The strange case of Ms. Hope Flower's memory (tlou ga e lebale, no?)

Getting to the Sandton licensing department in Marlboro was not a problem. She has been here before, though, unfortunately she doesn't ask herself why she has been here before. If she had remembered that in the winter of 2007 she had lost her wallet (and her driver's license card), she could have saved herself some time.

Her mind works in strange ways. She is a highly educated woman but her abilities in the arts of practical living are sometimes found to be lacking. Of course, one can sympathise with her forgetfulness on this particular matter. She hates losing things. Losing her wallet was an upsetting experience that, for a while, had been mercifully buried somewhere deep within. She hates losing in general, and in that winter, she had stumbled into an infatuation that would turn out to be totally unrequited. It is even possible, this country being what it is, that the man in question didn't think of her as a woman. On the night she lost her wallet, she had gotten rather drunk so he could be forgiven for not thinking of her as a lady. A few days after that party, she had applied for a new license card, new credit cards, a new medical aid card. All that hassle, forgotten! On most days, you couldn't call her blissful, but she is rarely unhappy. She probably has these bouts of profound forgetfulness to thank for her contentment.

A security man helps her to park her car. She is convinced she has all the necessary documents for her renewal application. The only outstanding thing, she reckons, is to take some ID-sized pictures. She even made sure to call the department in advance to check exactly how much she needs to pay and whether the office accepts card payments. They don't. On her way here, she had stopped at a garage to withdraw some cash. You see, all is not lost on the practical front. She has moments of administrative brilliance. She asks the security man where photographs can be taken. There is always such a place close to a licensing or home affairs department. He directs her to a field a few meters from the office. She decides to walk there.

It is slightly chilly. She is wearing a bright red scarf over a black V-necked top. Her hair is loose, but it is not as severely flat-ironed as it was last week, so it doesn't blow too carelessly in the wind. She clutches her bag. She is usually confident that she can blend in safely anywhere. But this is Marlboro, a stone's throw from Alexandra. Of late, she has been thinking about developing what she calls her 'physical courage'. Being so close to Alex, she is engulfed by a thin layer of apprehension that she can't shake off. As she walks, she tries to imagine what she looks like to others. She feels good, strong, fit. She has some muscle tone these days. She still hasn't decided if this development diminishes her in some way. You let your hair grow, lose weight, what's next - a husband?

In a small open field, perhaps an unoccupied property, she finds a few stalls serving a diversity of needs. There is a mobile food stall. She is feeling the first pangs of hunger. She doesn't bother to look at the board above the stall to see what's on the menu. She knows she won't go there. There is a woman selling airtime. It is not clear to her why there are so many airtime vendors. Why do people need to be sold airtime at every corner, every outlet, through every channel? Are people being constantly seized by airtime emergencies? Two men are running the photo operations. There is a male client standing next to her. He is also laden with traffic department documents. He chats to the photo guys.

"Where are you from?"

"Ga-Molepo." Or something like that. The men speak Sepedi. They are straight from Limpopo. Young men are still leaving their villages in Limpopo to settle amongst their Sepedi-speaking brethren on the margins of affluent suburbs in Johannesburg. This has been going on for too long now.

A white couple in an old, well-preserved Mercedes approach the photo stall and ask for the price. The man doesn't like the price. Someone is charging R5 less around the corner, he claims. The couple leaves. The men mutter - what is wrong with these people? She is also baffled. Where do people find the time to go comparison-shopping for something so cheap?

Pictures taken, she walks back to the licensing department, into the dark building. Dealing with citizen-facing government departments puts her on edge. It mostly has to do with her fears and uncertainties. She never knows what language to speak with officialdom. When she settles on a language, she is never sure how to speak it (the proper uppity Setswana she grew up with? Jozi Sesotho/Setswana street medley? Setswana with bits of English thrown in?). She also dreads being on the receiving end of possibly bad, insulting service meted out by her own people. She tells the man at reception her business. He informs her of the requirements for a card renewal - a copy of an ID document, pictures, a copy of the license card. She wants to scream at him.

"The notice letter doesn't say anything about copies..."

"They won't help you without copies." She flashes the letter. It lists the requirements - an ID, pictures, the expiring card, a fee. They have a brief, pointless argument, one she knows she will lose. This isn't a bank. There isn't a consultant to slip away to make copies of your documents. You bring your own copies here. She storms off, back to the field, to make some photocopies. No time for courageous gestures now, she drives the short distance.

The airtime woman is also in charge of photocopying operations. The copier is connected to power coming from god-knows-where. Ms. Hope Flower is in an angst-ridden trance now. She cares nothing for her surroundings. She gets copies her copies done, then drives back to the licensing department. There are small mercies. The parking spot she gave up is still open.

A man knocks on her window.

"Yes?" she snaps back.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes," she glares at him.

"I need your help."

She gets out of her car.

"Can you help me with these forms?" he asks.

