morning, taking a bus from the Humansdorp railway station, which was buzzing with activity – mostly with parents seeing their children off to school. They knew the names of the schools they were going to attend, while I, on the other hand, had no clue which school gate I would be walking through, if any.

      The bus drivers were two massive white Afrikaner ‘okes’ with huge, hairy arms. Both wore khaki shorts and treated the passengers worse than farmers did their labourers. Their language was full of ‘jy’, ‘jou’ and ‘hei’ when they addressed anyone, including my mother. My mother and I did not exchange many words on our way to Port Elizabeth and I had the impression that she felt sorry for me.

      We reached Down Station, Port Elizabeth’s main railway and state bus station, at 5 pm that afternoon. The only directions we had was my uncle’s address handwritten on a piece of paper. Someone directed us to a place called Terminus, which is the township bus and minibus taxi rank. Walking to the terminus was mind-blowing. The Strand Street was crowded with people rushing to get home. They were moving fast and shouting loudly. One kind stranger paused long enough to direct us to a bus with the destination sign ‘Seyisi via Grahamstown’. We bought tickets and boarded a crowded bus to New Brighton. It was the first time I had been surrounded by so many people and I felt quite overwhelmed.

      It was an adventure, a completely new world. The hustle and bustle pushed my nerves to the limit. I had sort of been to Port Elizabeth before, night-time trips in the back of crowded old lorries or bakkies with canopies. The ‘transport’, as it was called, was owned by one of our church elders and the trips were to attend church services. Now, in different circumstances, I had no idea what to expect.

      My Uncle Fred and his family were not expecting us. We’d had no way of contacting them to ask if we could come, or even to warn them of our arrival. When the bus stopped at Ferguson Road, we asked to be directed to the address on the piece of paper. People were helpful and we found our way to a corner house facing a municipal building used for sport and recreation.

      Despite their surprise, my uncle and aunt welcomed us. Fortunately, only two of their seven children were still living at home – the others were already working, married or attending school elsewhere. The house was a semi-detached brick building consisting of three rooms: a kitchen, a family room/lounge and a bedroom. My uncle’s house had running water in the yard, which was a novelty for me. I was also fascinated by the flushing toilet we shared with our next-door neighbours. There was electricity for lighting and cooking. Life here was a total contrast to what I had been accustomed to on the farms.

      Vuyisile, one of my uncle’s sons, was obsessed with jazz. He bought every jazz album that came onto the South African market. When he came back from work he would put the record player speaker through the window and the sweet sounds of his favourite record would flow out through the yard and the street. He had a collection of music by Timmy Thomas, Jazz Crusaders, Stanley Turrentine, Ella Fitzgerald and many other American jazz maestros. This jazz music was too slow for me. I was used to the fast mbhaqanga music rhythm of Mahlathini and the Mahotela Queens, Izintombi Zomgqashiyo, The Dark City Sisters and many other traditional musicians, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

      My family and I discussed the schools I could attend in Port Elizabeth. They believed I would not have a problem getting enrolled in any of them because of my good academic record. Nobody said anything about the possibility of me getting into trouble with the law; the assumption was that I would not be harassed and fall foul of the reviled pass laws.

      The following morning my mother and I made a trip to Cowan High, where my cousin Sindiswa was in Standard 9. We arrived on time. The bell rang and all pupils and teachers were summoned to the assembly point, where singing and praying preceded the principal’s speech. Mr Frank Tonjeni welcomed and congratulated those who had passed their classes and had words of encouragement for those who had not passed the previous year.

      Those who had not been officially admitted to the school, myself among them, were advised to assemble in the front garden of the school, all 400 of us. We remained there until the afternoon without a word being said about our situation. Finally, as they started closing for the day, Tonjeni came out to inform us that his school was not taking any more pupils as it did not have space. There were, however, a few openings for those who had ‘excellent marks’. Of the 400 newcomers there my name was called among the twenty who had made that precious cut.

      The next day I went to class 7C. The teacher asked for a document she called a ‘family card’. Apparently this card was issued by the municipality to keep track of the legitimate residents in a home and so prevent the influx of illegal immigrants. I promised to bring it the next day, which I did but, sadly for me, my name was not on the list. The law was viciously strict; without my name on that card I would not be admitted to this or any other class. The pass laws had delivered the biggest direct, personal blow I had ever suffered. It was a blow to the gut and I was devastated.

      The teacher suggested that I return to the front lawn and join the rest of the students who were apparently in the same predicament as me: outlaws. Days went by with no word from the school. My mother left after two weeks, hopeful that something would shift. But every day we were told to come back the next day and this went on for two months.

      On that patch of grass I came across children from all over the province. Some were from Port Elizabeth, and I could never figure out how they ended up with us. Friendships were formed there, some that have lasted all my life. Mzolisi Dyasi was one of them. He would become a comrade of mine in the years that followed. Mzolisi was from a squatter camp called Emaplangeni which was as notorious as Red Location, known for having the most dangerous criminals in the city. Nomvula Manyota was from Red Location and she was a strong-willed bully. Nomvula was fascinated by me because, I guess, people could see from a mile off that I was a farm boy. My shoes were oversized; they used to be brown but through hard wear had turned black. The children from the city wore the correct colour and size shoes and I felt that I stuck out like a sore thumb. Being talkative was the only comparative advantage I enjoyed. Some were attracted not by what I was talking about, but by my speech and accent. When I attempted English, I spoke with a coloured Afrikaans accent, and this was mixed with rural ‘deep’ isiXhosa.

      It was at that school that I met amazing students who later became household names in many different fields, especially in sport. Baba Nolokhwe was a 100-metre sprinter at primary school. Wiseman Mpahla hailed from Mendu, a little village outside Willowvale in deep rural Transkei. He had passed Standard 6 with flying colours the year before. His father worked at one of the motor-manufacturing companies in Port Elizabeth but this was also his first experience of big city

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