Walking In My Skin

By Precious-Sandy Zeinzinger-Tuitz

An involuntary misfit, due to her supposedly unique physical
appearance, resolute character and unusual speaking style,
life challenged her in many ways.

Wherever she went, questions were asked, assumptions were
made... only for other people’s comfort, to be placed in a box
that was never her choice.

She felt alienated and alone.

Along with such ordeals her life unraveled, losing people
whom she loved and cherished in rapid succession, including
coming close to losing the father of her children as well.

Born during the twilight decade of Apartheid, her family was
deported twice due to the Immorality Act, with everything
being taken from them. But who became this person? Who
was her family?

Why did she emigrate to a foreign country at a
young age? And would she find a sanctuary there for herself?

... and so the story unfolds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Precious-Sandy Zeinzinger-Tuitz
• Release date: May 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463414606

Precious-Sandy Zeinzinger-Tuitz

Mrs Precious Zeinzinger-Tuitz is originally from South Africa, born in Johannesburg, Soweto during the Apartheid era. Her father is Austrian, and her mother Xhosa (Black South African). Her family was deported twice due to the Immorality Act, forcing them to move from South Africa to Namibia and then to Austria. They then returned back to Southern Africa, nine months later and resided in former Transkei, (which was not ruled by the South African government during Apartheid), where she also attended a private multiracial school. Her book tells the story of her past living in Apartheid and further elaborates on happenings, such as racism, self-worth issues and challenges as a non-caucasian female entrepreneur in Austria. She is now the Owner, Managing Director and Founder of two training institutions, Certified Language Trainer, Mentor, Author and Speaker.

Book preview

Acknowledgement

First and foremost, I would like to thank Ms Emina Mandzuka for making the finalisation possible for me to write this book in the first place. I have known this young lady for nearly three decades! Although we do not get to spend a lot of time together, I always feel like she is continuously present in my life, and she has always supported me in some of the direst times. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Secondly, I would like to thank my family; - my parents who have set an example of the person I am striving towards to be. There are no words to convey how thankful I am for what they have done for me, all I can say for now is thank you for the life you have given me. As the Ubuntu saying goes: I am, because of you. You are the heroes, not only of my life, but of many peoples’ lives.

My dear children, whom I love so much. You have both made my life so colourful and meaningful. You are my world, my light and joy.

Lee, my dearest brother, I always have and will look up to you and admire you for who you are, you have given me comfort, assistance and encouragement through the things you have done for me and your way of thinking. Barbara, you are also responsible for some of these wise decisions I have made, guiding and making suggestions in helping me to make my decisions easier. Thank you.

I would also like to thank my Uncle, G. Zeinzinger for your incredible support through the formative years of my life, and being a parent myself, I can relate to what you must have been going through.

My parents in law, L & H Tuitz, who have assisted me in so many ways and have accepted me for who I am. I would also like to thank you for your love and support and being my other parents.

Ntoko Seleke, whom I revere, and who has lectured me and philosophised with me about many pertinent situations that have given me other points of perspectives. Thank you for your patience and for educating me. I revere you and look forward to learning more from you.

Renee Carmen-Jones, I thank you for your patronage, incredible support professionally and privately, and for being a role model, especially to women, and for giving me the courage to believe that you should not be afraid and be intimidated to stand and fight for what you think is right.

Peter, Christine and Sarah Kollegger, who have not only been part of my life, but played one of the most important roles too. Christine, I thank you… I will never forget what you have done for me. At every milestone in my life, I think of you and thank you. Andreas, you have played a big role here too, thank you!

And of course, Julia Weitzdorfer and Martina Archan for being part of my life, I will forever cherish the experiences we have shared. Martina, thank you for believing in me and for sharing your valuable thoughts and opinions about life. Without you, I would not have me my husband

Further, I would also like to thank Godfrey Brown, Jennie Mansfield and Zolie Markey Wilken for their trust and support in writing this book.

Thank you to all who have played an essential role in my life. Further, the Sibutha Family and the rest of my family, colleagues, peers, and people who have made an impact in my professional and personal life, and people giving me the support and courage to write this book.

I would like to thank my clients too for believing in my skills and for their support in many challenges I have gone through, including encouraging me to be brave enough to start a new journey I never would have thought would bring me where I am today.

All my teachers who have taught their subjects with passion, preparing and making classes so interesting, leaving an immense impact on me and making me strive to learn more every day.

My mentees for believing in me, because of you I have now pushed myself even further! I feel blessed and stronger because of your faith in me.

