Winnie Mandela (10 page)

She enjoyed the assignment at Tsolo, felt at home in the rural environment, and was excited about the centre’s involvement in farming and in organising communal markets where people brought their produce for barter. She also attended tribal meetings – an exceptional honour, because women were traditionally excluded from such meetings, but Winnie was admitted because she was a social worker. The meetings were held at Qamata, the Great Place of KD Matanzima, in a large hall that could accommodate 1 000 people at a time, and was always full.

She met both Kaiser Matanzima and his brother George, a generous man whom she found friendly and hospitable. From his successful legal practice he dispensed free advice to needy people, and often made his car – the only one in the area – available for the use of others. His generosity extended to money matters, and he had earned a reputation for donating substantial amounts to worthy causes.

Winnie encountered heart-wrenching poverty at Tsolo. She had grown up among poor peasants, but had never seen such hardship. There was widespread malnutrition and large numbers of small children died as a result. Frustratingly, she could do little to alleviate the suffering, which reinforced her belief that dramatic social change was needed in South Africa.

Towards the end of her term in Tsolo, Winnie was doing paperwork in her office at the Welfare Centre when an elderly woman, who was visiting from Bizana, came by to see her. After the usual greetings, the old woman asked Winnie whether she was pleased about the marriage.

‘What marriage?’ Winnie asked, puzzled.

The old woman laughed slyly. ‘They are arranging for you to marry Chief Ququali’s son, the one who is at Lovedale College.’

Winnie was crushed. No one had mentioned any such plan when she was at home before going to Tsolo, nor since. She knew the chief belonged to the same royal house as Mandela and the Matanzimas, but no matter how beneficial marriage into so prominent a clan would be, Winnie knew that her father would not have made such a decision without telling her. She had never even met the young man in question, so how had the chief decided she would be a suitable future daughter-in-law? Almost certainly, in line with tradition, the tribal elders had arranged this marriage, in which case Columbus would have no choice but to respect their decision. But Winnie saw herself as an emancipated woman and could not conceive of having such an archaic custom imposed on her. Her mind
was filled with the prospect of returning to Johannesburg and starting a career as a social worker. She had not studied for three years to be trapped in an unwanted and loveless marriage to a stranger. Quite possibly she would be one of several wives, stranded and isolated in the rural Transkei for the rest of her life. She knew only too well that rural wives were expected to be servile and accept all the restrictions imposed on them, and refused even to consider such a life for herself.

Winnie realised that it would serve no purpose to appeal to Columbus, and that if she stayed in Tsolo she would be abducted and forced into the marriage. The chief’s Tembu tribesmen, on horseback and wearing the white blankets such an act prescribed, would wait for the right moment, kidnap her and keep her locked up until the chief’s son was brought from college, and they would be forced to get married. Columbus would have no choice but to accept the situation and the accompanying lobola. Winnie remembered the drama when her brother brought his wife to their home wrapped in a blanket, albeit with her cooperation. She had witnessed such ceremonies and seen the beseeching eyes of young brides forced into marriage as they emerged from captivity.

Winnie knew she had only one option. She packed her bags, explained her predicament to Mr Zici and hastily left for Johannesburg. No matter what the consequences were, she would not risk being carried off to a degrading life by Chief Qaquali’s men.

The old woman’s unthinking question had given Winnie her one chance to escape, but what she did was unthinkable for a young Pondo woman and a serious affront to the tradition of unquestioning obedience to her parents and elders. She knew her flight would cause both difficulties and embarrassment for her father, and wished she could have spared him.

As soon as Winnie got back to Johannesburg she wrote to Columbus and begged his forgiveness for running away, but told him she could never enter into an arranged marriage. She was also able to tell him that she had been awarded her diploma in social work with distinction, and had won a prize as the best student. Winnie was one of the last graduates of the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work, which was closed down by the government in terms of the Bantu Education Act soon afterwards. Later generations of black social workers were trained at what became known as ‘bush colleges’ in the various homelands.