The man is wearing a leather jacket and expensive-looking shoes. He is short. She thinks she might have seen him at the field. She is confused. Why should she help this well-dressed man with his forms? She utters some discouraging sounds.

"You seem educated. Please help me." She glances at his documents. He is applying for a professional, public license so that he can be a minibus taxi driver. She reluctantly agrees to help him. They walk into the building.

She hates forms. She resents bureaucracy. Now her work has been multiplied. She doesn't think of herself as the sort of woman strangers approach for help (aren't men supposed to be intimidated by her?). She puts it down to her eyes. It can't be her smile. She hasn't been smiling much today. She looks around to figure out which lines she needs to join after helping him. He has asked for help. She will give it. She stands next to him. The forms are simple enough. He seems to know what he is doing. She whispers a translation here and there. She can't imagine why he thought he needed help. Then she looks up from the forms. Is this the guy she walked in with? No. Her man is standing a few paces away.

"Oops, I was distracted," she moves towards the right man. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I thought you were busy."

Busy with what, she thinks. She is slowly coming to her senses. For him to have to ask for help...this man is humiliated enough already.

She silently takes over his forms. He gives her a pen (how many times has she been told that a writer never leaves home without a pen - is she a writer? - then again, she has taken to making notes on her blackberry). She gets to work. He supplies her with his identity document. He is her age. He was born just over a month after she was born. And here they are, thirty-one years later: an aspiring writer playing scribe for an aspiring taxi driver. She asks for his current address.

"Ah, my sister, I'm not too sure." He offers a few suggestions. He knows the stand number, he seems to struggle with the overall formulation. She writes something plausible. He assures her the address is not necessary, he will collect the documents from the office when they are ready.

She gets to the dotted line. She has only just learned his name. She doesn't know the nature of his problem: is it the languages that the form is written in (English and Afrikaans)? Is he completely illiterate? Is this an elaborate pick-up ploy? She takes a small breath, turns towards him and thrusts the pen at him. She can barely look. He signs the dotted line - a real signature, not a cross, his real name. She is relieved. Whatever his issues, he can at least sign his name. Not so long ago, she was shocked at the prospect that a man so young, so vital, could be illiterate. Her expectations have plunged within minutes. She is mainly relieved to be done with him.

She joins her queues. A quick eye test. Fingerprints. Then it's time to pay.

"Do I need to apply for a temporary license whilst I'm waiting for my new card?" The woman behind the bars pauses, examines her.

"If you need to."

"Really? It's up to me?"

The woman rolls her eyes. "When does your card expire?"

"Well, here's the strange thing. It says on the card that it expires in 2012 but I got a notice for renewal."

"Ignore the letter. If your card says 2012, come here in 2012."

Suddenly, she remembers that due to a silly mistake on her part, she is in trouble with the taxman. If she can make such mistakes, if she can't trust herself on these types of issues, she certainly can't trust these people. She is shown to the supervisor's office. It takes a few clicks on the supervisor's computer and all is recalled.

"Weren't you here in 2007?"

Yes...

She walks out of the neat room. What was the point of this hour? In her world, there has to be a point to everything. Things start coming to her; they seem to come from deep inside her bones. This is not the stuff of short term or long term memory. She is entering the ancestral realm. There are people she has never met, events that preceded her birth, catastrophes that reign over generations, that are a part of her. This is not about remembering, it is about coming into her being; a long repressed, almost inaccessible, being. The man who asked for her help was an angel who had come to remind her of a world that is becoming steadily incomprehensible to her - that other place where people buy airtime all the time in tiny denominations, run businesses under the sun and need help with filling out forms. That world, ever so very close, always in her heart, yet so easy to forget.

Joburg is alive again

This week I attended three very different events. It never ceases to amaze how Johannesburg dies in the winter and then undergoes this spectacular resurrection from spring onwards. Or maybe it's just me. As I was driving from one event this afternoon, it occured to me that perhaps it is better this way - I can't imagine a full year, action packed events calendar. Then again, maybe it's just me, there are a lot of people who confess to boredom in this city and who might not mind a year round social/cultural scene.

On Wednesday, I attended an investor showcase at the JSE. It was sponsored by my bank and it was one of those occassions where company CEOs/CFOs come to give short presentations to lowly retail investors. It was my second time at these showcases and once again, the turnout was quite impressive.

Now the first showcase I went to was sponsored by my stockbroker and the audience was about 15% black. This second one, sponsored by a private bank, was about 40% black (how I look forward to the day we don't talk so much about race, however, that day is not yet upon us!). I mention all this because though one can't assume that all private bank clients are investors, there is clearly a growing black investor base. Private bank clients might have above average incomes but this being a hyper-consumer society, that says nothing about their asset base (this might also be the time to confess that I bank at this place because of my 'potential' as demonstrated by qualifications & not my income). Anyhow, though not all the black members of the audience couldn't be assumed to investors, it is hard to dispute that the demographics of the investment market are changing. The black members of the audience were far younger than anyone else in the room. My bank has always had a fairly white customer base (though the senior management is more transformed than that at any other major bank). Not only is the bank's customer base racially skewed, it is also quite small, so one can't generalise based on its experience. FNB, a genuine giant in the South African market, was recently reported in the media as saying that the majority of its investment/savings clients are black.

