Читать книгу Koors - Деон Мейер - Страница 27

James Rankin

Soos opgeteken deur Willem Storm. Amanzi-geskiedenisprojek.

I spent my whole adult life working for the church, I was with the Anglican Diocese of Johannesburg for eleven years, but nothing prepares you …

There was this moment, at the height of the Fever … I was working, helping at the Milpark Hospital, I was really just praying for people, for the dying, for their relatives who were being infected. It was … There was this moment, I was standing next to a bed, holding a dying man’s hands, in this six-bed ward, and I heard the shouts, there was a man with a gun, he was pointing it at me. He was saying, “It’s your God who did this, it’s your God,” and he just came closer and closer, with the gun pointed at my head. He was already sick, you could see that, he was in the first stage, the Fever had started, he knew he was going to die, and he wanted to blame someone. He stood right against me, and he pressed the barrel against my forehead. And then he looked at me, and he realised I wasn’t sick. So he started shouting, “Why aren’t you sick?” Over and over again. He was so furious, I was sure he was going to shoot me.

I am ashamed to say that I stopped praying. It was because of the fear, but mostly, it was because I felt so incredibly guilty for not being sick.

The man with the gun, he just turned the gun around and shot himself.

I still feel this guilt, every day. But I keep praying, and I keep telling myself, the Lord spared me for a reason. Perhaps it was to help lead these people to Amanzi.

Amanzi

Op die derde Julie in die Jaar van die Hond vergader almal in die Forum. Ons is al meer as driehonderd mense sterk. Die eerste tentatiewe demokratiese verkiesing van leiers is op hande. Pa staan op die Tata se bak. Hy sê hy dink ons moet ’n nuwe naam kry vir hierdie plek, Vanderkloof is net op geen manier toepaslik nie. En in die stilte wat daarop volg, roep die krom, grys tannie Nandi Mahlangu uit: “Amanzi.”

Daar is ’n tinteling van klank deur die groep soos almal die naam op hulle tonge toets. Iemand begin hande klap. En dan klap almal skielik hande. Wanneer dit bedaar, sê Pa: “Welkom in Amanzi.”

Niemand sê wat dit beteken nie, daarom is ek te skaam om openlik te vra. Ek vra fluisterend vir Pa, eers wanneer ons later huis toe stap – “huis” is en sal vir die volgende klompie jare die Orphanage wees wat ons deel met Beryl en die kinders, Melinda Swanevelder en haar hoopvolle vryer Hennie Flaai Laas, Domingo en Nero Dlamini.

“Dis Zoeloe én Xhosa vir ‘water’,” sê Pa.

Ek herkou daaraan, maar kan nie die water-kloutjie by die ovasie-oortjie kry nie. “Nou hoekom het almal so hande geklap?”

“Omdat dit perfek is.”

* * *

Nkosi Sebego

Soos opgeteken deur Willem Storm. Amanzi-geskiedenisprojek.

I was the founding father and pastor of the Grace Tabernacle Church of Christ in Mamelodi. I kept the church open, through it all. It was very difficult, because I knew it was God’s way of telling us to change our ways. God sent the Fever, because the whole world had lost their way. But you cannot tell that to the people who are suffering so much, who are dying.

I thought I wasn’t dying because I was a God-fearing man, a righteous man. But then I saw that God was taking my wife, and she was a better Christian than I was. And he was taking babies, and little children, nobody was being spared the Fever. So then I did not understand, and I was very angry at God. I shouted and I swore. But I think God knew that it was because of the pain of all the loss and the suffering.

The strange thing was, Mamelodi was a safer place, during and after the Fever, than a lot of the white neighbourhoods. I think most of the black townships were better, because the black people, the poor people, we were used to helping one another, we were much more used to loss and suffering and standing together, and sharing.

Three months after the Fever we were twenty-nine people in Mamelodi who had survived, who were living together at the church, who were helping each other, taking care of each other. And then during that time, I went to Silver Lakes Golf Estate, and Faerie Glen, where all the rich people lived, mostly white people. I went there to look for food. There were no groups, nobody working together. Just a few people shooting at everything that moved.

Domingo

Ek is in Abbotsdale gebore. Dis die coloured township van Malmesbury. Ek het daar skoolgegaan. My ma het by die Sasko mill op die dorp gewerk. Ma’ ek was daar naby Swellendam toe Die Koors kom. Soort van paramilitary occupation gehad. Nee, ek gaan nie elaborate nie. No need. Useless information.

Nkosi Sebego

There is one sight I will never forget. It was when the Fever was at its worst. It reminded me of those black and white films about the atrocities during the Second World War.

I woke up in the morning, and I heard this engine. You have to remember, this was when the Fever was … when it was really bad, so Mamelodi was much more quiet than usual, and I heard this big engine. I walked in that direction, it was coming from the open ground between Khutsong and the Pateng Secondary School. This was about one kilometer from the Mamelodi Hospital. The engine was a bulldozer. It was pushing people into this mass grave.

It is a terrible thing to see. People. People who laughed, who loved, who lived. And there they were, just rag dolls. Pushed into a hole in the ground. Like rubbish.