A tree to measure our hopes
Icannot escape the feeling that today will mark the rest of my days. I could not sleep last night. Anxiety, fear and excitement all merged. I asked my parents days ago to buy a tree to plant on the grassy pavement just a few metres from my bedroom window. My dad laughed me off, suggesting that my new gardening hobby is going a bit too far. Whereas others are storing canned goods, I am planting a garden.
It is hardly a garden. Our small council house in the Indian township of Actonville is surrounded by concrete paving, with only a tiny patch of soil at the back for vegetables and a single peach tree. But I know with an intensity that we are on the cusp of something momentous. I want to plant a tree to be measured against time. To watch it grow and measure it against the hopes and dreams that are to come.
As the first in my family to go to university, I realise all that has been kept from us, people of colour. On the Wits campus I am finally exposed to the realities of apartheid and opportunities withheld. My parents were protective, whispering when older cousins or family were detained for protesting, saying it was nothing I should be concerned about and that I should rather remain focused on my schoolwork.
When I was a young child, my uncle owned a small printing press, and we were called in to help “collate” papers and print sheets of booklets and pamphlets and sort them into numbered piles. Sometimes this was done in the darkness of night by candlelight.
Even as a young child, it didn’t make sense to me why we were doing this work in the dark when there was electricity and workers were available during the day. My uncle said this was a “job for Lusaka”, which seemed to make sense to everyone but me.
Being on campus now, “Lusaka” finally makes sense. In the past few months, we have a seen a stream of freedom fighters from exile in Angola and elsewhere welcomed to the Wits campus. They’ve been urging students to vote, as this is the fruit of the struggle they have been a part of.
Despite the euphoria with which Nelson Mandela was greeted on campus, or the rousing cheers for the likes of Tokyo Sexwale, there were still some whispers about them being “terrorists”.
Today, 27 April 1994, started as a cool morning. My uncle and some neighbours left early to scout the community hall designated for voting, out of concerns for our safety. He called earlier to say that all looked fine and that the community leaders have suggested the young people go first. My sister and two cousins left mid-morning, but another cousin refused to go. Not all of us see this as a new dawn.
The mood was subdued at first, but now the crowd is growing quickly, turning festive and boisterous. Entrepreneurs are seeing opportunity, selling vetkoek and drinks.
Voting will be fun for me and not as serious as I anticipated. And that’s perhaps because I am 19, voting for the first time at the exact time of life considered the appropriate voting age. I am right on time. My freedom is here exactly when it should be. Freedom to dream, to become, to be equal. Right on time, on the backs of those who came before me.
Later, I will return to the voting booth with my sister to accompany our elderly parents. Their experience will be very different, with no hours spent waiting. As pensioners they will be courteously escorted to the front of the queue, even though it has taken their entire lives to get there.
My dad will take a pause in the booth while my mom loudly asks: “Which one is the ANC?” My dad will be quiet as he takes in the gravitas of the moment. My mom will not be as quiet; she will just be happy.
A few years later, the council will plant a tree on the pavement outside my bedroom window. I will see it as a measure in the same way I wanted to see the tree I wanted to plant. That tree, 30 years from now, will be lush and huge and its branches will soar over my neighbours’ yard. There will be a constant battle over whether to cut it or not with my neighbours, who say it’s a security hazard. I will prune and trim it. I will also add bougainvillea and lay down a patch of grass in this tiny garden.
Neighbours will change over the years, as some leave for the cleaner, well-kept “white” suburbs that are closer to model C schools. We will remain here in my childhood home. The tree will continue to grow, but the grass will be unkempt and our streets will be filled with potholes, which will be shabbily fixed only to be redone months later. The streetlights will not work for months at a time because the council here in Benoni will go bankrupt. That pavement will be filled with litter, made worse by the scavenging of the homeless and the hungry.
One day, as I am parking my car in our driveway, a lady driving by will roll down her window and call out to me: “Is this your tree? It’s the nicest tree in Actonville. I drive past it every day. And the pretty pink flowers make me feel very happy too. I told my son we must extend our garden on to the pavement too. The council does nothing!”
In that moment, it will dawn on me that we deferred our dreams to the myth of freedom. We relegated our power to others. We will have to take back our dreams and do the work ourselves. I will have to extend my garden beyond the pavement. 1994: Second-year architecture student at Wits University
2024: Architect and founder of Lemon Pebble Architects and Urban Designers