16 November 1860
Dr Deena Padayachee
This is a day to remember our antecedents
And all they had done so that we could be where we are today.
It is a day that fills one with nostalgia and reverence.
We have come such a long way in the land of our birth.
When I was born we were not allowed to swim at Salt Rock tidal pool
And the local school was for whites only.
We were not allowed in at the front of the post office
And we were not allowed on the beach.
Our ancestors knew what it was to be savagely abused
by the clever , the cunning and the educated.
Barely lettered,
My utterly poor community built a primary school on land that they had donated.
My family, existing in shacks, hacked out roads in a veritable jungle and they
sank a borehole for water.
They bought a diesel generator to create electricity for the Saw Mill that they
had created and for their homes.
They were excluded from the local white controlled municipalities,
They were not allowed to buy land in Ballito, Salt Rock or Umhlali.
They knew bitter racism at every turn,
They knew crude, racist discrimination and vulgar, racist words,
But somehow they survived.
They were people of honour.
They did not smoke or drink.
They eschewed the way of the crafty con artist and the sly, vile, back stabbing
thief,
Foul language did not leave their lips no matter what the provocation.
They endured the terror of Apartheid,
They endured the torment of their skins.
They prayed, they believed in God,
They survived.
Hailing from sweated indentured labour on sugar cane farms and from Chakaskraal
barracks
They learned every trade they could in order to feed their children.
My father began in those barracks and became a carpenter and a gardener.
He even did a course on how to mend watches.
Honesty and hard work was his motto
As he tried to cope with dishonest people and dishonourable felons
who stole land and stole money according to the laws
that they had created for that purpose.
His answer was to work, work all the time,
Answer their stealing with hard, back breaking, productive work
building schools, homes, chairs, tables, boxes.
Planting roses, sugar cane, trees, azaleas and bougainvillea.
Litchi, Avocado and Jackfruit trees abounded on their land,
Banana trees and orange trees.
They ran a tea room and kept long hours
Making just a few cents a day.
They even cooked Indian food and sold that to their fellow human beings.
They stayed open for the late customer and worked on Sundays.
They knew what it was to be hungry, to not have,
They did not waste.
They arose by 5 am, they slogged all day and sometimes into the night.
Too often they laboured seven days a week.
Their water was often a rusty brown,
The generator broke down,
They worked by candle light, by lamp light,
They cooked on coal stoves.
Their clothes were often old and shabby,
Missing a button or two, sometimes torn,
But they were proud of who they were.
They had turned the land green,
They were a valuable people
Who loved their families, loved their homes,
loved their country, loved life.
They were often abed by eight pm.
They lived within their means, in simple, rustic homes,
Proud of their bare feet, their honourable, chaste wives and their studious
children.
They worked symbiotically with African, coloured and white people,
No matter what the laws of the land
They tried to get on with everybody.
The same God had created them all,
Had He not?
They did their duty, they kept their word,
They were people of honour.
They refused to be broken by South Africa
They refused to bend the knee to arrogant, insolent, vicious, cruel tyrants,
They had children,
They resisted.
They all played a part in freeing Robben Island,
In welcoming the exiles back home.
They survived, even prospered.
We stand on their shoulders
And try to live up to our incredible heritage.
They were a decent, good, God fearing people
too often at the mercy of beings who were the antithesis of all that they were.
We batten down the hatches,
We bolt the doors and padlock the bedroom,
Somehow we too try to survive.
