Meeting Mr Mandela
Soon after the elections in 1994 the incoming government needed to recruit new people. My department was tasked to help with the huge project of making the former apartheid government more ‘representative’, in other words we had to hire more black people. It was the beginning of transformation. South Africa was to be governed for all. It would represent all its people.
Thousands and thousands of people applied. It took us weeks to come up with short-lists for posts advertised. It was clear that there was a great shortage of skilled people but that indeed people in South Africa were desperate for work. A lot of applications couldn’t be processed as a result of illiteracy, applicants having been denied a decent education during apartheid. I worked very hard to process these applications. There was no incentive to do so but my nature is such that if given a task I have to complete it in the shortest possible time. I am one of those people who like to clear things off their mental notes and I often work unnecessarily at a pace that is not required. I was looking for a new job, I wanted a new start, away from my broken engagement, but in the meantime I focused all my attention on processing applications.
Then a colleague told me about a typist’s job being advertised in an administrative department attached to the newly established President’s office. The position would mean being based six months of the year in Pretoria and six months in Cape Town. Whenever Parliament was in session, politicians, their families and support staff lived and worked from Cape Town as our Parliament is housed in Cape Town. Whenever Parliament went in recess, politicians and their families and staff would move back to Pretoria, the administrative capital. It is something I had always dreamt of doing and the fact that the job was on a lower rank than the one I currently occupied didn’t matter. What I also found attractive was that the position was advertised for the Minister without Portfolio and I thought that surely someone without a portfolio didn’t have a lot of work and it therefore couldn’t be too hard to work for him. Later of course I learned that ‘without portfolio’ simply meant that the minister could be tasked with ad hoc issues and therefore had no fixed portfolio or agenda to attend to.
I soon started discussions within my own department to inform my seniors that I would apply for the job, providing that I could be transferred on the same salary scale if I was successful in the application. They agreed.
The job interview was at the Union Buildings. Not only was I no longer rolling around on the lawn, but a black man was now the most powerful man in South Africa. And he was making sure people like me, conservative Afrikaans white folk, were included in this new government. People were friendly and relaxed and I noticed that there were still a lot of white faces around despite the new ANC government being in power.
During the interview, a black lady entered. She appeared cheerful and flamboyant. Dressed in a colourful satin outfit it was a picture I was not used to – that of a black lady dressed in such style and clearly in something that was more expensive than my mother’s most prized outfit. We were rudely interrupted by her during the interview but she exclaimed to my interviewers: ‘I need a typist and I don’t care if she’s black or white but I need her right now.’ I smiled and thought: I’m your person. I had no idea what her position was. She briefly exchanged a few words with my two interviewers and then left. My interviewers telephoned me hours after the interview to ask whether I would be interested in a typist position in the actual President’s office itself, and it was explained that it would involve working in his personal office. I only had Cape Town in mind, and since they assured me that the job would be on the same terms as the advertised post, I said I was interested.
They told me that the lady that had entered the interview before was the President’s private secretary. My understanding was that I was going to work for her, Mary Mxadana, and she looked fairly pleasant. While still working at the Department of State Expenditure I had been tasked to train two junior black officials who had joined our department after the transformation process kicked in. They appeared friendly and I ended up working well with them. Slowly but surely I was starting to see black people a little differently. I was no longer inherently scared of all black people. I was starting to converse with them in normal language, without thinking that they could only understand broken Afrikaans or English. Mary was friendly and she made me feel at ease even though I had my doubts.
I realized that I was going to work in an office that was closer to the political centre of the beliefs I still opposed but I thought it was just a job and I wouldn’t have much to do with real politics. I was willing to compromise and by then toyed with the idea that I actually liked the President of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the opposition to the ANC. I liked him from seeing him on TV during the election campaign and I thought that since I had changed my mind about him, Nelson Mandela couldn’t be that bad either. I was willing to give it a try but was very realistic about the fact that if I didn’t like working there, nothing would stop me from leaving.
