Fly! The Beloved Country!

I am very proud to be a South African. I am proud of what we have achieved in terms of a free and supposedly fair constitution (in writing, at least!). I am proud of the little bit I did for freedom in SA. I am proud of the position we hold in the eyes, ears, hearts and heads of a great many Africans…

I’m not going to harp on, but, again, I have to say, I am at a loss to defend where my Beloved Country is headed. While Kenyans have a son of their soil about to become holder of the world’s most powerful position, I am stuck having to find reasons for South Africans wanting a “thug” (Kenyan term, not mine) in their highest office.

I’ve said it before, I know, but it almost always comes up. And (yet again!) it’s mostly beyond comprehension here. And I can’t either defend the 15% functional literacy level in South Africa, compared to the 95% among Kenyans! A four-and-a-half year-old Kenyan child can count to twenty!

OK, I’ve said it. Now there are far better, and more spiritually inspiring, things to talk about….

I mean, I might be inclined to say, “Your problem, not mine” right now. But no, I know that our country is “fly” – cool – if ever a country was. This, despite all the shit we have (had) to deal with…

And I’ll give you just two of the reasons why, hereafter….

Last night I met Dina (sorry if the spelling is wrong, honey), a 5ft tall (short?) Kenyan graduate.

She who exudes an untamed energy that radiates well beyond her diminutive frame.

Tonight (as my Dar Es Salaam cab driver, Charles, would put it), Dina is a little off her Facebook; attributable, she tells me, to some scene (in Nairobese: kwurreling) she had with her boyfriend, earlier. But she’s OK. Sawa, sawa.

We chat for twenty minutes before Dina works out that I’m from SA. She very nearly platses on the spot. The sheer speed of her utterances increase five-fold.

So let me tell you guys her little story:

Dina recently worked for the Kenyan National Theatre. They put on a production of Sarafina! (She positively GLOWS at mention of the name).

The script, she tells me, was culled from the stage production and the movie, and once they had got their ducks (dancing girls) in a row, they invited the man himself, Mbogeni Ngema - and Leleti Khumalo too - on an all expenses paid sortie to see the result of the National Theatre’s toils. I guess that top-level approval was important to The National Theatre…..

The two guests sat alone in the theatre watching the pre-release production. Then Dina glows even more as she tells me that the two guests gave the cast a very small (but standing) ovation when the pre-premiere was done. She glows and beams brightly, flushed just a little from the alcohol she’s steadily consuming!

In Dina’s words I detect just a hint of worship for the ground that the two – Mbogeni and Leleti - walk on. That means, largely, the soil that we walk on, too. I make my usual disparaging remark about it being a pity that Mbogeni had ‘knocked Leleti up’.

I don’t think Dina heard me. Or she doesn’t want to?

She hasn’t been to our country, but Dina’s Mecca is our Soweto and it’s a pilgrimage she’s clearly going to have to make one day. And may I admit that, despite my disparaging remark, and my reservations above, I too started to glow (and, note, I have had only one Tusker moto by now).

Looking at me and smiling a little glibly through her drink, Dina was now done with her story of Mzansi-love. It was now clearly my turn to give an account of my SA cred… my turn to respond to Dina’s part-worship of our Motherland’s Soil and soul….

I kick off with the real party-clincher:

I tell her about a brief encounter I had with Mr. Mandela, accompanied by Trevor Huddleston, as they came up the stairs (unencumbered by Security) at London’s Wembley Stadium, just days after his release, and at one of the biggest rock concerts ever dedicated to anyone. I was coming back from taking a pee.

I saw Madiba through the grill separating spectators from performers and couldn’t help myself…

“Mr.Mandela, sir!”, I said. Or something like it.

I tell her of the personal greeting I got from Madiba (with appropriate tingling down my spine and arms - as always happens when I tell the story).

He makes direct eye contact with me and says, “Hello, young man” (yes, I was a young man then).

Do you even remember me telling you this, Dina?

I don’t tell her the further detail of a very pregnant Audrey and I sitting in the PG-Glass ‘box’ at Wembley, guests of our friends, the Lubner brothers – heirs to the PG-Glass empire - with Murphy Morobe and a few other struggle stalwarts (then still in exile), watching Madiba’s first real public appearance. All of us with unashamed tears running down our cheeks.