And finally, Meghla, who has emotionally supported me in my many endeavours which were one of the most important catalysts in writing this book in the first place. Meghla, I not only thank you for your support in the making of this book, but also thank you for your understanding, incredible support during the toughest times of my life, both privately and professionally… even though you were going through an arduous challenge yourself, you were still there for me, near and far…

Thank you!

A special dedication goes to my husband and my bed rock, Christoph Tuitz. Chris, thank you for accepting me for who I am, being there and not seeing me as any other person than me. You have educated, uplifted, supported, encouraged, respected and inspired me. I cannot imagine my life without you and your partnership.

I love you so much!

Chapter 1

Family and History

South African Xhosa woman could not bear the pain anymore. She had been having cramps for almost a week and went to the clinic twice, only to be sent home again with disappointment. A hot bath was prepared at her small home by her mother in a zinc bathtub. The water was boiled on a hot coal stove which had been prepared in the tiny kitchen. Her mother poured the water into the bath and she slowly stepped into the water, hoping the pain would diminish, but it did not subside. It had now been thirty-seven long hours of sheer agony and she was losing all energy and started feeling steadily weaker as she could not take the pain anymore. Finally, she went to the Jabulani clinic again, located in Soweto, South Africa where she released the last big breath out on a hot sunny day at about 5:30 in the afternoon before hearing the cries of a little baby girl.

Seeing me for the first time, my mother, the Xhosa woman, saw a little white, red-headed girl and, as she told me many years later, she immediately knew that she was going to have to keep me hidden from the world. There was no way I could even be considered a coloured, as they call anyone who was of mixed race in South Africa, because my skin was too white, and my hair looked strawberry blond. But even if I could’ve passed for a coloured child, my mother would still remain in fear of the authorities as I will explain later.

After giving birth that day on March ¹⁷th, 1977, she was taken to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, where she would stay for the next ten days with me. During this time, we would both be examined. Some nurses approached my mother and asked her if her if the baby was an albino.

She was of course very worried to hear this, but finally the doctors came and confirmed that the little white baby with red hair was to be classified as coloured, but she would have to prove that the father of the baby was not white by asking him to come in and declare himself to be the biological father. She already had a plan and asked a coloured colleague to come in, instead of my real white father, and claim that he was the biological father. It was very common in South Africa in those days that if the father was white, you could not bring the real white father to declare that he was the actual father. So, black women would sometimes have to pay coloured men to claim that they were the child’s father and Xhosa to avoid the child being taken away by the authorities and given away to coloured foster parents.

My real white father, who was an Austrian jewellery designer at the time, could not publicly hold my mother’s hand, nor could he be present at the hospital to comfort her through her labour pains because I was born during the height of the Apartheid era and their love for one another was deemed illegal and a crime punishable by law. Therefore, my mother could not officially claim that my father was a white man. It had to remain an open secret like so many other women had to do at that time when fraternising and having children with white men.

My mother was a very strong, brave, an incredibly independent, beautiful and svelte young woman. One of seven siblings, who at one time or the other all lived in a small two-bedroom house in the sprawling suburb, or as it’s called in South Africa, Location or Township, of Soweto situated in the heart of Johannesburg. Although Soweto was within a short bus-ride from the centre of Johannesburg City, it felt like a city unto itself. A vast segregated suburb designated exclusively for black people. Consisting of mostly dirt roads without street names or proper town planning, the houses were built out of every creative and make-shift building materials one could think of. There were ramshackle spaza shops on every corner, where one could buy the basic supplies for daily sustenance: bread, margarine, paraffin, cigarettes, sweets and candy and so forth. Back then, Soweto was a bustling and mostly, friendly place populated with poor, hard-working labourers, some educated elites, and a countless extended family, all squeezed inside congested houses and narrow streets. Most of whom were migrants who hailed from other parts of South Africa and neighbouring countries all spilling into the buzzing energy of the city of gold in search of work and a better life. Most living in cramped make-do corrugated iron shacks, interspersed with smallish brick and mortar houses, like the one owned by my grandparents.

At the time of my birth, my twenty-four -year-old mother had already been through many a tough time. At a very young age she, which was then, and in some instances, still is the norm, was taken to her grandmother’s ancestral home in rural South Africa to live on the family plot, where the going was tough. This arrangement served two important purposes: First, it took the children away from very real and imminent dangers that prevailed in the city’s dangerous locations and secondly, it was the way to assist elderly grandparents living mostly in isolation hundreds of kilometres away.

