But within two years we had a proper home and ran a well-equipped general dealer not far from the school where my father was headmaster. He had six children from a previous marriage who lived with us. Naturally it caused friction at times. Despite being a headmaster, he wasn’t much of a disciplinarian at home. He always tried to be Mr Nice Guy, which made things difficult for my mother, who was strict with her own offspring, so faced being labelled the mean stepmother.
On the plus side, there were plenty of us to help out in the shop. My oldest half-brother and I would wake at half past four every second morning to do the bread-and-milk run to Mthatha. We’d be back by seven-thirty, in time to have a quick breakfast before school began at eight. My brother, who was six years older than me, didn’t have a driver’s licence, but we’d all learned to drive sitting on a pillow so we could see over the dashboard. My father was fussy about the Hilux. The Nyati sons should not leave home in a dusty vehicle, so he would make us wash it before we set off, even though we had miles of dirt roads ahead. There was a rumour that the national road between Engcobo and Mthatha was untarred because the construction company had pulled out of the area after one of the foremen was killed and eaten!
In Mthatha we’d collect the village mail from the post office, buy six dozen loaves of bread, go to the fresh produce market for fruit and vegetables, then to the dairy where we’d get big cans of milk – to be dispensed into customers’ containers. By then, the Hilux, which had a canopy, was packed to the roof. On the drive home we’d breathe in the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread, which we’d sell in quarters at the shop for five cents each.
The shop gave us a sense of belonging in the community and a position in society. There was a kind of status that went with trading and I enjoyed interacting with customers. I would often advise them about new products – how, for example, they could use Compral painkillers instead of Panado. Many would arrive with a long shopping list and put their feet up while I found all the items they needed and entered them in our credit book. As their husbands were away working, many women could pay only when the men came home or sent money once a quarter. My mother made magwinyas and I’d take a bag of them to school, the aroma of fried dough pervading the classroom until the bell rang, making everyone’s mouth water. When breaktime came these vetkoek didn’t last long and I’d go home with a pocketful of jingling coins, which I handed over to my mother, who would count every cent.
The shop was close to the clinic, so it attracted passing trade. It was also a good place to meet girls: in the late afternoon, young people would gather outside the shop, sit on paraffin tins and play amadice and cards for money. I loved the thrill of this amateur gambling and longed to join in. But my mother had other plans for me. While my classmates played, I’d be doing chores. We had an old-fashioned scale in the shop and I would make up 500 g, 1 kg and 2 kg bags of onions, potatoes and carrots from the vegetables we’d bought at the fresh produce market in Mthatha. I’d get the exact weight by putting the vegetables on the scale, then adding cast-iron weights to the other side until the scale balanced. Then I’d pop the veggies into plastic bags and price them with a koki pen. I would sort the mail and sometimes read letters for illiterate customers. In the process I’d sometimes hear stuff that wasn’t for pre-teen ears, such as details about family dramas or even illegitimate children.
We were the first to get a landline telephone in the area, which changed the life of a community whose relatives were migrant workers in Johannesburg and other far-flung places. Being able to verbally communicate with them made distances shorter. Our phone number was ‘Tabase 6’. I’d crank the handle to get hold of the central exchange and an old lady waiting next to me would bellow out the number she needed. It took all of them a while to realise that they didn’t have to shout, merely talk into the phone, but eventually they got it. When the phone rang, my siblings or I would rush off to find whoever the call was for, while the caller hung on for minutes on end.
Real progress came when my mother bought a diesel generator. It made a huge noise, but our neighbours tolerated it because of the advantages that came with it: trading hours were extended until after dark, food and drinks were kept cold and we also ran a freezer for ice and meat. The arrival of an electronic cash register meant that we didn’t have to count bank bags of coins every night. My eyes lit up almost as brightly as the numbers on the screen when I saw it magically come to life for the first time.
To my mother, nothing was impossible. She was the only woman in the area with a Code 10 (heavy duty) driver’s licence and her actions sent a message to others in the community: don’t wait for things to come to you. Eventually the shop did so well and expanded so much that she took on some employees, bought a Mazda truck and hired a driver. The shop was called Embekweni Store – place where you are respected – and my mother’s name was Nombeko – the one who has respect, which was how she treated everyone who worked for her. This has stayed with me and influenced me: treat people properly and they’ll respect you.
Having helpers in the shop meant that I had time to hang out with my friends. I didn’t always use my new-found time well. At the end of my primary-school years, my mother – despite her busy life – began noticing that I often smelled like petrol. This was because my friends and I stole petrol meant for our vehicles and inhaled it to get high. It took her a while to confront me, but when she did she lost it good and proper, beating me with a stick. This, in addition to my brother having told on me for smoking second-hand cigarette stompies, was enough to make my parents decide to pack me off to boarding school. It was non-negotiable. Bhuti said nothing, just looked on as my mother sat me down and told me I was to begin grade 8 at St Patrick’s Mission in Libode, almost 50 km from home.
It seemed to me a lonely prison without my large extended family and the hustle and bustle of the shop. The teachers were Catholic nuns whose only priorities were discipline, education and prayer. From the moment I set eyes on her, I was terrified of Sister Principal, the headmistress. Three times a day the Angelus bell would ring and we had to stop whatever we were doing and pray:
Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee … Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Apart from our lessons, we had to work in the vegetable gardens and grow our own food, which I thought they cooked really badly. I was used to better. My consolation was a tin trunk filled with goodies from home, which I tucked into on Sundays when no one was looking. My treat times ended when some older boys discovered my secret stash, broke the lock of my trunk and took everything. I never said a word, just watched them with a lump in my throat as they relished my cans of pilchards and my biscuits.
St Patrick’s Mission drew learners from far and wide. I shared a bunk bed with a boy named Lizo Mbetshu from New Brighton, Port Elizabeth. Today he’s an ophthalmologist in East London. I met other boys from Cape Town, Durban and Joburg who relayed stories about ‘black power’ riots in their townships. They talked about police brutality and tear gas. I found these stories of state violence hard to believe. Nationally, resistance against oppressive education policies was at boiling point. It was 1976. Back in Tabase, my father was organising learners to protect his school from protestors. The Transkei government had fuelled the narrative that uneducated ‘influences’ from Soweto would arrive to disrupt learning in the homeland, and my father believed this.
I remained focused on my studies and gradually my grades improved. I came to love science and maths and I was sporty, having inherited a love of rugby from my father, who’d introduced it at all the schools he’d taught at. I continued playing rugby at university – first as scrumhalf, then wing – until I broke my collarbone in a bruising match against the University of Zululand.
I also enjoyed soccer and because I was quick, with loads of energy, at school they nicknamed me ‘double engine’ until I somehow burst the only soccer ball we had and I was called much ruder names.
In 1978, I began my high school at St John’s College in Mthatha, one of the oldest schools in the country and the most prestigious in Transkei. You’d find a lot of black parents from all over the country sending their kids to St John’s.
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