Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
She was a mean stick fighter at school
BEING a champion stick fighter and herding her father’s livestock during her childhood in the village of Mbhongweni in Bizana may have prepared Winnie Madikizela- Mandela for a lifetime of opposition to oppression.
One of Madikizela- Mandela’s surviving sisters told Independent Media this week that as a child the former ANC Women’s League president used to go head-to-head with boys in the grazing fields and stand her ground.
Retired school principal Phangiwe Madikizela, who turns 82 today, said Madikizela- Mandela herded her father’s livestock because her older siblings were away at school.
She looked after the livestock before and after school and over weekends.
Madikizela-Mandela was the third of Columbus Madikizela and MaRhadebe Mzaidume’s nine children.
Although Phangiwe is the same age as Madikizela-Mandela was, she said her sister was senior because when she started school in 1943 she ( Madikizela- Mandela) was already in Standard Three (Grade Five).
“I only found out much later that Sis’ Winnie was the same age as me,” she said.
This, she explained, was because Mbhongweni Primary School, founded by Madikizela- Mandela’s father, was just across the dirt road from her home.
”My home was far away from school so we had to walk kilometres to school. That’s why many of us started schooling late,” said Phangiwe.
She described her sister as a champion stick fighter who taught those in lower classes at school.
Phangiwe lost track of Madikizela- Mandela after she enrolled at the Shawbury Native High School in Qumbu, about 170km from her hometown, and later moved to Johannesburg to study for a diploma in social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work.
According to Phangiwe, she also continued with her studies, training to be a teacher at Mfundisweni College in nearby Flagstaff.
In July, 1958, Phangiwe established Qadu Junior Secondary School as a teacher and principal and worked until April 2001.
She remembers MadikizelaMandela’s wedding to Nelson Mandela on June 6, 1958, in Mbhongweni.
”I sang my heart out at their wedding,” Phangiwe smiled, describing the global icon as handsome.
She quickly added: “But my sister was even more beautiful”.
The wedding reception was held in Bizana and the all-white town council at the time denied them use of the local town hall.
”ANC people from Johannesburg took over the hall by force and openly told us to disrespect white people and chant ANC slogans. As village girls we were scared to chant Mayibuye! iAfrika!” she said.
Mother of two Phangiwe explained her generation of Ngutyana women ( the Madikizelas) were told not to marry men who would as much as yell “voetsek” to them but instead educate themselves.
Not long after the wedding party had left Mbhongweni and Bizana, the newlyweds’ political activism intensified and ultimately led to the jailing of Mandela and the constant harassment of his young wife, Phangiwe said.
She accompanied Madikizela-Mandela when there was a ritual to end the mourning period in Qunu following Mandela’s death in 2013.
”It was very sad. We had hoped she would come back home so we share memories.”