My mother’s parents, like hundreds and thousands of others, came to the city to work and earn a living that had to fill many a gap. They had little to no time left for raising their own children. In most cases, these mothers and fathers would leave their homes long before sunrise to get to work on time. From Soweto they had to take a bus into the centre of Johannesburg and then they had to take yet another bus to their work destination. The same route was taken when the days’ work was done, and they would get home long after the sun had set, and the children were already in bed or barely awake enough to be able to spend quality time with their parents. Most of the time there was no money for these bus trips and the only option was to walk wherever they needed to go. There were no crèches or after school care facilities available to the black community and even if there were, the money that would’ve been spent on these institutions, had to be sent to the elderly. This reality afforded everyone a sense of purpose, responsibility and dignity. But largely, it was simply the way things were, this was the reality of the non-white working-class families.

On the ‘farm’ a far cry from city-life, children were woken up before dawn each day, and were tasked with taking care of household chores, such as sweeping, washing up, making beds, washing clothes, making breakfast and just generally helping out as well as being tasked to take care of the livestock and other house animals that many such families reared. All this had to be done before getting ready to leave on the long journey on foot, to school and then back again after school. These long walks sometimes took an hour or more and were arduous treks through narrow foot-paths and at times in cold and rainy weather which could be extremely dangerous because one had to cross rivers that frequently flowed with strong currents. Most of the kids could not swim so the possibility that they could drown during these crossings was very real and imminent. In the late afternoons, arriving home from school meant that the chores were much the same as they were before leaving early that morning and had to be completed before finally settling down to study by candle-light.

When she became a teenager, my mother returned to Soweto to join her parents. She was enrolled at the Isaac Morison High-school. It was here where on June 16, 1976 she was pregnant with me and she participated in the student march that later became known as the Soweto uprising. It has since generally been considered as one of the most memorable and historic popular demonstrations during the Apartheid years. On this day, more than twenty thousand black students gathered at the Isaac Morrison High School in Soweto to protest the Bantu Education Act and the enforcement of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. On that day the unarmed students faced fierce police oppression and brutality and the exact number of students who lost their lives has never been independently established or disclosed. In some estimates the number is as much as seven hundred. In an iconic photo taken by Sam Nzima, one student in particular, Hector Peterson who had been shot by the South African Police, was being carried by Mbuyisa, a fellow student, to the nearest clinic, and this picture became the ‘face’ of the children’s plight. It made the world sit up and take note of the unjustifiable racial subjugation of innocent unarmed people as it was plastered on the front pages of newspapers all over the world.

The courage those students had displayed on that fateful day would change the face of the struggle against Apartheid forever. It became increasingly indefensible and intolerable for international bystanders to tacitly allow to continue without reprimand. For one, the protectors of the Apartheid regime which included its defenders, the South African Police force and the National Defence force, led by John Vorster, could no longer hide, disguise or get away with the brutality against unarmed demonstrators and the world could no longer ignore the realities of what was going on in South Africa.

I am proud of my mother for being there on that day. Grateful that she came out of it unharmed and alive and blessed to have her courageous blood running through my veins.

My mother’s father was a school principal, a tall and burly man and his wife, my grandmother, was a school teacher. One of the kindest, most hard-working and cheerful people, I had ever come to know. It was very rare during the time of Apartheid to have people of colour working in such socially revered positions since most of the disadvantaged were deprived of a proper education let alone acquire a higher education.

During the Apartheid era, people of diverse ethnic groups such as Africans, Indians, Chinese, and Coloured people, were denied the basic human rights that were given to white people. Only white people could use public transport without prejudice or exclusion and had access to good education and entry into universities. They alone could swim in municipal pools, access all public roads, go to beaches and had the right to vote. They were systemically racially profiled as being superior.

My maternal grandparents had to carry pass-books at all times to indicate that they were accounted for. There were separate entrances to all public places and facilities for whites and non-whites. People of colour had to be off the streets and out of sight by sun-set as soon as the sirens started ringing, because of frequent curfews imposed to ‘control’ the streets. They were also deprived of basic healthcare facilities. Life was hard for them and there were no alternative facilities available for non-whites needing primary health care.

