Sharing History

I first heard Elif Shafak speak on one of the TED talks. Her gentle, accented voice drew me in to her story. She spoke about growing up with her traditional Turkish grandmother who was a healer in the community. People would come to her with warts which they wanted to get rid of. Her grandmother would draw circles around the warts and, in time, they would shrivel up and fall off. She made the analogy that when we draw circles around ourselves, or build walls to isolate ourselves from others, we are at risk of shrivelling up and dying.

It struck a chord with me, having grown up in apartheid SA and experiencing the walls that the government built around our communities in order to cut us off from each other. If we don’t interact and learn from each other we run the risk of shrivelling up and dying – if not physically, then at least in our attitudes, beliefs and compassion for each other.

I was delighted to be able to hear her speak on more than one occasion last week in Davos. As a child she straddled two worlds – the modern, western world of her educated mother, and the traditional, superstitious world of her uneducated grandmother. In her books she allows space for both voices.

Many societies have a rich oral culture which is deemed to be “lesser” because it is women who are telling the stories.  History is remembered differently by different people and who is to say what is important enough to provide a window of understanding on what went before? 

Listening to her speak I realised that in SA there are many stories which need to be told so that we can get on with the process of healing and move forward. Sometimes all that is needed is for our experiences to be acknowledged, to feel that our voices have been heard. We all need a voice.

Healing Memories of District Six

“The first time I took your mother out on a date we went to the Avalon bioscope, to the 4.00pm show to see “Trapeze” with Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollabrigida. Your mother was only allowed to go to the afternoon show. It was 1958. Chut Frieslaar was the manager of the bioscope.” The words poured out of my father’s mouth as we sat down to tea. We had just been to the District Six Museum and clearly many memories had been stirred.

My dad is a man of few words but as we walked around, he became more and more animated as he recognised people and places – the barber shop where he had his hair cut, his old school and his standard five teacher, and the public wash house. “You could find anything you wanted in Hanover Street, except petrol,” he said. “There was no garage, but everything else was there.”

On one of the walls was a recipe for “oumens onder die kombers” (which literally means old person under the blanket), which my grandmother used to make.  It is a traditional cabbage and meatball recipe – the cabbage is wrapped around the meatball, like a blanket. Alongside were recipes for other dishes from my childhood - tomato bredie (a lamb and tomato stew), bobotie (a spicy meatloaf) and skaapkop (sheep’s head).

I walked around with my book and pen on hand. I had wanted to capture these memories for a while now.  My dad had grown up in District Six and my grandmother had lived there well into the 70s. So we spent much time in Hanover Street – the house doctor, the barber, my uncle’s tailor shop, and the restaurant which sold the best samoosas and curry and roti, were all there.

It was almost as much of a journey for me as it was for him and I feel so blessed to have had the benefit of some of the stories. Before we left, my dad proudly signed the ex-residents’ book.