Over the next week, South Africa mourned Mandela’s death and celebrated his life. People from all over the world came to pay their respects. At the memorial service in Johannesburg, the heavens opened up and it rained and rained. We listened to parts of the service on the radio in the Gazette office. The office was hot and dry and we sat still, listening as the fan turned slowly round and round. The president of Tanzania reminded us that in Africa, rain is the biggest blessing. Rain will fall when a chief arrives. The skies were celebrating as the chief, Mandela, went to heaven.
‘His grandmother was San, you know,’ said Jessie. ‘The Bushmen know how to make rain.’
During Barack Obama’s speech Jessie started crying and even Hattie was dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief. I had already done my crying. I was surprised to see how moved Jessie was. She was too young to know Mandela. But he was the kind of man whose story and whose dreams reached across the ages. And like Mandela and Obama, Jessie was passionate about justice.
We all liked the lines that Obama quoted – the ones that kept Mandela going when he was in prison for all those years – about being captain of your own soul.
The day of Mandela’s funeral was an unofficial public holiday. I was surprised that even Ladismith took the day off to honour Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Twenty years ago the whites and even many of the coloureds would have seen him as a terrorist, like my mother did. But Mandela in his life and in his death managed to win their hearts. He reminded us all of the goodness in ourselves and each other.
I met up with Jessie and Hattie at the Ladismith Hotel, and the bar was full of people watching the funeral service on the big-screen television. The hotel served coffee and rusks at no charge, and had brought in a whole lot of white plastic chairs alongside the usual wooden ones. The curtains were closed, so we could see the TV nicely.
The bank manager in a suit was sitting alongside the old coloured man who begs outside the Spar. And the young black policemen were drinking coffee with the old white women who work in the furniture store. Everyone was sitting together as if they were old friends, in a way you don’t usually see in Ladismith.
When they carried Mandela’s coffin off, I had to work at not crying. Jessie, Hattie and me sat there, with our heads held up high. I hoped that Mandela’s spirit would live on in us somehow.