I can’t remember feeling anything except relief when I was called and offered the position. Two weeks after the interview I assumed duty in the President’s office as senior ministerial typist.
* * *
On 12 October 1994 I walked into the Union Buildings for the first time as an employee of President Mandela’s personal office. I had seen pictures of him but knew nothing about him apart from the fact that he spent a long time in prison on Robben Island and that my family regarded him a terrorist. I didn’t expect to have any interactions with him or ever see him.
I was well on time and received in reception by another staffer who took me through several glass doors and through security checks to reach what was known as the President’s suite. It constituted a few offices along a corridor. She showed me a desk and computer in what looked like a ‘pool’ office, even though the only other desk was hers. She was an administrator answering the President’s private office switchboard and assisting with ad hoc administration.
She explained that the President’s personal office consisted of only Mary, herself and Elize Wessels. Elize was from the de Klerk government and used to work for the former First Lady, Marike de Klerk.
I sensed there was a tense atmosphere between the ‘old’ or white staff and the ‘new’ or black staff and that people were still marking territory and claiming positions in the new government. It was also clear that the ‘old’ guard were there to slowly ease the new leadership into power, guiding and teaching them, willing or unwillingly.
It was only much later that Mary arrived at the office. She had a presence about her that could be felt even without noticing her at first. She carried authority and dressed colourfully, which added to her vibrant personality. She entered the office like a whirlwind and hugged me to welcome me to the office. She was extremely friendly and made me feel at ease. Not having worked for a black person before, I was reluctant to let my defences go too soon. There was a superficial trust between black and white people. We still didn’t know what to expect of one another. I was prepared to work for her but I held on to my political beliefs, thinking that my practical and financial situation had forced me to be in this office.
It is not necessarily a trait of all Afrikaners but generally speaking we have respect for people of authority or elderly people; whether we agree with their policies or not we were always courteous. If your principles did not allow you to respect a person you would simply ignore that person. I found I respected Mary. She told me about the liberation struggle. I started to be intrigued by the history of my own country. It felt like I had lived on another planet and I was completely unaware of anything she was telling me. Perhaps it was precisely that innocence and ignorance that made her feel at ease with me. She was very warm and friendly towards me and we shared a passion for music. She told me about her choir and brought me a CD to listen to. Her husband was the conductor of the choir and she was one of the founding members. They sang like angels.
Over the next two weeks I was orientated more about the operations around the President. He was nowhere to be seen or heard and I started assuming that I would possibly see him at a distance ‘one day’, but I did meet a number of people, from Parks Mankahlana, whom I was told spoke on the President’s behalf, to Tony Trew, whom I was told helped write all the President’s speeches, to the head of our office, referred to as the Director General of the Presidency, Professor Jakes Gerwel. It took me some time to figure out who did what and to remember names.
My main task was to type for Mary and to update the President’s programme regularly. She soon taught me how to distribute the programme to the President’s security and I was told to ensure that I sent it to both the white and the black commanders of his security team simultaneously. The South African Police Service was going through a transformation process like all government departments and amalgamating the ANC’s old military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and Apla from Azapo, another of the old liberation struggle parties, into the old white-dominated police force. Not everything made sense immediately and I would have to send the same fax twice to the same number but mark it for different people’s attention. It was clearly a cosmetic merger in the police force and the two sides were very much operating independently, still trying to establish trust. But I’m a person who lives by the book. If instructions are issued, I follow them to the letter, and I did so without questioning or arguing about practicalities.
About two weeks into my time at the Presidency the President was scheduled to be in the office for the first time. By this time Mary had told me a little about the President, what type of person he was and that he was kind but disciplined. Afrikaners grow up with a sense of respect for any authority and before having met him, I had respect for him, purely because he was the President of the country. He hadn’t done anything publicly to prove the contrary and I therefore had no reason to disrespect him.
