of the doctors, did not appeal to me. The little I had heard about doctors suggested that medicine could offer me the greatest professional freedom and satisfaction. It was not the desire to serve which influenced my career choice, but the passion for freedom to be my own mistress in a society in which being black and female defined the boundaries within which you could legitimately operate.
My career choice was not easily accepted by others. My father had good reason to dissuade me. He was, unbeknown to me then, suffering from a fatal illness, cancer of the oesophagus, and knew that he would not be able to support my ambitious choice. His suggestion was that I choose teaching as a quick route to earning an income in order that I might help my mother support the rest of my siblings. I argued that if I were to follow my own chosen career, I would in the long run be of greater assistance to my mother. But where was the money to come from? he asked. ‘The Lord will provide,’ I said, with childish confidence. He looked at me sadly, and gave me his blessing.
It was customary at Kranspoort for all the boarding-school students to present themselves to the dominee at the end of the school holidays, and bid him goodbye – an odd custom, given the lack of interest he had shown in us. It was more a means of symbolising the feudal relationship which existed between him and the community, a subtle mechanism of control which enabled him to keep tabs on his ‘flock’. It was not for you to question, but to obey.
In January 1965 I accordingly went to pay my respects before departing for Setotolwane High School. Dominee Van der Merwe was appalled when he heard what my plans were. He dismissed them as a pipe dream. How could I – a woman, a black person and poor at that – ever expect to become a medical doctor? He told me that his own daughter had given up a similar ambition and settled for being a nurse. What hope did I have? He must have read defiance in my face, so he delivered the final blow: ‘Your father is dying of cancer. Who is going to finance your education anyway?’ Although I was aware that my father was seriously ill, I had up to then kept hoping he would be cured. It was cruel for a teenager to be told this painful news with such insensitivity. I was devastated.
Although I wept on my way home, I did not tell my mother about the dominee’s remarks. I didn’t want to add to her intolerable burden of pain, anxiety and fear of her impending loss. I decided that the best way forward would be to prove the dominee wrong. But the path to a medical career had a number of major hurdles.
My easy pass through Standard 8 with a distinction, and topping the whole group of black students of 1964, was soured by my lack of training in mathematics. I spent the first two weeks in Standard 9 trying anxiously to understand how one could add and subtract alphabetical letters, let alone divide and multiply them. Fortunately, the principal of our new school had been my biology teacher at Bethesda, and I felt confident enough to approach him with my problem. Special extra classes were arranged for about five of us. Our mathematics teacher was an elderly retired person from the white education system. He was a dedicated teacher who patiently took us through the basic principles of mathematics. At the end of the first term I was more confident, but it was a struggle to work out all the configurations.
In contrast, I fell in love with physical science, and understood the principles with ease. I was challenged by Mr Gouws, our science teacher, who promised me a prize of R50 if I gained a distinction in physical science in my matric examinations. That R50 turned out to be the only cash I had at the beginning of my university career in 1967. I bought myself a pretty pink dress which fitted me perfectly. It was to be my only fancy dress for many years.
The generosity of Mr Gouws and his friend Mr Bowman, the English teacher, sustained me throughout my matric years. Mr Bowman considered me too thin, and insisted that I should take multivitamins, which he personally supplied. The political affiliations of both these teachers did not stop them from liking me as a person. Mr Bowman even adorned me with a National Party badge in one of his enthusiastic moments. My political naïveté at the time prevented me from taking in the full symbolic significance of such an adornment.
It was the lack of access to information – the embodiment of the powerlessness of most poor rural communities – that nearly cost me my medical career. I had no idea that to gain entrance to a university you had to apply near the beginning of the second term for the following academic year. By the time I applied to Natal University, the only medical school at the time which took African students without seeking permission from government, it was too late for the 1967 academic year. Mr Gouws advised me to go to the University of the North to do my premedical courses, and then to proceed to Natal in 1968.
I did not have a bursary, nor did I know how to apply for financial assistance. I decided to present myself as I was – penniless. At the University of the North I was advised by the admission officers to fill in forms for a state loan of R100, which was sufficient to cover most of the tuition fees, and permitted me to be registered. I had no money for stationery or set books. I borrowed from friends, and was fortunate enough to have a generous boyfriend, Dick Mmabane, who supported me financially and emotionally during those difficult years. I lived on the hope that somehow the money problem would be resolved even though I did not have the faintest clue how.
A bigger challenge to my plans lay ahead. To qualify for admission to the second year of study at Natal Medical School the following year, I had to pass all four subjects: chemistry, physics, botany and zoology. I had no difficulties with the last three, but chemistry proved to be a problem. Professor De Villiers, then head of the Department of Chemistry, made it plain to our first-year class at the beginning of term that we were going to have a hard time. He made no bones about his displeasure at the size of our class. He told us that it was not possible for 73 ‘Bantus’ to pass Chemistry 1. There was no doubt in his mind that ‘Bantus’ could not master chemistry, and he made it his mission to prove this.
He would breeze into the classroom – his cold blue eyes not making contact with anyone, but emitting sparks of hatred whenever one attracted his attention and dared to ask a question. In his own section of the work, organic chemistry, he made learning almost impossible. He lectured from scraps of notes which were visibly yellowing with age. He wrote some of the difficult formulae on the board, with a duster in one hand, and as soon as he got to the end of a long formula, he would begin to erase what he had written last, relishing the anxiety he read on our faces. He prescribed no textbook, nor suggested any reference works. We relied on notes from senior students who had in turn pieced them together from their seniors’ disjointed notebooks.
A greater anti-educationist you could not find. He was the talk of the university and a law unto himself. There were many students in our class who were attempting Chemistry 1 for the third or fourth time, because it was a compulsory minor for a BSc. He held the key to the successful completion of a university education for all students who wanted to make science a career – a powerful position, which he savoured openly.
I was fortunate to scrape through with a D symbol, the only one with a D among the handful of people who passed the final-year examination at the first attempt in 1967.1 was horrified by this first D symbol in my academic career, but was grateful for small mercies, because failure would have endangered my admission to Natal Medical School. In contrast, I got a B aggregate for the other courses. My good performance in the other three subjects during the first half of the year prompted the Dean of Science to review my matriculation results, and to offer me a full-cost bursary, which solved my financial problems for 1967.
Chapter 7: The death of my father
THE DEATH OF MY FATHER ON 21 MAY 1967 INTRODUCED me to the reality of the pain of loss. The fact that he had been ill since 1963 with cancer of the oesophagus, and that he showed all the signs of suffering from an incurable illness, did not prevent me from praying for a miracle to heal him. I could not see why an omnipotent and loving God could refuse me. It was to be my third major disappointment with God.
Because my father had been a distant parent for most of my childhood, every intimate
