Apparently Mthatha isn’t the most sought after destination for corporate trainer types. This is astonishing because I always have the best time there. Anyhow, I was there not so long ago, excited to facilitate a few days of discussion around diversity, conflict, communication and other really fun subjects with 300 teachers from the O.R Tambo district. During their holidays. We found ourselves crammed into a venue suitable for 200. It was boiling hot, the air-con was non-existent, there were holes in the ceiling from which electrical cables dangled menacingly, threatening the lives of the taller folk in the room.
I was panic-stricken, I had no idea the venue was going to be so bad. But everyone else seemed cheerful, not a soul was bitching and moaning and no body asked me (passive aggressively or otherwise) where one could get a decent coffee. Everyone just dealt with it, squashed together, made space, fanned their neighbors with their enormous training manuals and made the most of the opportunity to learn from each other. There was in fact a carnival atmosphere in the air. I realised immediately that it was an hilarious joke to imagine that I could teach this group of people anything about the list of topics I was instructed to cover and the week became, (instead of a monotonous lecture) a fabulous, sweaty, collaborative conversation, a debate, a sharing of stories. I fulfilled the challenging role of hurtling round the room, leaping over desks, avoiding dangling cables, passing the mic around to ensure that everyone got some airtime. We had been at it for a couple of days and were talking about diversity and conflict when somebody introduced the subject of xenophobia and made reference to violent attacks on foreigners that had taken place in many South African cities and had recently been in the news.
An elegant, articulate young man with elaborate dreads took the mic next and spoke passionately and angrily about the threat of Central African immigrants taking his job, using up the resources at the local clinics dominating informal trade. People began nodding all over the room. Really? I asked in surprise. Foreign immigrant teachers here in Mthatha trying to take your jobs, your stuff, your opportunities? Can you be serious? But there was suddenly an undercurrent in the room. A whole lot of people were nodding and muttering angrily and fearfully… There was a(possibly groundless) but distinctly fretful fear of the unknown stirring just under the surface and erupting (as it often does) in anger. I was wondering with some anxiety how to handle this unexpected dynamic when an older woman in the crowd stood up and gestured for the mic. I had not noticed her before in the press of humanity. Up to this point she had clearly been more inclined to listening than speaking. I thought I would let her ramble while I decided how best to handle things and guide the discussion to a harmonious and humanitarian outcome. (OMG the arrogance of me!) My first impression was that her face was not illuminated by intelligence (As I said, my inexcusable condescension causes me to hang my head in shame on most days.) She looked to my ignorant eye conventional, conservative, old. Unexceptional in every way. Until she began to tell her story:
She spoke so powerfully, gently, eloquently, and with such deep rooted authority that every person in the room was rapt, intent on what she was saying. She told of her family’s political exile while she was a young child, she spoke of fleeing security police and driving and flying across dark borders hidden under sacks, her body pressed against her parents, shaking with fright, the smell of her mother’s fear in her nostrils. She described her terror and devastation and loneliness at being torn away from her home, playmates, extended family. She spoke of missing everything she knew: familiar language and sounds, tastes and smells. And then with poetry and singing in her voice she spoke of being enveloped by a new African community who took her family in, befriended them, fed and clothed them, built them a house with their own hands, paid for her schooling and made this new place her home. The room was so silent I could hear my heart thudding (and my bran muffin digesting).
And then she turned to the beautiful youth with the dreads and with fire in her eyes and brimstone in her voice she said: “I was one of thousands of our people who were taken in during the apartheid years by our brothers and sisters. How DARE you?… How dare you now withhold the hospitality that they offered so freely in our time of crisis in their own hour of need? Ubuntu is not the birthright of South Africans only. It belongs to all of Africa and all the world. Ubuntu has no borders. The time has come to repay their kindness. As educators and as leaders it is our duty to lead the way.”
Yho. She was 100% right of course but nobody in the room (least of all me) had the authority or the ability to have said it like she did. And in the silence and conviction that followed, I realised once again the full extent of my privilege to inhabit such a raw and real frontier. This is a country inhabited by men and women who hold the kind of hard-won wisdom that is only born of hardship. South Africa is a country that contains such deep experience, such profound knowledge, such real anguish – it is and always has been the very coal-face of life. We are fully engaged here every day because we have no option not to be. And it is because of this that South Africa is the perfect forge for the crafting of empathy. And it is because of this that it is a rightful hometown for Ubuntu. And this is the company I always wish to keep.