Speculation rises as Mandela clan meets
Journalists keep round the clock vigil at hospital “Every hour of life you get after you are 70 years old is a bonus and God gave (Mandela) that bonus.”
JESSIE PHALA, A VISITOR AT THE HOSPITAL
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA — Close family members of Nelson Mandela gathered Tuesday in his ancestral village in the Eastern Cape where he has asked to be buried, when he dies, according to Xhosa custom in a grave beside his mother and father.
No official details of the clan meeting in Qunu were divulged aside from word from South Africa’s SAPA news agency that it had been held “to discuss delicate matters.” The widespread assumption was that that meeting — which was said by some reporters to have included a visit to the family cemetery plot by one of Mandela’s grandsons — was convened to discuss funeral arrangements and the protracted grieving process and celebration of his life that is likely to follow when the 94-year-old former president passes away.
The family gathering in Qunu was the latest of many signs that the iconic anti-apartheid freedom fighter’s final struggle may be in its last stages.
Pretorians gathered in larger numbers than ever Tuesday outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in the capital to express their deep affection for South Africa’s first black president, with both notes and words. The number of foreign journalists maintaining an around-the-clock vigil has also grown dramatically since Mandela’s medical condition slipped from “serious” to “critical” on Sunday evening.
The Mandelas have repeatedly asked that they and their patriarch be allowed privacy after he was rushed to hospital on June 8 with a recurrent lung infection. This plea has mostly fallen on deaf ears.
“Madiba is a man of the people and the people need to be a part of this, too,” said Theresa Ncieeni, one of those watching, using Mandela’s clan name.
“This is not only for his family. It is for all of us. We love him as our father, too. He is the father of our nation,” said Jessie Phala, who came to the hospital with her 10-year-old granddaughter, Oratilel, who described Mandela as “the best of the best.
“The TV says he is very weak and we saw all the people coming and going, so we thought something was wrong. I think that we must come here so that we remember that this is where he was at this time.”
Joyce Setjie was typical of the visitors drawn to the hospital. The 27-year-old unemployed office worker had rushed to the hospital Tuesday because she had heard a rumour that Mandela had already passed away.
“I did not believe the rumour but our government doesn’t tell us anything so we came over to be sure,” Setjie said. “Seeing how many people are already here I am sure that his funeral will be chaos.”
The overwhelming consensus of those outside the hospital was that as Mandela had been hospitalized four times in seven months without any solution to his grave medical problems, there should be no medical intervention at this point simply to keep him alive.
“He’s old now. They should release him,” said Ncieeni, who is a nurse. A patient who was in “critical condition” in South Africa was always put on a ventilator, she said.
“Being on a ventilator at his age would be painful,” she said. “Take him off that ventilator.”
South Africans should thank God that Mandela had had such a long, fruitful life, Jessie Phala said.
“Every hour of life you get after you are 70 years old is a bonus and God gave Madiba that bonus,” he said. “He gave him so many extra hours.”
It is not only Mandela’s precarious health that has Pretoria buzzing. U.S. President Barack Obama is to be here on Saturday and Sunday as part of a long-planned three-country tour.
The first of many U.S. Air Force C-17 transports has already arrived in South Africa with at least 11 helicopters as well as armoured vehicles that will be part of the presidential entourage. Several of the helicopters ran trial flights Tuesday near the hospital where Mandela is being cared for.
There were no plans for Obama to visit Mandela, the South African government confirmed Tuesday.
But during his time in South Africa, Obama is to travel to Robben Island, near Cape Town, to visit the prison where Mandela spent 27 years. It was while at Robben Island that Mandela got a lung infection that has troubled him from time to time ever since and especially in the past year.”