Goldie the Builder
I built my family’s own home in a settlement near St Mark's. I made it in the traditional way, out of mud bricks plastered with a mixture of cow dung and mud. I hired somebody to make mud bricks.
Then I took the bricks to the builder in a wheelbarrow and carried water to him in a bucket on my head. When the walls were built, I smeared the plaster mixture over the mud bricks. We worked hard through the winter, when there are no rains, and in about six months we had a house, with a bedroom, dining room and kitchen.
Single Motherhood
As soon as we were married, Otto went off to work in Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape, at the Saldanha Bay Canning Company. He had no choice. There was no work in the Transkei. He was away for 23 years and for all that time we saw each other for only three weeks a year, during his holiday. Four years after our marriage, after Vusi, our first child, was born, I went to Langa in Cape Town with the baby to be closer to Otto for a while, and stayed with his aunt Nomalizo.
The police were cruising around the streets asking people for their passes, so I had to stay inside and hide. Nomazilo and her children had passes. 'You are welcome here, but don't walk around the location during the week or the police will get you,' she warned me. During the weekends it was much better. The police went home and we could go to town.
How wonderful Cape Town was, with shops full of clothes and meat; and everything so much cheaper than the Transkei. I could also take Vusi to a good doctor for a check-up. Later, Otto bought me a sewing machine and knitting machine in Cape Town. They have brought me so much joy because I love making things. But staying inside all the time was impossible. I was in Cape Town for a month, then I left.
Love Triumphs
Some years were very frustrating for Otto. He once got a job in Cape Town at the head office of the food workers' union, working with the general secretary, Jan Theron. They used to go to companies where workers were having disputes with their bosses, to sort it all out. It was such a difficult situation for Otto.
He wanted to do the work, but if the police had caught him at it, they would have put him in jail and where would that have left our four children and me? So while it was hard for a husband and wife to be apart, we had no choice. Somehow we found the strength to do what we had to do.
Only now, when we are both retired, have we been living together and spending all our time together, getting to know each other properly. We are happy at home now. The other day, I told my husband I wanted to have a second marriage, to call all the people we know, the old and the young, so that they can see we are marrying for the second time.
He said, 'And what am I going to wear?' I said, 'Oh, we'll also need a cow — a fat cow — and a sheep, to celebrate.' 'We'd better get working so we can save, because neither of us has a job now and we're going to need a lot of money,' he said. So I told him, 'Do you see that you were too jealous of me to permit me to be a teacher, but now you release me?' 'Yes, because you are old,' he said. 'Nobody else is going to marry you anymore.’ Oh, I burst out laughing. I laughed and laughed, until there were tears in my eyes.
By Jo-Anne Smetherham