The road to Mangaung
WHEN I learnt that the ANC had set aside more than R2 million to renovate a Wesleyan church in Bloemfontein, I cursed them for using apartheid regime tactics to entrench their political power.
Remember, we heard recently, from none other than ANC president Jacob Zuma that the ANC would rule until the next coming of Jesus.
I was later informed that the ANC was born at the Waaihoek Wesleyan Church on January 8, 1912, making it the oldest liberation movement in Africa.
I had never heard of the Waaihoek Wesleyan Church before, or thought of associating founding ANC leaders such as John Langalibalele Dube with such a funny Afrikaans name.
I know “hoek” means corner in Afrikaans, but pairing it with “waai” doesn’t make sense to me.
This prompted me to drive to Bloemfontein to find this Waaihoek at the beginning of December.
I knew that the ANC centenary celebrations would be held in Mangaung this month, but none of the ANC posters urging people to attend the celebrations make any reference to Waaihoek.
I imagined it might be on a farm outside Bloemfontein where right-wingers might have turned a place of worship into a panel-beating shop.
Those going to Mangaung for the centenary celebrations will be pleased to know that Sanral has improved the N1 and R30 roads outside Bloemfontein.
We drove to Bloemfontein via the R30 past Brandfort, Theunissen and Welkom.
We were thinking about your safety, dear road user.
The roads were perfect and the markings were bold and clear.
We arrived in Bloemfontein assured that all those coming to the ANC celebrations will do so safely.
Our mission was to find Waaihoek so we started along Andries Pretorius Street. This is the first place where we found potholes.
We drove past the suburb of Noordhoek into the Bloemfontein CBD.
We thought Waaihoek must be within reach, but it was not to be.
We stopped to ask people for directions, but everyone shook their heads.
Even some of the staff the hotel where we slept did not know the place.
The next day, we started our journey into Bloemfontein all over again.
This time we were more determined to find the church on our own.
Unfortunately, we found ourselves driving around in circles until we came to stop near a makeshift taxi rank.
A new taxi rank is under construction near the railway station. Here a taxi driver told us: “If you reach the second robots, turn left and go. You will find a T-junction, turn left also there. Go straight at the robots, turn right. You will find Waaihoek somewhere there.”
Still, we got lost. Our photographer, Matthews Baloyi had to pull the comical tricks of a Joburg taxi driver to reach our destination.
As we pulled up to the church, we noticed a small sign board saying Waaihoek. HISTORY: The Waaihoek Wesleyan Church in Bloemfontein survived a 1954 demolition to make way for a railway line from the city to Cape Town.
I had used the same road before many years ago to visit friends and attend funerals, but none of my hosts had brought Waaihoek to my attention.
I thought about the thousands of people who will be descending on Bloemfontein to find this memorable place.
At least the taxi driver gave us directions, but the Mangaung municipality has done very little to alert tourists to the birthplace of the ANC.
You hardly see signs for Waaihoek, but it was easy for us to find the Bloemfontein National Museum and the statues and grave sites of apartheid leaders.
There were clear signs to the courts though, including to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
How does the Anc-controlled Mangaung municipality explain this madness?
This might explain why during the ANC’S 90th celebrations in 2001 some overseas journalists reported that the ANC was formed at Thomas Mtobi Mapikela’s home in Batho Location.
The Mapikela family still have those media reports.
Mapikela was the first speaker of the ANC executive – a position he held for 28 years. He was part of the two delegations that went to London to speak to the queen about the need for voting rights for black people in SA.
It is only in Mapikela that you get the feel of the original ANC. At Waaihoek, we found nothing to write about except a group of building contractors.
The church’s structure has remained the same, but renovation is much needed inside. Disappointingly though, there is very little to show that Mapikela, former Free State premier Winkie Direko, and other ANC leaders had lived at Waaihoek.
Most of the houses in the area were destroyed to make way for the construction of a railway line from Bloemfontein to Cape Town. Mapikela’s home had been one of them.
Reverend Shadrach Papane, 78, of the Anglican Church said the final destruction of their homes and churches took place in 1954. Papane was a congregant at St Patrick’s Church. The government had to demolish two churches to make way for the construction of two additional railway towers.
The Wesleyan Church’s survival is a great relief for George Tladi, the Free State ANC’S head of archives and data collection. “It is only (by) the mercy of God that we still have this building,” Tladi told me.
Nothing of historical interest has remained of Waaihoek, although the National Museum still has aerial photographs of the original church and the homes. Included in their collection is a 2002 booklet written by Dr Hannes Haasbroek titled Founding Venue of the African National Congress 1912: Wesleyan School, Fort Street, Waaihoek, Bloemfontein.
The house that Mapikela, a builder and a carpenter, built himself in 1926 is still there.
When the apartheid authorities refused him permission to own two houses, Mapikela, according to family archives, decided to build them a double-storey house.
He lived in the house on Makgothi Street with his family and siblings.
The family confirmed that one of the rooms was used to hold ANC executive committee meetings.
The house is still in its original state, with wooden stairways and ceilings. Portraits of the ANC’S founding leaders hang in the lounge.
Esther Mapikela, Mapikela’s daughterin-law, says she had to put some of the portraits away because their visitors used to “steal them”.
Missing pictures include some of Nelson Mandela’s visit to the house during the ANC’S 90th anniversary celebrations.
“I was nine years old when I noticed Mr Mapikela as a lay preacher at our church. At the time, we had a white pastor.
“The pastor would deliver his sermon in English and the interpretation would be done in Tswana but Mr Mapikela would stand up and interpret in Xhosa.
“It was unusual. We had to put up with it. We had to accept it.
“I used to brag to my friends that Mapikela’s home is the only house in the area with a tap in the yard,” Papane remembers.
That tap is still there. At least Mapikela’s family has preserved some of the history of the ANC in their home.