I tell her of my experience of an aura, perhaps only slightly bigger than her own.

I tell her that I once managed SA’s only-ever ‘resistance’ record label (Lloyd Ross’ Shifty Records) and that I was once acquainted on first-name-terms with Mzwakhe Mbuli, Madiba’s first, and undoubtedly foremost, ‘praise singer/poet’ (seen quite often on TV here).

I take the complete silence as a sign I should continue….

I tell her that I haven’t just been to Soweto but that I taught Physical Science there during the time of the burning tyres and barricades. This, until I was told by one of the ‘comrades’ that coming into Soweto – in the renewed upsets of 1984 – was probably no longer such a good idea for someone as pale as myself.

Her jaw drops, just a little.

I hold on further revelations of my struggle credentials. She’ll probably think I’m shitting her if I carry on….

She would love to have been raised as a hippy. I tell her that I grew up when platforms and hot pants were as big as the ‘Afro’ hairstyles (what baby Lee Wilson used to call “Afro-Stasion-Stylels” – Afro-Asian styles). And I recount to her, with great fondness, the early exposure I got to ‘black’ music through Joy Wilson’s enjoyment of Diana Ross and The Supremes, along with other Motown greats of the time (like Mary Wilson). I tell her I was listening to Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (probably still his best album) in the summer of 1979, throwing Frisbee till 8.30pm on Clifton Beach. I wax lyrical on a privileged ‘70s upbringing in Camps Bay, Cape Town…

Dina likes rock music. But I don’t tell her I was a founder-member of the Kalahari Surfers (probably SA’s only-ever avant garde, anti-Apartheid ‘rock’ group). I don’t tell her I drummed for two bands that headlined the Wits Free People’s Concert, on two successive years.

I tell both her and Charmaine that I know some members of Freshly Ground. Hello Peter, dude! Hello Kyla! (Anyone got Daddy Kyla’s e-mail address? Hey, Donald!). And X, Hi Too, although you might not remember meeting lil’ ol’ me!

Talking about Freshly Ground, royalties, and the problems of local piracy, I give an indication to Charmaine of what royalties can buy if there’s not 400 000 pirated copies in circulation. I’m quoting a rough figure that Donald gave me of what Kyla paid (kush, baby, kush) for a house in Brixton, Jozi, Mzansi, The Globe! With royalties from their first two albums only!

May I yet digress: I don’t tell Dina that we lived in Crown Mines; that Audrey and I lived in a house that was nicknamed ‘The Kremlin’ because of all the ‘commies’ that had lived there and because of it having been the birthplace of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) newspaper (Hello to Suzanna and Greg, The Kremlin’s previous tenants, wherever you are!).

Phew, this little story is all over the place.

I don’t tell her that Crown Mines had once been a safe-haven of safe-houses for ‘Terror’ Lekota (now head of the ANC’s biggest potential opposition party), and a few others too, in the ‘bad old days’. I don’t tell her that we lived over the road from where both David Webster and Neil Aggett (both assassinated Unionists) had lived. I don’t tell her that Crown Mines had been home to more activists than one can list today; that Audrey and I were good friends to SA Presidential spokesperson Mkoni Ratshitanga (although, I think, Mkoni was ousted along with Thabo) and his poet-parliamentarian Dad, Rashaka (both of them Venda Royalty). (And I remember fondly that Rashaka had a little crush on Audrey.)

I don’t tell her that Rian Malan (of best-selling My Traitor's Heart fame) used to come for coffee (and a little toke) every now and then, with Adriaan Turgel, arriving in Rian’s big old brown Benz (this when Rian first got back from his exile of dis-ease). Hello Rian! I don’t tell her that Adriaan is still a good (if a little crazy) friend, and is one of Johnny Clegg’s best friends (and a good Zulu as well!). Hello Adriaan! Hello Johnny!

I don’t tell Dina that The Arch’s son, Trevor (Tutu), comes (does he still?) for art lessons with Reshada (Hello Reshada!), at the house where I lived, just a year ago (Frank, it seems like an aeon ago already!).