From my early arrival at the office that morning I could sense an unusual tension within the building but at the same time a kind of excitement. The police guarding our private office were alert and their uniforms neatly pressed, and soon a team of men in dark suits arrived presenting themselves as the advance team of the President’s bodyguards. It was then time for the President to arrive and I closed the door leading to my office so as not to disturb anything that might be happening in the corridors. From passing footsteps and ructions I gathered that the President had arrived and he went past my office down the corridor into his office. Guests arrived to see him and were taken to his office without delay. They were all punctual and everything flowed with military precision. I sat quietly in my chair, awaiting instructions from anyone. I had noticed that the bodyguards were all armed and I was tense and cautious not to make any sudden move that could be misinterpreted. It was my first encounter with armed people in close proximity, and it made me nervous.
A few hours later Mary asked me to type something and bring it to her office once I was ready. So I did. I was looking at the piece of paper in front of me when I nearly bumped into President Nelson Mandela as he was exiting Mary’s office into the corridor surrounded by bodyguards. He extended his hand first to shake mine; I was confused and not sure whether it was proper for me to greet him. I said, ‘Good morning, Mr Mandela.’ One doesn’t really know what to do at that point except cry. Which I did. It was all too much. I was sobbing. He then spoke to me but I didn’t understand him and was completely in shock. I had to say ‘Excuse me Mr President’ for him to repeat what he had just said to me, and after gathering my thoughts or guts – I’m not sure which – I realized that he addressed me in Afrikaans. My home language.
He was visibly old and appeared kind. I focused on the wrinkles on his face and his warm, sincere smile. He spoke with a caring voice and in a kind manner and asked me my name. I was ready to pull back my hand after shaking his but he held on. I could feel the texture of his hand on mine and I started perspiring. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to hold this black man’s hand. I wanted him to let go but he didn’t and he asked where I came from and where I worked. I wasn’t sure whether to answer in Afrikaans or English and cannot remember which I chose, but we conversed in a mixture of Afrikaans and English. I was completely overtaken by emotion and couldn’t continue. I then had a feeling of guilt that swept over me. I felt guilty that this kindly spoken man with gentle eyes and generosity of spirit spoke to me in my own language after ‘my people’ had sent him to jail for so many years. I instantly regretted voting ‘No’ in the referendum. How do you correct all of that prejudice in five minutes? Suddenly, I wanted to apologize. I hadn’t given any thought to what twenty-seven years of imprisonment would be like, but I knew I was not even twenty-seven years of age. I was a mere twenty-three, about to turn twenty-four and I couldn’t comprehend an entire lifetime in prison.
Mr Mandela noticed that I was unable to continue our conversation and still held onto my hand as he put his left hand on my shoulder and tapped it while he said, ‘It’s OK, calm down, I think you are overreacting.’ I was firstly not used to someone being so direct to me to tell me that I’m overreacting and, secondly, I was embarrassed that it was a President telling me this. I calmed down and he was obviously in a hurry so we parted. His last words were ‘I am happy to meet you and hope to see you again.’ As we parted I thought: Ye, right. How can I be important to a President? After all, it’s my people that put him through all that suffering.
I was in shock for the entire day and went home, telling my parents that I met the President today, and what a nice man he appeared to be. He spoke to me in Afrikaans. My parents didn’t ask any questions and continued doing whatever they were busy with at the time, unaffected by my announcement. Probably used to me exaggerating a bit, I got the impression that they thought I was lying. I went to sleep puzzled by our encounter, not knowing where my thoughts or feelings were about this gentleman, perceived by my family and community to be a terrorist.
The next day I interrogated Mary about the fact that the President was so fluent in Afrikaans. She explained that he had learned Afrikaans in prison and he did so purposefully to communicate with his warders. It only struck me later that he obviously also charmed the apartheid leaders with his Afrikaans whenever he met them during negotiations. It is quite an amusing experience when events override what your brain expects. The last thing any Afrikaner would expect from Nelson Mandela was that he spoke to you in Afrikaans. It all became clear when he told me much later that, ‘When you speak to a man you speak to his head but when you speak to him in his language you speak to his heart.’ And that is exactly what he did. I came to understand that by learning the language of the warders he could almost seduce them. Afrikaans, being the language of the oppressor, was a much-hated language at the time and synonymous with the apartheid regime. I later also learned that Afrikaans was imposed as the main language for black education in 1974. This resulted in the Soweto uprising in 1976 in which about 20,000 black students took part, and although official figures estimated that the uprising resulted in 176 deaths it is widely believed that up to 700 students died during the protest. Black people were not accounted for in South Africa in those years and therefore official figures and estimates never correlated as there was no existing official register.
