The Elephant In The Room

 As we all emerge from the perimeters of our gardens, a little shell shocked and promising that the next time we are caught in a riot we will not be caught with one litre of long life milk, icing sugar and a frozen loaf of bread bought in 1997, there is a very silent conversation going on. A conversation that I can guarantee 90% of us would never have thought we would have to have. A conversation we are all too scared to start, one I would imagine that is akin to admitting to erectile dysfunction or saying that your wife’s food is indeed better than your mothers. It’s the conversation that starts with admitting that maybe we need to consider other future options outside of South Africa, if not for us then for our children. The emigration conversation. 

And do you know what? I’m going to pop that festering boil right now. We need to have this conversation and we need to not be ashamed by it because, like I said in a previous blog, there is a very clear line between being resilient and being dead.

This week I have been doing debriefing sessions with all my students. Holy moly. Our kids have faced some serious trauma in the past month. They are frightened, they are worried, they are grieving and they are asking the right questions. I have heard stories that made me weep in the past week and my boys have wept too. It has been heavy but I do believe that when we share our stories we invite others into the narrative so that they can help us to process the plot twists. That, and they can be kinder and give us a hug. There were many back pats in my classroom this week.

One of my little Grade 8 boys delivered a monologue that basically encapsulated what Stephen and I are currently feeling. This boy has two little sisters. His anxiety over their future and their safety in this country was palpable. He just wants them to be safe and to have a future. And none of his feelings are for himself, they are for his sisters. Just as none of our feelings about the future are for ourselves but for our children. 

Before I go on, however, I think it is important for me to tell a brief part of my story so that you, dear reader, can understand where I am coming from. 

My ancestors are all South African. The chances of me having a passport anything other than 100% South African vanished when the various families that make up my genes arrived in the 1800s. I have no identity other than my South African identity. And I try to own the good and the bad of that identity. Yup to colonisation, yup to apartheid. We were here. We benefited. 100% privileged. And there are many stories that I can tell that will speak into the very familiar narrative of being the descendant of white South African farmer. And I will own them all.

But our connections to this place also show that despite the various eras of white privilege that my family lived through the (literal) lines between black and white are, as always, complicated. The first of my ancestors to be born on African soil taught isiZulu. My family were traders and they traded all the way up to King Cetshwayo kraal. Their very existence depended on their good relationships with the Zulu people of what was then Port Natal. After eloping in Durban with a lovely young girl, Hannah, William Stockil (our Zulu linguist) and his parents set off to farm in the back of beyond. The spot they chose was Rorkes Drift. My family lived and farmed at Rorkes Drift BEFORE the legendary battle. They sold it to the Swedish missionaries (who were living there when the battle happened) because they could see tensions rising between the British and the Zulus and they did not want to be part of it. They settled in Winterton where they have been farming for well over a hundred years.  

What then follows is a story almost exactly the same as my favourite play written by Neil Coppen, ‘Abnormal Loads’. It is about the great narrative that surrounds most families who have lived in one place for a very long time. We have the usual love stories, affairs, droughts, fires, racism, redemption, skirmishes and feuds. And one day I will write our story when I walk away from my classroom for the final time. 

More recently in my story is my aunt, Jane (whose name I have changed to respect her story) was forced to leave South Africa two weeks after her marriage to her American husband  because of their anti- Apartheid activities. She will be the first to acknowledge that part of her soul never recovered from her forced separation from the soil of her birth and the land of her ancestors.

Fast forward several years and a huge regime change and my family were the first white farming family in South Africa to work alongside the new South African  government to purchase a farm for their labourers. This revolutionary project meant that many families owned the land on which they lived for the first time and were able to benefit financially from their land depending on how they chose to use it. 

The women in my family have also, over the years, held the education and care of young children incredibly close to their hearts and there are several crèches in the greater UKhahlamba area that exist because of their tireless fund raising, teacher training and support. 

Now I’m not lumping a whole lot of complicated white guilt down from over the centuries in this blog trying to justify why I should be allowed to fully claim my status as a South African. I’m done with that. I am who I am and I have tried to make a difference. I’m sure many of my academic friends will even say that the name of my blog is cultural appropriation because I am not Zulu and I (tragically) did not inherit the rest of my family’s linguistic abilities in Zulu. I can get by but I don’t have a thing for languages. So be it. In KwaZulu-Natal, the land of my ancestors, many of the people here would call me Ma Wa Gray and that’s enough of a justification from me right now in this blog.

My masters thesis, which I chose to conduct in the township of Winterton, is titled ‘Development, Belonging and Change: the study of a Theatre-for Development Initiative in Khethani Township’. Even in my academic thought my fixation is on the study of belonging, collective memories, the necessity to change certain historic narratives in order to represent a clearer and more honest reality of the past and the ability for the human consciousness to change the way we think about something based on how we choose to remember it. 

What I’m trying to say guys, in a very longwinded way is that I love South Africa and the memories that form part of my understanding of her. That when I am away from her (no matter how happy I am) I am just like my aunt, Jane - I ache to be home. It’s a physical thing. I don’t have any memories - whether good or bad- that are not coloured with the rainbow of this place. The collective memories of my past in this place are under constant scrutiny and I have worked very hard to get rid of the rose tinted recollections to find the truth about my past and the past of my family. Stephen and I both have chosen to study very South African things. Stephen has a masters degree in English in Post-Colonial African Literature. We are for this place. Always have been. 

But I couldn’t get a job as a lecturer in KwaZulu-Natal because of the colour of my skin. And there are many doors that will continue to close for us because of our skin regardless of how much we love this place. Which I have no problem with as long as the people who are getting those jobs actually perform them properly. 

The irony is that while Stephen and I hustle to survive in South Africa we are qualified to perform some of the most highly paid jobs in other countries. We are very employable elsewhere. 

This week the thing that hit home the hardest when I was going around the circle encouraging my students to tell their stories was the standard response I got from the majority of them - ‘Not much happened ma’am. I heard the gunshots and we didn’t have a lot of food but we were fine’. And those were the positive stories, the average. 

I’m sure that anyone not South African reading this would be pretty appalled that for a brief period in time this was our normal reality. And I know that none of us  want it to be a constant reality for our children. We shouldn’t have to play loud music to drown out the sound of bullets for our children. 

So here we are. Googling visa requirements for countries we swore we would never even visit let alone live in. We’re trying to decide if we can raise children with a Canadian accent or if we could watch the Springboks play from a pub in Perth or if we will manage the one day of sunshine a year in London. Fortunately I already can’t move to Ontario because I would have to pass a maths exam which is just too hilarious for words. 

We are not going anywhere. We are having the conversation though. We are praying that our freaking government can finally come to the party so that civil society doesn’t have to continue looking after the have-nots. It is not sustainable and it lets our government off the hook time and time again. 

But maybe one day we will have to leave for the sake of our children. And I will weep at my aunt Jane’s feet as I face a life of physical aching. And I will have to call on the courage of my ancestors who set sail for this beloved country in the first place. Perhaps there are new lands that will bare the Stockil name on them and new stories will unfold there. Perhaps the wisdom of knowing when to leave will surface as they did for my ancestors at Rorkes Drift. Like my grandmother and mother I will always find people to teach. And perhaps  I will get used to a different, more subdued sunset. 

Perhaps. 

But for now I am just going to own my story and I’m not going to be afraid of having this conversation. As my name states, I am first and foremost the mother of Gray and Eva, and one day I will have to be proud of the story I will tell them about who they are and where they come from regardless of where we are in the world.