We often had people come to our home after school to collect their registered mail which my father kept for them. Some came to enquire about possible parcels even if they had not received notification. These were the desperate women whose men were not regular remitters. My mother often gave them food on the quiet as they left our house.
Households which lived on the margins of supportive networks experienced abject poverty. These households tended to be on the outskirts of the village, and were in most cases relatively new arrivals. Their properties were also not as well endowed with fruit trees and were less fertile, providing little opportunity for growing vegetables. The irrigation water which flowed along the street furrows reached them last, and often when it was too late and too dark to water properly.
Pain and joy were shared by residents. People supported one another in times of illness or loss through death. Funerals were communal responsibilities: at these times every member of the community played a supportive role. News of death was spread by word of mouth and people rallied to the bereaved household. A few old women would immediately move into the household to provide support, and remain there until some days after the funeral. Younger women helped with the practicalities of keeping the household clean, fed and comfortable.
Women were also responsible for preparing a meal for all those attending the funeral. A beast, commonly an ox for a grown-up man or a cow for a woman, was often slaughtered the night before the funeral. It was in some cases an expensive affair, but fellow villagers brought food and other goods as well as monetary contributions to help the affected family.
Children were not allowed to go to funerals, except those of close relatives, but we often watched processions as they passed by, and clandestinely listened to the conversations of adults around these issues. Death remained a mystery to us. Our curiosity was not seen as legitimate by adults, so we could not ask direct questions. There was an uneasy silence around death.
My closest encounter with death in my childhood was in 1955 when my mother gave birth to a baby boy on a Saturday afternoon (although I remember the day vividly, I don’t remember the date). It was a home birth assisted by the local midwife, Sister Nteta. We were shown the child after it was bathed, and were excited. Birth was another mystery – an area of silence which children had no right to explore. My paternal grandmother had come a few weeks before the birth to help support my mother during this period. Early on the Sunday morning my grandmother called my sister, elder brother and me, and told us that the baby was no more. The child had died during the course of its first night. I did not understand how this was possible, but from my sister’s reaction, I understood that its death was a reality. Her tears were infectious. We were later asked to go to the Sebatis, my mother’s relatives, for the day.
I still remember seeing my father, just before we left, digging what must have been the baby’s grave, in an enclosure (lapa) on the side of the house. He was assisted by one or two other men. We came home that afternoon to find a freshly smeared mud patch which my great-grandmother, Koko Tsheola, looked after and to which she repeatedly applied a mixture of cow dung and soil for the next few months until it faded into the rest of the lapa. It was customary for newborn babies and stillborns to be buried within the homestead – they were not regarded as fully developed, independent persons to be interred in the public graveyard. We were not given the opportunity to share this loss with my mother, who we hardly saw for the next few days, as she was confined to bed. This silence was very confusing to me as a child.
Sharing festivities was also part of life in Kranspoort. The residents knew how to celebrate in style. Weddings were elaborate, as were Christmas and New Year celebrations, which were particularly valued as times for family reunions and sharing of treats brought home by the makarapa (returning migrants). Almost all children were bought new clothes, and, for the fortunate few, new shoes were included. Homes were decorated with fresh colourful mud and cow-dung applications, as well as decorative paper ribbons and balloons for those who could afford such luxuries. Most people strung strips of colourful leftover material, and hung them on doorways. There were no Christmas trees, nor did anyone expect Father Christmas to come with presents or a stocking full of goodies down non-existent chimneys. People shared food and drink and the joy of life in song and dance.
On Christmas Day children walked in groups from house to house asking for ‘Christmas’, rather like the ‘trick or treat’ which American children indulge in on Halloween. Towards late afternoon, groups of children from different street choirs assembled in strategic places for friendly singing competitions. Good dancers displayed their talents. My most embarrassing moments came when I was pressured by my friends to join in the dancing. I was a typical wallflower. I was shy and tended to hide behind others, or bolted when I sensed that the net was closing in. Nonetheless I enjoyed the carnival atmosphere with all the streets brightened with colour, laughter and song.
I was never really a sociable child outside the family setting. I preferred my mother’s company to that of children my age. So I took on myself the role of a human pram and made myself useful by carrying my brothers on my back, thus relieving my overworked mother of the task. I also went around visiting with her on Sunday afternoons – the only time off she enjoyed. My presence enabled her to socialise with her friends in the secure knowledge that my baby brothers were in good hands.
In addition to Christmas and New Year, weddings were also wonderful occasions, and preparations for them were elaborate. Food and song were central to successful wedding feasts. There was often fierce competition between the bride’s and groom’s entourages in capturing the attention of the crowds through song and dance. White weddings were the norm. Wedding dresses were of varying degrees of sophistication depending on the means of the households involved. No expense was spared by parents on such occasions. It was an honour for young girls to be chosen as bridesmaids.
The wedding started with a procession to the church, for the marriage to be solemnised by the dominee. An even more vigorous parade with singing and dancing took place back to the bride’s home, where there would be more singing before the main meal was served to all the guests. After the meal the couple changed into another set of clothes, normally smart formal suits, and paraded along the street before retracing their steps back home. After an interval of an hour or two of continuous singing, the couple were seated in full view of the public in the household’s lapa where they were given advice about how to make their marriage a success, go laiwa. The parents of the bride or bridegroom, whichever was the case, started off the advice session, each pep talk being accompanied by a gift for the couple. After all the relatives had their turn, the general public joined in for their penny’s worth. These sessions often lasted into the late evening, with songs interspersed between the speeches.
The general tone of the advice was that marriage was difficult and that tolerance was the key to success. The woman was the focus for most of the advice. On her shoulders rested enormous responsibilities to create a new home, and to care for her husband and his family – indeed, to immerse herself in his family and to lose her maiden identity. Her child-bearing responsibilities were also stressed: heaven forbid that a woman should shun this duty or be unable to discharge it. It was not surprising that most brides spent the entire session sobbing uncontrollably. But it was also expected that the bride weep to show her sadness at having to leave the natal home, or else she was seen as being too eager for marriage. Such eagerness was regarded as a bad omen for the future of the couple. The groom’s family celebrated the marriage in a manner they saw fit, but in general the same ceremony was repeated.