People of colour who stayed on the premises of white people were usually domestic workers, who had to endure extreme racial prejudice, receiving meagre wages and sometimes inhumane treatment. They were treated like servants, inferior in every way from their white masters. They would stay in a tiny one room apartment located outside the main house. These servant’s quarters were sometimes shared with their little children whom they had with them at all times, even when cleaning the house. Domestic workers were usually forced to also wear uniforms and headscarves and they would tie their children on their backs using towels or blankets, which was the most natural form of carrying their children around anyway. They were not allowed to eat with the same cutlery and crockery used by the white family they served and were given their own separate crockery and cutlery and had to eat outside the house and never at the kitchen table. They could sometimes go home on weekends, or during special holiday occasions. Unfortunately, due to being oppressed by systemic racism, and being denied access to formal education, they had no choice but to take on these menial jobs in order to alleviate the extremely poor living conditions in their communities. It created a vicious cycle of poverty which was very difficult to escape from.

What further compounded the segregation was that integrated black communities were further divided into ethnic clusters. The goal during Apartheid was not only to separate South Africa’s white minority from its non-white majority, but also to separate these marginalized ethnic groups from each other. In other words, to divide black South Africans along ethno-tribal lines in order to weaken and strip them from any kind of political power and voice.

In 1950 the government banned any fraternization or marriages between whites and people of other races. If people were caught having inter-racial relationships they could be deported, arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned.

I am not including this context above or any other part of the already well documented history of South Africa because I have any political agenda, and neither do I have ill feelings towards people who were not like me.

I am merely painting a picture of the realities of that time so that you, the reader can appreciate what my mother and my father had to face because they had fallen in love with each other and wanted to live together and raise a family. It is a very typical dream that most couples in love have, yet for my parents this was a forbidden freedom and one that they struggled so hard to hide and avoid official impunity.

My father, a very young, handsome, determined and diligent man, was a very renowned and popular jeweller and artisan who owned a jewellery shop in the heart of Johannesburg. He had emigrated from Austria with his Hungarian wife to seize the opportunities that were available to many Europeans back then who were involved in the gold-trading industry. Johannesburg was the epicentre for gold in those days, with many gold mines dotting the horizon on the perimeters of the city. This lured in many Europeans seeking wealth and success in what promised to be a lucrative market.

Unfortunately, a crippling tragedy struck my father’s family soon after their arrival in South Africa when both his wife and who would have been their first child, died in a horrific road accident. This loss was a devastating shock to my father and he found it very hard to grapple with life. As if it wasn’t hard enough to lose his beloved wife and his unborn child, his in-laws blamed him for the loss of their daughter and grandchild. My father, alone in a strange city with no other family to turn to, spiralled into a deep and dark depression. He started drinking heavily to numb his feelings. His business suffered, and he contemplated throwing in the towel and returning to Austria.

It was during this challenging time that he met my mother, who walked into his shop one morning, assigned by a company, Louis Signs (this was the only way blacks could possibly enter a white-owned commercial property. They had to be assigned by an authorised entity with a task/mission). Her task was to paint a new sign for his shop. My mother proposed her company’s offer: that a fresh coat of paint and some sign writing on his store-front might change the bleak storefront and attract more customers. He hired my mother on the spot. Years later while recounting their love story to us, he told us that he used to enjoy watching my mother paint and admired her patience, focus and artistry very much. He also appreciated her love for bright colours and enjoyed it very much when she would laugh at his strange English accent. He told me it was also her regal elegance and radiant smile that brightened his days. Day in and day out he watched the pretty, svelte young black girl going about her work. When she had completed one commissioned assignment, he would immediately come up with another one just to have her there and enjoy those cherished hours in her company.

Eventually there was hardly any space on the store front or interior walls left to paint on. He told me with a nostalgic bemused smirk.

As days turned to weeks and then to months, he finally plucked up enough courage to ask her out on a date. To his dismay, my mother turned him down. She did not tell him as much, but at the time she had problems of her own to deal with.

My father’s feelings kept growing for the young woman, so he kept asking and she kept saying no until eventually he wore her down, allayed her fears of getting into any trouble and she gave into his persistent wooing for a date. Thus, started a tender courtship that led to a strong bond and finally to an undying love for one another. My mother told me they were young, in love and enjoyed spending every moment they could together. They enjoyed playing football together and going out to those underground discos where multiracial couples could fraternise. He cooked Hungarian food for her in his house in Northcliff and they would drive out of the city for picnics in secluded areas out in nature.

Oh, I’d fallen pretty hard for your beautiful mother. My father chuckled. Smiling fondly at the memory. I still do, every day of our lives.

My grandparents were obviously concerned when they met the young Austrian. Not because he was white and that they disapproved of his affair with my mother, but because they knew what the repercussions would be if the authorities found out about the affair. So necessary admonitions were stipulated, and they were forewarned that precautions would have to be adhered to if my father wanted to continue having a relationship with my mother. My mother told me that her friends and family members were