Revisiting South Africa

By Leo Anthony

This book recounts the British-Zimbabwean author's travels to Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa, midway through the last decade, a time of student unrest and imminent political upheaval.

 

You will be interested in this book if:

• You enjoy narrative, non-fiction writing
• You have an interest in personal narratives
• You enjoy contemporary descriptions of places including the people, history and cultures thereof
• You enjoy anecdotal reporting which ties into a bigger narrative story
• You enjoy an infusion of humourous anecdote and conversation 

It begins in the mother city, Cape Town, after Leo returns from abroad to attend his brother's wedding. He spends some time in a Cape Town backpackers and meets some intriguing inhabitants, Okkert and Carllo. Carllo is in communion with The Essence, a mystical life-force, and offers to divine his future.

 

He takes a coach up to the Highveld and Johannesburg. He elaborates on a day trip to his old university in Pretoria, just north of Jo'burg, and visits some of the landmarks which he neglected to do as a student. The confrontation between the past and present is everywhere: the student protests under the banner #RhodesMustFall; the newly erected palisade fence around the statue of the Boer leader, Paul Kruger, recently desecrated; and the transformation of Church Square.  

 

Underlying his travels around South Africa, now in its 3rd decade of democracy, are questions of identity, affiliation and belonging. The last two chapters are given over to his varied adventures at Ardmore Guest Farm at the foothills of the Central Drakensberg. A motley assortment of characters grace the pages of this one-of-a-kind establishment.

 

Despite many of the events recorded here harking back to the last decade, the author gives an honest assessment of the current state of affairs in South Africa in the Afterword, and his take on the politics, dynamics and choices the nation faces today, in 2023, almost thirty years after Independence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leo Anthony
• Release date: Jan 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9783910639300

Leo Anthony

Leo has spent the last six years in mainland Europe, initially living in an intentional community on the Dutch-German border, and more recently just outside the town of Kleve (Cleves) in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. When he isn’t writing he spends his time looking after children with Mirjam, fixing up their old house and gardening. He can be contacted at [e-mail]

Book preview

Dedicated to the memory of my parents. You are missed.

Preface

A year has passed since the initial version of this book, and it gives me pause to reflect. Am I older and wiser? Yes, on the first score but the jury’s out on the second!

Let me start at the beginning by elaborating on my origins. Born in London to Anglo-Irish, Greek-Cypriot parents, but raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, from a few months of age, I can truly claim to be a child of many parts. South Africa was first a place of cheerful family holidays and getaways in the 80s and early 90s, oblivious to the seismic political changes underway, and later a place to be educated.

As a young boy of eight or nine I didn’t find it difficult to pray earnestly. My mother had been raised in a devout Catholic household, although her father had come over from the Presbyterians which must have ruffled a few feathers, especially considering it included several generations of reverends. Regardless of the faiths of all these people, I felt I could pray with some conviction to God.

I remember very well imploring God to give me both understanding and wisdom, but if only one was on offer, then to give me wisdom. Whether or not that prayer found the ear of the Almighty, I cannot say, but it felt a good thing to pray for.

From the vantage point of the present, I do feel considerably wiser, but for reasons I’ll elaborate on later, I also feel considerably more challenged. I want to live a meaningful life but, like most others, I’d prefer it to also be a happy one. But this thing called meaning is a difficult one to grasp, shaped as it is by so many different perspectives and opinions. It seemed to emerge quite organically for me as a child and young man. A profound love for nature and the outdoors brought me a sense of purpose and happiness followed, for a while.

At the very heart of my story, I will try to reveal my encounter with clues as to things greater than my understanding, beyond purely rational reasoning. These signs from beyond the here and now strongly suggest to me that there are forces for good and evil, and I will appeal to you, the reader, to help me in my journey. But let me return to my story and the inspiration for writing it.

It was the last of my university years there – 2003 – which marked me most emphatically. I revisit it often in memory. For too long I’ve sought to repress it, or to transform it unrealistically into something which it was not. It was barely a year after my mother died after a two-year battle with cancer, a time in which I was uncertain how best to honour her memory and wishes. She had long believed that I was destined to be an academic and had implored me to finish my studies. Simultaneously, I’d distanced myself from my father, which was, in some ways, more painful than losing my mother. Theirs had been a complicated marriage, and I was confused and angry both before and after my mother’s death.

A few things happened that year to leave their indelible mark so to speak. In writing about it I hope I can touch the past and transform it realistically. For one thing I’ve learnt that anger can be all consuming and incredibly destructive. For another, I lost objectivity and created a monster of my father, which turned out to be quite untrue. He himself developed a form of cancer later that same year which allowed him to shed much of his pride and ego, and despite a period of acute suffering, I do believe he died a wiser, better man than he’d formerly been. Through witnessing his suffering and death I can see him in a much kinder light.

For several years prior to his diagnosis in late 2003, there were very intense emotions and energies swirling around, bringing us closer and then thrusting us apart. From my bedroom in a modest house on Sussex Ave, Lynwood Ridge, I would fret for days at a time whether to open a letter from my father or whether to return a missed call.

One day, quite late in the year, I rescued a small sparrow from the clutches of a fluffy white tomcat right outside my window. I scrambled to find a box for it, as my mother would have done. The male occupant of the main house, Kobus, a thickset middle-aged Afrikaans man, appeared around the same time. He reached over with his large hands and extracted the defenceless creature, before launching it into the air. To my amazement it flew across the inter-vening space onto the roof of the house. Let me return to the significance of that act later in the book.