The years had sped by and Winnie was on the threshold of a career as a fully fledged social worker, but first she had to find a post. Shortly after the final results were announced, Professor Phillips summoned her to his office and told her, with a broad smile, that she had been awarded a much sought-after scholarship and could further her education by studying sociology at a university in America. Winnie was elated. Not only did this news exceed her wildest dreams, but she had
no need to worry about whether she would find a suitable position. She was going to America! She immediately rushed to the post office to send a telegram with the news to her father and Hilda.

Her student days over, Winnie moved into one of the hostel’s ten-bed dormitories, reserved for working women. She paid 11 shillings a week for her accommodation, excluding meals but including the use of communal recreation rooms and the kitchen, where they were allowed to prepare their own food. Adelaide Tsukudu, a staff nurse at Baragwanath Hospital, slept in the bed next to hers. She was a Tswana from a farm in the Vereeniging district, about ninety kilometres south of Johannesburg, and she and Winnie became close friends, their futures destined to be entwined in ways they could never have imagined at the time.

Adelaide was already in love with Oliver Tambo, whom she would later marry, and Winnie went with her to many ANC meetings at Trades Hall. Winnie found the meetings exciting on both a political level and because they allowed her to meet the workers, the very people she would deal with as a social worker. It was at Trades Hall that she first heard of SACTU, the South African Congress of Trade Unions.

Adelaide and her other friends were as excited as Winnie herself about the prospect of her trip to America, and they spent many happy hours fantasising over what life would be like in the USA. Typically, Winnie scoured the library for books and information on the far-off land that would be her home for the next few years.

But, one day, the postman brought an official envelope, addressed to her, from Baragwanath Hospital. The hospital was on the outskirts of Soweto, the only one in the area for blacks and the largest in the southern hemisphere. As a student, Winnie had often gone to Bara, as it was known, and had even lectured there, but she was utterly astonished to find that the letter contained the offer of a post as the hospital’s first black medical social worker. Adelaide found her sitting on a bench in the hostel entrance hall, staring incredulously at the letter. Without a word, Winnie handed her the sheet of paper. Adelaide, always high-spirited and demonstrative, shrieked and threw her arms around Winnie in delight.

Winnie was overwhelmed. She had already set her sights on further study in America, but what she really wanted was to be a social worker, and now she had the chance to do so, and in Johannesburg, which she loved. She would have to make an agonising choice, and after weighing all the pros and cons, consulted Professor Phillips. He listened to her carefully, but pointed out that ultimately only she could decide what was best for her. She wished she could have discussed her predicament with Professor Hough as well, but he was furthering his studies in Boston and would not return to South Africa until 1957.

When Winnie wrote to her father for advice, he also counselled that she would
have to make her own choice, but as Winnie read his letter she thought she could discern, between the lines, that her father believed their people needed her. She knew her decision would have a profound influence on her life, and in the end was absolutely certain that she had to accept the post at Baragwanath Hospital.

When she told Professor Phillips of her decision, and her regret at not being able to accept the American scholarship, he assured her that she would probably be able to use it at a later date. Some years later, when the occasion did arise for her to study abroad, she again decided against it.

Her fateful decision to stay in South Africa set her on the path of a meeting with Nelson Mandela – and a life of political activism, persecution and imprisonment.

T
HE NEW GENERATION
of educated urban blacks quite naturally formed the black elite of the fifties. This burgeoning group of young professionals – lawyers, teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers – was changing the face of South Africa. They moved in a relatively small circle, and many were friends, colleagues or even members of the same extended families.

When Winnie presented herself at Baragwanath Hospital in 1956 to take up the newly created position of medical social worker, she was a carefree, cheerful and self-confident young woman. Stories and photographs appeared in the newspapers, savouring the achievement of the girl from Pondoland who turned out to be both beautiful and gifted. Winnie sent the newspaper cuttings to Columbus and Hilda.