(OK, I’m sounding off a bit here. But, you never know, I might need this stuff as a defense… In case of me being found to be an ‘undesirable’ in Kenya… Which, I suppose could actually happen, what with some of my local-political opinions being expressed, and a new Media Bill having been signed into law….(which I’ll talk about next time)!! Joke. At least I’ll be able to say one thing: “But I KNOW people!”)

A quick commercial spot for my friend Reshada who used to teach painting downstairs from my digs: she’s such a good super-realist painter (better than the photograph, folks!) that, apart from all her local SA commissions, she got to do a larger-than-life portrait of Gillian Anderson (of The X-Files)….! It’s a stunning painting that Reshada exhibited at her last showing at the Read Gallery.

(Sorry, Reshada, that I couldn’t attend more of your classes, but you know how broke I was at the time…. And yes, I know I’m supposed to slowly bring the ‘medium to the paint’ but I can’t help just squishing the oil, turps and paint together. Sorry. I’ll learn eventually, I’m sure.)

But now. Finally. Back to Dina: She has to see Soweto. At this stage, Dina has become a bit hard to follow. (Dina, you were a bit drunk, but I’d like to spend more time with you, when sober). Maybe we’ll go to South Africa together? I’ll show you Soweto (and we’ll take that little drunkard, Sponseni, with us. Hey brutha, I think of you quite often! You'd like it here).

(The next meeting with Dina will be soon enough because I have gratefully been invited to her son’s 7th birthday party - “to have some silly childish fun” - on 17th January. I WILL be there Dina! You’re someone I really want to know better.)

But let me just give credit where credit is due…

The reason for meeting Dina actually resulted from a date, set up by Kairu, for me to meet his friend, Charmaine. Confused? I'll try explain... Kairu is one of the researchers on my team. Bright as a pin, perceptive as hell, and not scared to voice his view… Karibu, Kairu!

Guys, the narrative is going haywire here. I’m losing the order of things. Let me backtrack to yesterday afternoon (Friday, 9th January)…

I had e-mailed Kairu, from my desk to his, about directions to a Westlands club where some of the local rappers were to perform last (Friday) night. I ask him, where are there any clubs in Westlands?

He says, “Wochumean? Westlands is Club Central!”
I say “Whaaaat?”

This fact I didn’t even know because of my early exposure to ‘downtown’ Nairobi – which I do still enjoy – through a local cabbie when I first arrived.

(An aside: the club I like to dance at is one which Kairu has never been to. This, because he’s too scared of the downtown-type patrons! Oh, what dubious virtues living in Johannesburg bestows on one! For one thing, I now realize that I can see ‘trouble’ a long way off (and so far there’s been nothing in Nairobi that has spelled t.r.o.u.b.l.e. like just an hour in Yeoville spells). Kairu, you ARE going to come to Madhouse soon. You have to see what fun seriously-downtown Nairobi can be!)

So, to show me the club scene in Westlands, Kairu and I head out, after work, for a “look-see”. It’s just after 5pm. We go on a little jaunt; down Parklands Road, past the Spur and the Holiday Inn. He’s going to show me where to find said club… The truf-eek is a bit dense but, hey, this is Friday evening, Nairobi West.

The car radio is tuned to ‘Hot 96’ a station dedicated to ‘90s Music. The female drive-time announcer comes on after some-or-other R&B tune has played.

“Hey, that’s my friend Charmaine….”, says Kairu.
I’m quite impressed. The boy’s connected methinks.

Next minute, Kairu’s mobile rings, and who should be on the other end, but Charmaine…! He puts the phone ‘on speaker’ and I chat briefly to her while I'm driving; she’s left what sounds like an extended play on the studio deck.

We’re chatting. The track’s coming to an end.

“OK, bye then” I say, to an extended beeeeeeep, that tells me she’s already gone.

We’re about to enter the premises of one of the big club ‘complexes’ in Westlands when the lady announcer I’ve just spoken to comes on-air again:

“Kairu and Brian are on Parklands Road. They say it’s jum-pucked. So if you’re on the road, look for another route in and around the Westlands area”

I’m tickled. It seems that nothing happens by accident (even in Nairobi truf-eek)!