* * *
In the weeks that followed I saw the President at a distance on a few occasions as he passed in and out of the office. I concentrated on my typing and supporting Mary and never bothered to be around or be seen when he was in the office. Instead, I befriended the bodyguards, black and white. Some of them were very caring about me and inquisitive about my background. I was never sure whether they were checking on me or not, asking questions out of pure interest or whether it was as part of their job to establish any threat I may pose to the President.
Every time the President passed my office, I ensured that my door was closed so as to avoid having another emotional interaction with him. I literally hid away when I heard him approaching and only saw his back as he was passing the office. I was happy with his presence in the office though, as it brought about some excitement and a list of interesting visitors. I was more intrigued by him than by the visitors and hardly took notice of them, apart from knowing that some of them had names I recognized from the media or magazines.
I do recall the newly crowned Miss South Africa visiting, Basetsana Makgalamela. I had some practice before she arrived in pronouncing her surname and managed by the time she arrived. She met with the President and we were called by Mary after the meeting to meet Miss South Africa.
Mary announced one afternoon that the President wished to see all his personal staff for lunch at his official residence the next day. Soon after his inauguration he renamed the Presidential house Mahlamba Ndlopfu, meaning ‘start of a new dawn’. I thought that was quite appropriate. I was extremely nervous and definitely not ready to eat with any President. I had no idea what cutlery to use first, and one of my colleagues told me to simply watch her and follow her example, which put me at ease. I had also asked my mother the night before what to do about a selection of cutlery and she grabbed her Emsie Schoeman book – a South African lady who was considered the authority on etiquette – and I got a crash-course in table manners.
Arriving at Mahlamba Ndlopfu we were escorted to a sitting room. The President was still in a meeting but our arrival was announced to him. He ended his meeting and joined us in the lounge. He greeted us each by shaking hands and in a relaxing way conversing with us as a group, walking us to the dining room. By now I managed to control myself and I didn’t cry. It was a kind gesture from his side to invite his staff to lunch, and looking at my colleagues it crossed my mind that the seven of us at that point were almost representative of all races in South Africa: Mary Mxadana, his private secretary, was black; Morris Chabalala, one of the assistant private secretaries, also black; Elize Wessels, the other assistant private secretary, white; Alan Pillay, the administrative officer, Indian; Lenois Coetzee, the receptionist, white; Olga Tsoko, the other receptionist, black; and then me, the most junior in age and rank, white.
I was told that shortly after his inauguration the President called all the staff from the old Presidency, people who had served the previous regime, to a meeting, allaying their fears of being fired or made redundant without discussion or them having a choice in the matter. He asked people to stay and help build the new government of national unity but also gave them the option of leaving if they wished to move on. Staff greatly appreciated the President giving them a choice. The President’s office was now a mixture of black and white people representing the ‘Rainbow nation’ he often referred to in speeches.
I’d noticed, too, that in Tuynhuys, the President’s office in Cape Town situated next to Parliament, the pictures of the old Presidents and Prime Ministers continued to hang on the walls. Again I’d found it strange that he wouldn’t erase the past, seeing as how these people had spearheaded the oppression of his people and imprisoned him. But I was told that President Mandela insisted that those not be removed. That they were part of South Africa’s history, no matter how unpleasant the memories were.