I remember connecting with several of the African students from other parts of the continent. Places like Gabon and Eritrea. They too were far from home and, for the most part, eager to make friends. My brief encounter with the young Indian man, Keith, at the end of the chapter Revisiting Pretoria, is a painful memory, but a reminder that the lived experience is the crucible from which we are moulded.

I look back on that time, over twenty years ago now, and remember the pain and the optimism of my young adult life. Everything that I’ve done and experienced subsequently, has been coloured by these events. And if life is to go full circle, then it would seem most fitting if it took me back there, with all the hard-won wisdom and experience of these last twenty years.

Introduction

Towards the end of 2014 I made a conscious choice to step back from the nine to five, so to speak, and dedicate the following year or more to a less conventional lifestyle: a travelling English teacher, work exchange volunteer, and backpacker. At first appearance, this book may appear to be a travel diary from a foreign land. While it is partly true, the travels are of a personal significance too.

I strive to narrate real-life situations, focusing on ordinary people and their experiences, views, and opinions, while trying to remain conscious of the broader context, asking myself questions like: Can I reconcile the views of the people I meet with my own experiences? What are the socio-economic realities of the person I’m talking to? What historical contexts are relevant in assessing someone’s opinion or worldview?

South Africa is an endlessly fascinating place. I love the diversity of people and landscapes. It is often contradictory and very often brash and unapologetic. However, I found that almost everywhere I went people did want to talk. They were keen to share their hopes, aspirations, and concerns, both personally, and for their families, communities, and the nation at large. I include members of my own family when I revisit coastal Durban.

I also journey back to places where I once lived, holidayed, and studied. I experience some of these erstwhile familiar places from a different angle and, perhaps, see them in a different light too. In the last two chapters I visit a part of the country I’d never been to before.

I’ve tried to transmit the pleasure and enjoyment I derived from exploring different facets of these South African towns, cities, and countryside, in the diversity of people I met, and in recollecting memorable anecdotes and conversations. It is always good to try and find some humour and camaraderie when travelling alone, I feel.

I’ve written the book such that the reader can probably begin at any chapter in the book without too much difficulty, although some chapters relate to others, as in the case of my visits to Durban. The essay in the Postscript can be read as a standalone piece, inspired perhaps by the spirit of George Orwell who was given to writing extended commentaries after his first-hand accounts of the harsh realities of the poor and working classes in northern England between the world wars, or in Paris and London in the 1920s.

Whilst much has happened in the last eight years since I visited - South Africa has a new president, has been beset by major unrest during the recent pandemic, and seen a marked escalation in corruption allegations levelled at the government - most of the places visited, social and economic realities, and underlying themes, remain the same.

RETURN TO SOUTH AFRICA

Part I

We are proud of the fact that we have liberated not only coloureds, Indians and Africans, we have liberated whites as well.

Nelson Mandela

Cape Town & Carllo

Cape Town: May 2015

MY BROTHER WAS MARRIED in April 2015, on a wine estate near the town of Worcester, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The family had gathered from far and wide. I’d come out from Turkey, where I’d been teaching English to university students for several months and had taken the opportunity to buy them an unusual wedding gift: a lacquered, mother-of-pearl inlaid box from a curio shop in the Old City in Istanbul. Most of what it sold came from the city of Aleppo in war-torn Syria. The shop had relocated to the relative safety of Istanbul. My brother Ivan and his fiancé, Justine, had settled in Australia and most of the guests hailed from either Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe or the UK. It was a memorable occasion and the chance to catch up with various friends and relatives.

Shortly afterwards, we’d all gone our respective ways: some abroad, some on honeymoon, some back to their places of residence. I’d chosen to stay on another couple of months, to see Cape Town firstly and then to backpack my way northwards until either the money ran out or my visa expired.

When I was living in England I was quite often mistaken for a South African by virtue of my accent. I would be at pains to distinguish myself as a Zimbabwean, but amongst the younger generation that often drew a blank. In their own minds, it was often much easier to lump me in there with the South Africans. And as for South Africa, what associations did it elicit in the minds of these young English people I was working alongside? I discovered that the responses usually fell into one of three categories:

a) Thoughts and conjectures about the televised trial of Oscar Pistorius (ongoing at the time of writing).

b) A family connection, but quite often unable to name the town or place where the said family resided.

c) Cape Town: either a desire to visit it or having visited it.

So why was Cape Town so loved and visited, at the expense of the rest of the country? Natural beauty is one likely answer, but historical and cultural links are an important part of the equation too. Cape Town is an iconic city, surrounded as it is by the clear waters of the Atlantic on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other and flanked by impressive mountains. Think of the image of Table Mountain. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who has not at least heard of it, never mind having seen a representation of it on a postcard, travel brochure, or television.

Urban Cape Town has some great architecture set against the ever-present backdrop of Table Mountain, often referred to simply as ‘The Mountain.’ After checking into a hostel, one of the first things I did was a guided walking tour through the old Malay suburb of Bo Kaap. It was led by an articulate young white man of similar age to me. The Islamic Malays were brought in as slaves by the Dutch, from their colonies in Indonesia.

Can anyone tell me why there are so many brightly coloured houses here? There is no neighbourhood in Cape Town as colourful as this one, he said, pointing at the rows of houses painted in garish shades of pink, purple, orange and green.

When no one was able to offer