They’re both broke (January being twice as long as any other month). So am I but I have already made a plan to cash a cheque with Credit-Guarantee-Mueni-Wambua (once she’s done fixing her broken nail at the Mary Mary salon, downtown).

I offer to buy them a drink after her set.

A short while later I’m dropping Kairu back at the office. I go home. Mueni calls a little later to say she’s done at the salon. I head to downtown Nairobi at 7.30 pm (and I must tell you, Nairobi Central buzzes – nay, absolutely cooks - at this time of the evening, never mind later on!).

I meet Mueni, tell her where I need to go (a bar called Alfijiri in the leafy northwest), Husband Daniel draws me a perfect map when I drop Mueni at home.

I hit the Uhuru Highway (actually called Mombasa Road in Mueni’s hood)

And right now, I have to digress, just a little (yet again!)…

I’m doing my Nairobi driving thing at the roundabout when a Nairobi taxi driver, riding home with his buddy after a day’s cabbing, winds down his window, leans over, and says:

“….(something in Swahili)… nzuri sana!"

He sees I’m mzungu and repeats, in English:

“You drive very well”, he says, laughing in slight disbelief.

I reply: “I have to drive Nairobi too, so wochuthink?”

Much laughter from them both.

We drive on.

(And guys, this is probably the ultimate driving compliment one can get)

I find Alfijiri (Swahili? For what?), after confirming some directions on the mobile with Kairu. He finds me in the street and we park, joining Charmaine inside. As we park, we pass local rapper, Nameless, talking on his mobile in the parking lot.

We move to a table outside. I quickly phone my boy, Ben. Then I return to the table, we order a drink and talk as best we can against the loud music.… In short, it’s very, very nice to have met you, Charmaine. I’m sorry our connection was interrupted by wine, woman and a little song. Later. Fur reel.

Just to trash the narrative again: We’ve been round and about a bit. By now I’ve met Gavin Bell – the South African owner of Kengeles – and we two have gassed a bit about the Old Country. By now it’s getting a little late (just before 12). We haven’t a lot of cash, so Kairu and I decide to call it a night for the pub scene in Nairobi’s plush North-West suburbs.

We start to leave, but not before making sure Dina will be able to drive herself safely home (a few blocks away). Kairu’s London-based photographer-friend, Zach, is at the window of her little Toyota and assures us she’ll get home safe. We go!

I drop Kairu and go to the usual downtown Nairobi club that has so far been the exclusive witness to my Nairobi dance moves. I feel like dancing a bit and don’t really have the money to do the Westlands rapper thing.

And for the first time, I encountered just a little t.r.o.u.b.l.e. I saw it coming aplenty….

But this is also a story of Mzansi pride, folks….

I met ‘the boyfriend’ last night. I had been at the club for a few hours already when ‘the girlfriend’ heard me talking to someone at the club (early this morning – Saturday 10th January - some time). She recognizes my accent and immediately wants to engage – which we do and which, of course, makes him upset.

She (name unknown) is a Kenyan lady teaching Afrikaans kids – remedial education - (would you believe?) in P.E. (condolences on your location, sweetheart) but loving it! We just hit it off. We talked and talked, and her excitement was totally infectious! She just has so much positive shit to say about our country! Obviously, I was blown away (yet again in one night).

Eventually I was threatened away from her. I threatened back but then just walked away and danced. This, not before I managed to give her my business card, though. The result was that she came to me on the dance floor (just prior to being hustled out of there by him) and said she WILL call. I really hope so. I’m waiting for the call sweetheart….

The bottom line….

It’s clear from the reactions I get around me, that SA IS something special (even if we don’t always see it). It takes being away to see it! Fuck it, guys, we went though a momentous experience and came through it with something special resident in our heads. Damned if I know what this resident thing is, though!

So what’s it really all about…

Fly, the Beloved Country! Fly!

And tonight is one of the biggest, brightest full moons we’ll ever get to see! (I haven't yet read up exactly why this is so, but it IS!)

Nothing by accident!

Amani na mapenzi. As alllllwaaaaays!

B-)