What does all this mean? Hopefully, that corporate South Africa can no longer go on as it has, addressing itself only to a small fraction of society but that it will see itself as serving all of this society's customers, employees, investors and communities. I'll have to report back on this one in five year's time.

Next event was the Arts Alive spoken word/music concert last night. It was fabulous. The Bassline wasn't too full, and we managed to get a table. The hostess for the evening was Karabo Kgoleng. I would have loved to corner her, perhaps she might help me find a publisher for my novel. I enjoyed listening to Kabomo. His poetry was extremely honest about the ways in which men sometimes hurt women and how they fall short of their women's and their own expectations. There was a woman from Botswana, T. J. Tema and she was also amazing. She wore a sexy strapless dress, high heels and her hair rocked. Ikpi, a Nigerian-American poet, also rocked a similar look. The scruffy, over-layered, 'natural hair', 'street poet' look was nowhere in sight, thank God! T.J was bold and her poetry covered familiar ground about the struggles of women in contemporary Africa, but it was also inventive and fresh and oh so beautifully delivered. I detected some theatrical/voice/performance training up in there.

What absolutely made the evening for me was the music. Neo Muyanga and Madosini are breathtaking in their rendering of African classical music. Madosini plays these fragile, intricate traditional music instruments like uhadi. The sound is so gentle yet powerful. She matches her playing with soaring, sometimes eerie vocals - it's all just amazing to watch. I totally understood where Karabo Kgoleng was coming from when she expressed her sorrow that she was not necessarily well-taught about her heritage. But, happily, it's never too late to learn.

It was a beautiful evening. The last time I saw Neo Muyanga, whose music is global and traditional Southern African and soulful and joyous all at the same time, was at the Bassline when it was still a small, hangout in Melville. This was about eight years ago. A friend of mine burst into tears when Neo and his then band-mate Masouka performed 'Soul Smile'. We laughed our heads off at her. The song is too lovey-dovey but it also very moving. I didn't cry, but I remember that there and then, I decided to end a relationship that didn't make my soul smile, and I went back to res and did just that. Granted, you are more decisive when you are 22! The Muyanga power was on full display at the new Bassline and our table was mesmerised. The hostess did us all a big favour by announcing that the man is taken. I know some ladies who are quite gifted in persistence and the legal variants of stalking.

Wits University has quite an interesting programme/think tank that links African and Indian intellectuals. I attended one lecture, part of the Words on Water South African-Indian literary festival, titled 'Narratives of the Post-Colonial State'. I went to this lecture because Mandla Langa was scheduled to speak (alongside Ramachandra Guha), with Jacob Dlamini as discussant. I haven't read Mandla Langa's fiction but the reviews of his latest work peaked my interest. Unfortunately he could not make it.

I had never heard of Guha. I'm glad I attended the lecture. He was fascinating. He is a historian who has written about post-independence India. He was quite good at teasing out the similarities between India and South Africa, two places he considers the most interesting countries in the world. India, in his eyes, is a third rate democracy with a first rate constitution. He sees SA in the same light. Of course we think we have at least a second rate democracy, but the changes we have seen in the country's leadership, truth be told, all have to do with the resurgence of democracy within the ANC. They have a lot do with contesting personalities within a single party and not contesting policies amongs different parties. There is indeed a lot we can learn from the Congress party in India when it comes to moving from a post-liberation, one-party state to a true multi-party state. Now, our ballot papers are pretty long but with the weak-ass opposition parties we have, this second transition is going to take some time.

Guha is not a utopian. He does not see the post-colonial narrative as either a romance (good triumphs over evil, we all live happily ever after) or a tragedy (the corrupt, conflict-ridden post-colonial mess with no end is sight). He sees our condition simply as human, as a balance between conflicing interests, as the messy but beautiful outcome of compromise. Most South Africans agonise on 'where the country is going'. This phenomenon amazes me. For starters, no-one can predict the future. To agonise about it without doing anything about building a better future is also pretty idiotic. There is also this helplessness that is expressed (alongside the laziness and lack of vision), this sentiment that if the country goes down the drain, it will be no-one's fault, just post-liberation fate. I also find the underlying sense of entitlement that accompanies this agony to be offensive. To live in prosperity and peace is something that a society strives for, it is not anyone's birthright. You just don't rock up in the world and expect to be in Switzerland. If there are conflicts to be sorted out, they cannot be swept under the carpet. If a society is traumatised, you just can't fast forward the healing part. The world just doesn't work that way.