1991 - [Brigadier] Ivan [The Terrible] Nelson [Mandela] Cadri was born.
Let me explain that a little. This is not really my story to tell but Ivan will never tell it so...
Brigadier - Ivan's Godfather is Brigadier Ivan Koreta, or at least that was his title at Ivan's birth. He may have a new one now.
The Terrible - Daddy was being poetic, I think. He spent so many years in the Soviet Union that he adopted their history. Ivan the Terrible was part of that history. I think it also says something about how much of a crazy child this boy was/was to become. Nothing, no electrical gadgets are safe. Leave nothing unguarded. He once tried to design some contraption [mouse trap or something], plugged it into the wall socket in his room and caused a short circuit. We had no electricity and thought the government was targeting us. Meanwhile, the boy was quietly sleeping.
Mandela - He was last sign of hope for a really free Africa. I think Mummy was the one with the poetic tones in that case.
1994 - Mandela's term of office ends. He retires, refuses a second term and hands the nation over to uThabo Mbeki.
1995 - My parents have the grand idea of taking their three musketeers to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Until 1990 or thereabouts, there was red stamp in my passport that declared that I could travel to any country except the Republic of South Africa. I did not understand apartheid. I did not understand what the sanctions meant or why they were being enforced. I only knew about the red stamp. I don't remember that there were many bazungu around during my infancy. In the movies, they lived, breathed and died like the rest of us. I could understand their speech. It had never occurred to me to think of them as different from the rest of us. We had a kind mzungu chauffeur us around through out our trip. She insisted on showing us around in order to keep us from the "bad" parts of town. Needless to say, we never made it to Soweto or Alexandria. We did get to see the national sports centre [name escapes me]. They still had the signs showing the separate areas for white and coloured folk.
It was the biggest airport I had ever seen. Despite the trip to Nairobi, I still believed that airports belonged in the outskirts of the city. Johannesburg International Airport was right in the thick of things. We could almost see it from our hotel window. We were there in December, summer time. Growing up in the tropics, we were unaccustomed to the four seasons of time. The sun was up by 5 am. Poor father had to endure our noise as early as that. However, we soon discovered Yo-TV, K-TV's older brother and thus began the TV addiction. I think they knew we would be up so early. Why else would they have children's programming on at 6 am? When we got bored of that, we started exploring the hotel. Uganda did not have coins at the time. We were fascinated by the vending machine and how it swallowed the rand and 50ct coins. I'm sure Daddy wished he had woken up earlier on that day.
Johannesburg was my first time to travel by bus. I'm sure they told me our destination - but I was 7. I was more preoccupied with the chocolate that I'd been given to console me during the long drive. As children, we played this game with unwritten rules, seeing whose treats would last the longest so that the winner could torment the others. I held my precious chocolate tightly and guarded it throughout the trip. I drifted off to sleep and dreamt of the things children dream of - animals and sweets and YoTV. I woke up to see the bus driver smiling at me. My vision was blurred but I could see that the smile was turning into laughter. Then I got up and what I thought was sweat started to slide down my neck. The entire chocolate bar had melted in my hands, and since I had slept on my hand, onto my face. Thankfully, we had arrived - Sun City.
In the craziness of the next day or days, my chocolate mess was forgotten. I believe this place is a bit like Las Vegas in the sense that you lose track of time. I do not know if we were there for days or a few hours. Did we sleep, or eat at all? I do not recall. I remember the slots. Lines and lines of them. Our fascination with coins and coin-swallowing machines was in for a treat. I was/am hopeless at these games. I cannot shoot to save my life and then there was that silly badger or whatever it was that would not let me hammer its head. Tetris is my game. I would have done better at that. Ivan, of course was excellent. he won a bunch of tickets, which he converted into a boomerang and then proceeded to torture us with it for the rest of the trip.
There was a pool that mimics the ocean waves. We had no swimsuits, we tend to forget those a lot. So mummy said we could join in the fun in our clothes. I'm guessing this was not unusual because there were no strange stares or at least I did not feel or see them. Perhaps we were intoxicated. Who jumps into the water with all their clothes on? Who lets their children do that? The waves were awesome. I was enjoying a mini competition with some of the other children, to see who could out-swim each wave. Did we ever eat or sleep, I wonder? The waves went on for ever.
The last thing I remember was us, walking back to the hotel after a spot of grocery shopping. We met a group of men. They asked Daddy questions in what I later learnt was Sotho. He of course responded, in English, that he did not understand. They seemed upset, perhaps disgusted that we chose not to speak their tongue. I felt their anger. I did not understand it.
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