At the lunch, a round table was set and I quickly chose a chair far from his to avoid any uncomfortable conversation or difficult questions from him, and I didn’t want to take a chair of someone that wanted to sit next to him. It was 1 p.m. and instead of lunch, one of the housekeepers entered the room with a small FM black box-type radio. It looked like an antique and something that was not seen often being used any longer. It was time for the news and the radio was switched on and put on the window shelf. While the news was being read on radio we all looked at one another uncomfortably. The President listened with concentration, clearly taking seriously what was being read. I vaguely recall mention about South Africa acting as a peace-keeping force in Africa, the Achille Lauro sinking off the coast of Somalia and Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere announcing their separation. I was trying to concentrate on the news but my thoughts wandered about the President, what he felt and thought at that time and, most importantly, how he felt about the three white Afrikaners at his lunch table.
Following the news lunch was served. To the contrary of what I expected, lunch was simple. It consisted of a starter, main course, dessert and coffee. The food was home-cooked, without fanciness, and you knew exactly what you were eating. The President had a glass of wine and even though we were all offered wine I settled for water. During lunch he started to tell us some stories about his years in prison and I had to press my fingernails into the palm of my hand to prevent me from crying again. By the time dessert was served I couldn’t control myself any longer and my eyes were filled with tears. I felt so sorry for him. He told us about his precious tomato garden in prison and how he cherished his crop. He also explained how they worked in the limestone quarry, and how the reflection of the white rock damaged his eyes, and with his exceptional ability of story-telling he transported our imaginations to South Africa’s Alcatraz and his prison cell on Robben Island. I tried to comprehend season upon season in a prison cell, cold cement floors, sharing a bathroom with other inmates, never having privacy, eating at specific times and limited tasteless food for twenty-seven years. It was still too much to comprehend. What struck me was that while he was telling these stories he didn’t appear to be sad. To me it sounded like tragedy, yet he recited the stories in a colourful way as opposed to my grim imagination.
Lunch was soon over and back at the office we shared our experience with each other and I was free to express my sympathy. Clearly the President didn’t want sympathy. It was something he considered to have been part of history and not to determine the rest of his life. I soon found a quote that expressed it so well: ‘It’s not important in life what happens to you, but how you handle what happens to you.’
I read later that he had written that it was easier to change others than to change himself, and to this day I often wonder about the struggle within himself as far as it concerned forgiveness and reconciliation, trying to imagine to what extent one has to really work with oneself to change your thinking and your beliefs: to take that decision to forgive, as Ahmed Kathrada told me. But as Madiba said, by deciding to forgive you do not only free the oppressed but you also free the oppressor.
* * *
Later that year, a prominent and progressive South African, Dr Johan Heyns, was assassinated and the President called all the generals in charge of the security forces in South Africa to a meeting in his office. Dr Heyns was one of the senior leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. The church was prominent during the apartheid era, justifying it through religion and Dr Heyns was one of the few Afrikaner leaders who criticized apartheid at a time when it was not fashionable to do so. Now it was suspected that a third force was at play, trying to destabilize the country and create tension between black and white at a time when South Africa was still vulnerable. As someone who had walked the Damascus road and showed eagerness to work with the new government, it was believed that Dr Heyns was assassinated by white Afrikaner extremists, the same kind of conservative people I once religiously supported. The conservative Afrikaners did not welcome such gestures of reform. I had slowly started to think about my own beliefs and although I was still a little confused, I had softened up and realized at least that resisting change was neither logical nor justifiable.
As the generals marched past my office to the President’s office I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride when I saw them in their uniforms. We Afrikaners are proud people, especially of our generals and people who hold such positions – inherently so, but also because we trust them unconditionally and without prejudice. I felt proud of their presence even though there was tension in the office.
The President also called on General Constand Viljoen, who was the leader of the right-wing party called the Freedom Front and opposed to Mr Mandela on matters ranging from power sharing to land reform. I was extremely proud to meet General Viljoen as he was a pure Boer in every sense of the word (boer is Afrikaans for ‘farmer’). He was also happy to find a girl in the President’s office looking like and epitomizing a real Afrikaner. I imagined it made him feel comfortable seeing someone with the same culture and background in the President’s office. The President didn’t want to speak to him in his office, probably out of fear for listening devices, and met with him on a couch at the entrance of the ladies’ bathroom in our offices across from my office door. When they sat down, the President called me. I was introduced to General Viljoen in Afrikaans and the President smiled warmly as he told General Viljoen that I was a real Afrikaner.
