My South Africa

Pedro was young when they arrived, together with his siblings, he clung desperately to his parents clothing as they weaved their way through the sea of strange faces that flooded Jan Smuts international airport. It was 1984, the family had arrived in South Africa, it was a time of change and uprising. All they had was the clothes on their backs and the promise of new beginnings, a new life.

Being white this Portuguese family had no problems, they were accepted and life soon enveloped them and they carried on like normal. Pedro was too young to understand what was going on, too young to realise the scale and severity of what was going on in South Africa. His parents toiled hard to making sure there was food on the table and a roof over their heads, they had no choice but carry on in the hope that their children would grow up in a different world.

It did not take long for the family to assimilate and come to grips with the sheer diversity of this nation. South Africans had been suffering for many years, living under a constant state of fear.

Pedro was about 14 years old, when reality hit him, hard. His history lessons became more and more gruesome, more and more difficult to digest and understand. He could no longer hide behind his childish ignorance and when he turned 17 his world completely changed.

Clifford was a scrawny, pimpled faced teenager like the rest of them; the only difference between him and the other 900 kids was that he was black. Clifford was the first African to enrol at Queens High school, in Johannesburg. He walked with his eyes looking forward, his head held high amongst the hundreds of ignorant children. Pedro was born in Mozambique and many of his friends and family still lived there so to see and interact with the local people was normal, however ,many of the kids at Queens high  were not so lucky and many of them grew up with racist parents that would go on to infect their children with this sickness. Pedro could only marvel at how brave Clifford was, how he took the lunchtime punches and inter class insults with such grace and determination.

In an instant the last bits of the ignorant membrane fell away, and although Pedro and Clifford were not good friends, they respected each other, and both would swim against the current, but always with their eyes wide open.

Growing up in Johannesburg was a thrill, Pedro was totally enchanted by the bright lights, the music and the girls. “Jozi”, short for the painfully long Johannesburg, is the heart of the nation. The city pumps with life and culture, a melting pot for all the tribes of the world. Even though most of the gold that built this city now lies on shelves on swank shops, the vibrancy and intensity still lingers. The mass migrations back to the homelands only making space for the new arrivals. The New South Africa was emerging from the ashes of the past.

The early 90’s were electrifying, the prehistoric apartheid regime was crumbling and change was in the mouths and hearts of all the people. Finally South Africa was uniting and the poison of the past was oozing out of the system.

It was a usual blustery day in Cape Town. But that was all that was usual. There was an air of frenzyness , all around , thousands upon thousands of smiles spanned as far as the eye could see. Pedro was amongst them, not quite in the front and not quite at the back, in the meat of things, so to say, his smile too stretched from ear to ear. It was a momentous day for South Africa and indeed the world, today Nelson Mandela was officially a free man.

It was a time of spiritual awakening for Pedro, much had happened and much had changed in his life and in South Africa. He had swapped the shiny lights of Jozi for the darkness of Cape Town, the night time fist fights for daytime fit hikes. He was now his own master, he had slowly built his identity, he knew at heart he was an African, like most of his countrymen the world was moving along at break neck speeds.

A few grey hairs now poked out of his chin, his long thick black hair cascaded down his back and under the shade of his sweat stained leather hat, and Pedro sat in his canoe and watched the clouds drift past. Mandela was now old and Pedro was just becoming a man. He had now witnessed firsthand the splendour and magic of South  Africa he now felt its heart beat , that slow rhythmic beat. Over the years he had managed to scratch a hole through the surface and was able to crawl in. It was a totally different world. It was a world that was ruled by the earth and what the earth provided was what you got, for entertainment the people would be able to marvel at the natural beauty that is South Africa. Here the people were fiercely protective of their lands and all prepared to be martyrs for their families. It was a world that showed little mercy and only the fittest would survive. Everyone had their roles to play and when you could not carry on anymore you would simply go for a walk and in that special place you would curl up into the foetal position in the womb of the earth and sing songs of other times.

Rain thrashed the double glazed window of a Victorian terraced house in South London.  Pedro stirred and shifted on the couch, the lights were still on, CSI Miami was still on and his computer blinked in the corner. In one swift move Pedro heaved his heavy frame from the couch and plonked himself in front of the computer, took a sip of cold coffee and finished off his story, in a nutshell of course.