he wants to go his way. We have discussed the religion of our parents; he pictures a harsh, arbitrary, punitive God who waits to judge, condemn and punish with no second chances – that is not for him. I feel the same powerlessness in the pit of my stomach. I have no defences against that reasoning from the Old Testament, although I intuitively know it cannot be that way. The creativity of the God who hung dying on a tree must have a way of dealing with my humanity; is it the ‘grace alone’ that Uncle Cyril insisted on years ago? My language at the time seems inadequate for letters, where there is no eye contact and closeness. So, with tears and a sense of rejection, I have to let Rob go. Sadly, we have no further contact until his sister provides me with his telephone number to request permission to include him in this book.
Rob says he trusts me implicitly and doesn’t need to vet what I have written.
I am on a bus to the University one day in September 1966, when the news headlines read: Verwoerd – A Nation Mourns. He escaped assassination in 1961 at the Rand Easter Show but this time Dimitrios Tsafendas, a parliamentary messenger, has stabbed him at his desk in the House of Assembly. It is with shock and disbelief that I realise how tenuous life can be and although the press lauds him, there is a rumble of discontent about the architect of apartheid. While he was Minister of Native Affairs, he wrote of the intention,
“To limit black academic curriculum to basic literacy and numeracy because Africans were meant to be ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
He was also responsible for the restrictive laws on courtship and marriage across racial lines, where to live, where to play, where even to go to the toilet. What would the future hold now?
Soon after I graduate with a diploma in Physiotherapy, Christian Barnard rockets to fame for the ‘first in the world’ human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. I have done ward rounds with him as a student in my faded Ricketts blue uniform and have witnessed his impatience and arrogance with staff and students. Yet it is with great pride, that I acknowledge I am a graduate of the same university hospital and have brushed shoulders with the famous man.
My first appointment as a qualified therapist is at the Bulawayo General Hospital. One of the young patients, on hearing about the heart transplant asks me,
“So, will Dr Washkansky love the people that Miss Darvell loved?” … her heart had been donated, after a fatal motor accident. I try to answer his question with all my tortured memory of physiology,
“No, I think that love is a series of electro-chemical connections through pathways in the brain and has very little to do with the heart, which is just a pump to circulate the blood.”
He seems satisfied, but I am not. There must surely be a better explanation for a force so powerful; as clear and consistent as love, equal in strength to magnetism and gravity. No rational description seems enough.
Fifty years on, and we have much greater insight into heart function; As we experience anger, frustration, anxiety and insecurity, our heart rhythms become more erratic. These erratic patterns, directed to the emotional centres in the brain, are recognised as negative or stressful feelings. These signals create the actual feelings we experience in the heart area and the body. The erratic heart rhythms also block our ability to think clearly. Added to this is the risk of developing heart disease, which increases significantly for people who often experience these emotions.
Conversely, Heart-Math’s Insititute research shows that when we experience heart-felt emotions like love, care, appreciation and compassion, the heart produces a very different rhythm; a horizontal sinusoidal pattern that looks like gently rolling hills. Harmonious heart rhythms, which reflect positive emotions, are considered to be indicators of cardiovascular efficiency and nervous system balance.
The heart it seems is the seat of emotions as the ancients believed, after all. Perhaps Dr Washkansky did love Miss Darvell’s friends? And even enjoy the same foods as Miss Darvell.3
While I am finding my way in the world, there is a lot happening in Africa, confirming my apprehensions about the Mau-Mau in Kenya making their way south.
I am ignorant of the detail and particularly that of a baby born to his family in the northern reach of South Africa. Here begins his story, taken from his book ‘Child of this Soil – The Journey of a Freedom Fighter’, with permission.
Letlapa Ngoato 1960-1967
I am told that I was born 8 December 1960 in my maternal grandparents’ village of Rosenkrantz in the Northern Transvaal, as Sesotho tradition requires for a firstborn. I am given the name of Ngoato; but a relative calls me Letlapa, which sticks as my official name. Ngoato remains as my salutation name, used when addressed at traditional ceremonies and rituals, or as a salutation.
At nine months old, I accompany my mother back to Manaleng; one of numerous villages in the GaMphahlele where my earliest memories are formed. Childhood memories are a patchy collage of the cold shadow of the Molongoane mountain (part of what is known as the Drakensberg range to white South Africans), over our poorly thatched rondavel huts. Pigs follow us into the bush and grunt around a person as we relieve ourselves, then gobble up the steamy lump and grunt for more. Sadly, in summer when it is scorching Molongoane hordes its shade. Then there are memories of mopane worms and a variety of grasshoppers – Lempo in this case - that make excellent additions to our porridge dishes. Lempo are big and delicious; we pluck their wings and sever their legs before roasting them over the fire.
Nothing is as joyous as seeing a truck stop in front of our home to deliver a bag of white maize meal, considered a sign of wealth; more impoverished families have to eat sorghum which is not my favourite. The pundits declare its nutritional value which is a poor consolation for its unpalatability. However, it does fill pots when pockets are empty.
* * *
1968-1970 Identity
Bouffant hairdo, belies the era
In early January of 1968, I fly north to Europe on my first international job – Skodsborg, an Adventist Sanitarium in Denmark, is my destination. En-route a passport control official at the Copenhagen airport welcomes me with an impertinent smile,
“You are heartily welcome to Denmark.”
I am surprised and delighted by his play on words using my surname Hartley, which augurs well for the four months which I intend to be there. I find Danish very difficult to learn, although I attend classes. The smooth-rolling sounds of the language are challenging to hear and to master. Fortunately, my work does not depend on mastery of the language, for most of the clients are dignitaries from Europe and can speak English fluently. My Physiotherapy comes in very handy with the addition of pine baths and pressure showers, after which a warmed bath towel is wrapped around the client in preparation for an hour’s full body massage. We also apply contrast hot and cold packs, reminiscent of my mother’s remedy for colds, flu and arthritis, particularly of the neck.
A delightful elderly Swedish lady Rouva (Mrs) Åström enjoys challenging me as a white South African about the racism there. Her husband had been Ambassador to many countries, including Greece. She is accustomed to an upmarket lifestyle and invites me to stay with them when I travel through Finland