What did President Mandela mean when he said I was a ‘real Afrikaner’ or boere-meisie (farm girl)? Was it because I spoke Afrikaans? Did he sense I came from a conservative family? Or did I simply look like an Afrikaner? Only later I thought that perhaps my weight also played a part in epitomizing a real Afrikaner, something about which I was quite sensitive at the time. The Afrikaners are generally largely built people with a bigger bone structure. Most of them, my family not excluded, love to eat, particularly bread and meat. Did Nelson Mandela think I was really the image of an Afrikaner farm girl?
I went home that night with the same pride to tell my parents that I had met General Viljoen. I still had no interest in politics and only knew that he was there to discuss the death of Dr Johan Heyns. My parents were visibly more impressed by this announcement as General Viljoen was seen to represent the conservative Afrikaners at the time. An intelligence report on the death of Dr Heyns later crossed my desk but I had no interest in reading it, much to my regret in later years.
As the year passed, I started to feel more at home in my new environment, keeping Mary up to date on security, briefing the airforce on the President’s movements, working with his staff at the ANC. On Mondays the President spent the entire day at Shell House, as it was known, the ANC head office in Johannesburg (later the name was changed to Luthuli House, after the founding president of the ANC, Albert Luthuli). We were not allowed to interfere with Mondays and in five years, unless we were on travels abroad, the President didn’t miss one Monday going to the ANC head offices. We never knew what he did there or who he interacted with, and his party political work was separated from his official duties as President. But he was part and parcel of the ANC, never to be divorced from the party that shaped his life and entire political career and in the execution of his daily tasks as President he honoured the ANC’s policies and framework.
Then one day I received a call from Mary to say that the President wanted me to drive to his private house in Houghton, Johannesburg, to help him with some Afrikaans. He was having trouble with his eye following an operation on it and we were told that he would be at home recovering for a few days.
Upon arrival at his Houghton house, I found a few security vehicles parked outside. The President himself was seated in a comfortable chair outside in the garden under a tree. He was wearing sunglasses with his two feet raised on a foot rest. He was wearing sunglasses obviously to protect his recovering eye. We shook hands and greeted warmly. He asked me to take a seat next to him and handed me the Beeld newspaper (the Afrikaans daily newspaper in our area). He then instructed me to start reading to him. Panic struck, I think I thought for a moment that I had forgotten how to read.
I struggled until he stopped me and told me to relax. There was humour in his voice and he told me to start from the top and read at a slower pace. It was easier. I then came across the surname Mamoepa in the article. Ronnie Mamoepa was the spokesperson for the ANC at the time. Reading across the surname I pronounced it exactly as it is spelt. The President interrupted me. He corrected my pronunciation to Mamo-epa. I thanked him and continued reading. Coming across the next mention of Ronnie’s surname I tried to pass it as quickly as possible but the President interrupted me again and corrected me patiently, prompting me to repeat after him. The third time I realized I had to pay attention and that he was not going to be amused by my lack of trying, so I did and when I crossed the name for the fourth time he congratulated me on my good pronunciation. I felt like I had won an Olympic Gold medal and was almost embarrassed by the fuss he made. I relaxed a little but was still very tense. I also read too fast and he told me a few times to slow down. It was pure tension. He then asked me to explain a term he didn’t understand and I read the sentence again and explained the context. After reading a few more articles I was dismissed to return to Pretoria. I remember perspiring like a marathon runner from pure nerves and was happy to be back at home, recovering from another shock interaction.
