Odd. When I was young, and until quite recently, I had no idea that people might think of my background as exotic. Or like my accent, but that’s another story.
Lately though, people have been asking about my childhood in Southern Africa, what it was like to grow up there.
I can’t remember much past the age of eight, and I have good reasons to prefer it that way, but my early childhood was idyllic. And barefoot.
I am pretty sure I didn’t wear shoes with any regularity until my family moved to Johannesburg when I was eight.
Before that, my nickname was ‘Elephant Foot’ because the soles of my feet were so toughened.
Perhaps one of the happiest periods I remember were the two years we spent living at a mine in Mpumulanga, South Africa, called Klipwal (literally, Stone Wall).
These were my first two years of school: I went to boarding school, and didn’t like that very much – I sobbed every Sunday night when it was time to go back to school, and pretty much every night at school. I was, even then, a sensitive child, introverted, easily bullied.
But I had a few very good friends, and the memories of those friendships are still with me. Portia was black, and I wasn’t allowed to visit her at her house. I didn’t understand why until much later. I just thought my parents were being mean.
Jenny was white, and I spent many weekends visiting her and her family because I lived too far from school to go home every weekend.
We had a lot of fun together, running wild with the taste of African dust in our mouths.
We lost touch after I moved to Jo’burg (my first experience of loss) and I missed her always, until I found her again on Facebook a few years ago. Reconnection!
Mpumulanga never gets very cold: mostly, it was warm enough to swim year-round. The walk to the swimming pool at Klipwal was littered with fallen Frangpanis. Sensuously scented and dangerous with crawling bees. I got stung many, many times, but it didn’t seem to deter me from my shoeless ways.
When it rained, the flying ants would swarm, and my dad, my brother and I would go out at dusk to catch them, pull their wings off, and eat them. I know, pretty gross. But it’s not like people in other parts of the world don’t eat bugs!
Southern Africa has a smell, a very specific smell of hot red earth. No place smells quite like the African plains after the rain.
It’s a devastatingly beautiful place, but always, through my childhood , was the undercurrent of separation – why weren’t white people and black people allowed to use the same toilets? I never understood. Then there were those people who were part of our families – the gardeners, the housekeepers, the nannies – but somehow unequal, invisible almost.
Africa in general, and South Africa in particular, are complicated places. The relationships and power plays are subtle there. Life has a different value.
The longing has eased, like grieving the death of a beloved, but I still miss the sound of African women singing, the dust in my mouth, thunderstorms in the afternoon.
But for someone with a nervous system as fried as mine is, South Africa was a hard place to live. You need to be robust to live there. Able to deal with physical danger, the daily possibility of violence. It’s like a bad relationship that way: you can’t help yourself but to keep going back, even though you know you shouldn’t.
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Oh Nadine, this is a lovely post. It is SO important to remember the beautiful things! I am heading to the continent for a few months and can’t wait to be back with my feet in the rust-coloured earth, under that vast blue sky.
Breathe in some dust for me…sigh. I’m really homesick at the moment.
Aww, you guys! Thank you for the love & support. You all rock xx
Oh Nadine
thanks for your new blog. It prompted me to read some more of your older posts. I had read a few but not all. Thanks for sharing and baring your soul. I am not sure what to say but i know that i have never met a yoga teacher quite like you. You are fabulously attentive and perceptive about the needs of individuals in your class and I (and many others) am so pleased you came back to teach our class. You are an amazing person, and a great teacher.
Not many people bare their souls like you have. Well done. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, but I hope life is improving for you exponentially, every day.
And remember, BREATHE, i cant hear you.! Jackie
Ps I love the photos of the young you.
Nade, they are all right it is beautifully written. So sad that my children will not enjoy the African childhood we experienced, I often think of that. But, I am grateful that they do get to experience the beauty South Africa has to offer even if their experience is different from ours…
Such beautiful writing. You really have a gift! “Barefoot on Frangipanis: an African Childhood” sounds like a book title. One I would read the heck out of I might add
lovely post… (most) african countries have to deal with many issues but there is something special about the continent. it’s somehow magical.
So beautifully written Nadine. This has just become my favourite piece of yours. (excuse the bad English) mxxx
Just… beautiful and evocative and innocent. Always in extremes there is beauty as well as horror, I think. Dust in your mouth, indeed. x