"I Went in Through the Window"

One of the joys of living in a post-apartheid state is realizing that you are surrounded by silent activists. Sure, these people exist in every country and come from every walk of life, but we are more likely to hear about people that choose to make a cause their life than people that have been forced to take up a cause as a part of everyday life.

Cato Manor has a past of activists by necessity. During Cato Manor’s early days, women stumbled into activism when the state tried to ban shebeens (informal bars run by women) and replace them with state bars. The women responded by organizing on Sundays (Zulu men like to drink after church), storming in to the government bars, and driving the men out with force and more creative tactics like dunking their underwear in the beer vats.



Fast forward a few years and Cato Manor has been torn down. Its African and Indian residents have been moved to different townships. Fast forward a few more years (about fifteen years ago) and Cato Manor is being rebuilt as an Indian township. Families have already deposited money on all of the houses and some lucky ones were already moved in. That’s when legend has it that Nelson Mandela and the rest of the ANC told the Zulu mamas to move on in.

Mama Busi, one of the host mamas said, “There were lots of houses for the Indians and no houses for us. So we took them…My sister needed a house so I took two.” I asked my mama how she got her house and she said, “I went in through the window. Nelson Mandela told us to.” This happened around two in the afternoon, as mamas walked from Chesterville, a township on the other side of town. Mama Dudu said that they looked in the windows, “and walked away very slowly if there was a family inside” until they found an empty house. One mama couldn’t find a key so she used the window as a door for a year. Few had water or electricity hooked up so some went to neighbors’ houses and some went back and forth between old houses and new houses for a few years.

Today I met another accidental activist when we visited an AIDS and cancer day clinic. Zandile went through full-blown AIDS and is back on her feet, talking to people in clinics and even people on the radio about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Unfortunately, she was pregnant with her last child before Nevirapine was readily available to prevent vertical transmission of HIV, so her daughter now has the virus. She said, “I had trouble telling my daughter she had to start ARV. But because I was talking about myself [and my HIV+ status] it was better.” Now Zandile is a community health worker that supports HIV+ children, encouraging them to take their medication.

Many more accidental activists to come, I am sure.