* * *
We returned to business as usual and the next time the President was in the office it was easier to face him. I didn’t have any business dealing with him directly but now and then I would walk into him in the corridors or see him passing my office. I was no longer hiding or feeling shy and accepted the fact that if he wanted to get rid of me because I was a white Afrikaner, I would just deal with it when it happened. For the time being it appeared as if I was not going to become a victim of such actions, and although still somewhat sceptical about his feelings towards whites, I took comfort in the fact that he had only shown warmth so far.
I was trying to get an understanding of the political world around me. It wasn’t easy and I literally had to do a crash-course in South African history. One of the bodyguards offered to take me and my two best friends, Pieter Moolman and Andries Ellis, to Soweto on a tour. Soweto is a formerly black township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where the black people were grouped together and restricted to live in, during apartheid. We were nervous and scared but also curious to see what it looked like.
The bodyguard took us to President Mandela’s first house in Vilakazi Street, showed us where Archbishop Tutu stayed – in the same street – and the Hector Pieterson museum, and related the stories of the student uprising in 1976. Hector was a child of thirteen years of age participating in the uprising in 1976 when thousands of students marched against Afrikaans being made compulsory as the medium of education for black people. The march was intended to be a peaceful demonstration but turned violent when the police arrived and shot at students to disperse the crowds. Hector was shot, and an iconic image taken of another student carrying him and running from the scene while Hector was dying in his arms became the image the world saw of South Africa under apartheid law. Hector was a hero.
The police officer taking us on the tour showed us some spots that were used as hideouts in Soweto by the ANC and its military wing when they were operating underground, and we were excited to learn but nervous at the same time for being in Soweto. White people didn’t easily go into Soweto at the time but I was at ease as he was armed and I knew he would be in trouble if while in the care of a bodyguard of the President something had happened to us in Soweto. We drove around for a while and saw that Soweto was not the township of squatter camps like slums I had imagined it to be. People were building proper houses, some of them mansions, and there was nothing visibly to be afraid of. I later learned that the gentleman who took us on the tour was closely linked to National Intelligence, and I often thought that he was probably only eager to take us on the tour to enable him to dig a little into our lives and assess us on a threat level, as my presence so close to the President warranted.
At the end of 1994 the President went on holiday to Saudi Arabia. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to go to Saudi Arabia on holiday. I was told the President visited a hospital while he was there, meeting with some South African nurses, and that he had friends there too, but I couldn’t comprehend how one has a holiday in a desert like Saudi Arabia.
On the day of the President’s return from Saudi, Mary invited me to accompany her to the airport to go and meet him. I was so excited and jumped at the opportunity. By now my attitude towards him had changed. His interactions with me were always pleasant and he was very friendly and warm whenever he spoke to me. I was therefore looking forward to any opportunity to see him. Mary said I had to bring my telephone book in case he wanted to make any calls from the airport, which he then did. By then I had armed myself with a telephone book and any numbers that Mary or the President could need. It was not something she told me to do but I assumed to be effective one had to have certain information at hand at all times, so I started compiling a telephone book with the important numbers Mary frequently used.
Arriving at the airport the President appeared happy to see me and he said that he’d thought about me. Again I thought: Ye right. I’m sure a President has more important things to think about than a typist in his office. Later I realized that he had already probably started working on his strategy to use me as the perfect example of including an Afrikaner in his office and how minorities would react to him doing so. It didn’t cross my mind at the time though and although what he said flattered me I did not really believe it.
A huge media contingent awaited the President’s arrival at Waterkloof airforce base where the Presidential plane touched down. Just after he greeted me someone took a photo of him and Mary walking towards the VIP arrivals hall at Waterkloof. The photo appeared in the Sunday Times newspaper the next day and my dad telephoned the newspaper to have a copy of the original photo sent to him. To my surprise they also took a photo while I greeted the President. It was my most precious possession ever when I received the photo and by now I was noticing some pride in my father, regardless of the fact that he had not met President Mandela but was merely creating an opinion based on the stories I told at home about our few interactions. Nelson Mandela was changing South Africans’ views one by one. My dad included.