She launched her career with determination and enthusiasm, and without the slightest premonition that her dreams and ambitions would be dashed by her own principles and choices. Before long she was flooded with cases and totally absorbed in her work: tracing patients’ relatives, sorting out problems related to accident claims and work-related injuries, and arranging funerals. In addition to being patient and compassionate, Winnie was cheerful and dedicated, and became a firm favourite with patients and staff alike. While doing fieldwork in her final year at college, Winnie had come to believe that there could be no worse poverty than she encountered in Tsolo, but what she found in the townships of Johannesburg was all the more shocking when contrasted against the abundance in the City of Gold. Acutely aware of the appalling conditions under which most people were forced to live and angered that this was the result of inequalities built into the system, she needed every grain of tenacity not to be demoralised.

One of her duties was to visit new mothers at home after they had given birth at Bara. The conditions were often heart-rending. People lived in makeshift shacks thrown together from nothing but discarded corrugated iron and board, with stones holding down the roof and rags and newspapers stuffed into openings to keep out the elements. Malnutrition was common, not only because many families could not afford adequate food, but also because young, uneducated mothers
were often ignorant about proper feeding. Research she carried out in Alexandra township to establish the infant mortality rate indicated an alarming ten deaths in every 1 000. As a result of relationships between young urban women and migrant workers – who most often had wives at home – thousands of township babies were illegitimate. Without any means of support, many of the desperate mothers abandoned their newborn infants, often leaving them at Bara.

The first time Winnie had to deal with an abandoned baby, she asked one of her friends, Matthew Nkoane, who was a senior reporter with the
Golden City Post
, to help her trace the mother by publishing the details of the case. It worked, and after reuniting mother and child, Winnie helped her to cope with the initial difficulties. After that, she and Matthew collaborated on more cases, tracing not only runaway mothers but also the relatives of elderly patients who had been left at the hospital. The
Golden City Post also
helped raise funds for the burial of patients who died at the hospital, but whose bodies remained unclaimed. Matthew later joined the breakaway Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), but despite their political differences he and Winnie remained friends for many years.

One of the young doctors at Bara was Nthatho Motlana, who had studied for a BSc degree at Fort Hare before attending the medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand and going on to specialise in paediatrics. Like most of his peers at Fort Hare, he had joined the ANC Youth League and later became its secretary. During the Defiance Campaign he was arrested with Nelson Mandela and thousands of others, given a nine-month suspended sentence and then banned for five years. Motlana later became a leading political figure in Soweto. As chairman of the Committee of Ten, the sprawling township’s unofficial representative body, he was arguably the most prominent man in Soweto in the 1970s. He and his wife Sally became friends with both Winnie and Nelson Mandela, whom he had met at Fort Hare, and when Mandela was imprisoned he appointed Motlana one of the guardians of his children.

It was inevitable that Winnie’s path would cross Motlana’s at Bara, and like the rest of the staff, he was impressed by her. They got on well, and in later years he would say he found working with her both stimulating and encouraging because she was always cheerful and laughed easily – valuable attributes when working under great strain and in difficult circumstances. Winnie had profound concern for the welfare of others, and would assist them even at the expense of her own comfort and safety. Motlana recalled that she always had an acute social conscience, and thought nothing of spending part of her own small salary to help others. She was only a young woman, but frequently spent her free time scouring the townships for the destitute and elderly who had no one to care for them. She often phoned Motlana in the middle of the night and asked him to treat someone who needed medical attention.

For Winnie there was no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle, and when she was convinced that she was right she would not budge under any circumstances. Her colleagues at Bara admired the fact that she was prepared to stand up for her patients against those in authority, both inside and outside the system. Once, Dr Motlana diagnosed pellagra in a patient, and ordered him to take sick leave for three weeks. But the man’s employer refused to release him for the prescribed period, and the patient turned to Winnie, as his social worker, for help. Undaunted, the young woman wrote a scathing letter to the white employer justifying the doctor’s orders, and the patient got his sick leave.