The Backroom Boy

Оглавление

Mandla Mathebula. The Backroom Boy

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

1. 1962, China

2. 1961, The road to China

3. 1944, Conscientisation

4. 1931, Beginnings

5. 1949, Work, marriage, political activity

6. 1963, ‘Rev Mokete Mokoena’

7. 1963, Trial and conviction

8. 1964, Prisoner 467/64

9. 1977-1981, Prison life, family life

10. 1982, Keeping track of the struggle

11. 1985, ‘Freedom was in sight.’

12. 1990, The start of a new life

Conclusion

Notes

Interviews undertaken for this book

Letters

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THE BACKROOM BOY

Andrew Mlangeni’s Story

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It was about four o’clock when they got into Mbeya. The sun was still up. At the hotel Andrew used a public phone to call Frene. He told her that ‘Percy’ and ‘John’ had arrived and asked her to come for them. She, too, had been briefed. She told him she was very far from where they were, in Dar es Salaam, where they were supposed to join her the next day. It had been raining heavily, and the roads were terrible. Therefore it was difficult to travel by road all the way to Dar es Salaam, where they were to catch a bus. The alternative was a train from Iringa, not too far from Mbeya. Frene said they were free to choose.

The following morning Andrew and Mhlaba caught a bus to Iringa. There were two routes from Mbeya to Iringa, they were told, but the other one was said to be impassable. The roads were very bad, untarred and destroyed by rain. They were poorly maintained as well. ‘The bus was not in good condition. It travelled very slowly, and huffed and puffed almost the whole morning to reach Iringa,’ recalled Andrew. The trip was at a snail’s pace. The train left Iringa railway station in the evening and travelled all night to Dar es Salaam. Frene was waiting for them. She took them to the hotel and advised them to rest, saying that she would come and take them to the authorities the next day to arrange their further travel. Their next destination, she said, was Khartoum in Sudan, through an Ethiopian airline.

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