Ailing Mandela still uniting S. Africans

PRETORIA, South Africa — The spelling and grammar need work, but the message has its own eloquence.

A 10-year- old’s note to Nelson Mandela, the prisoner who fought South African apartheid, or white racist rule, and became a global emblem of unity and humility, addresses him as “the greates president are land has ever had it is realy bad that you are in the hospital. But realy cool that you stopt apartit. you maid are land A beter place”

It is one of hundreds of messages that have been placed at two makeshift shrines by South Africans and others who are celebrating the life and legacy of Mandela, 94, even as some openly lament that his life may be approaching an end.

The South African government said Monday that Mandela remains in “critical but stable” condition in the hospital where he was admitted on June 8.

The hospital in downtown Pretoria is one of those pilgrimage sites; the other is his home in Houghton, a neighborhood in Johannesburg.

A swell of well-wishers has deposited letters, paintings, candles, stuffed bears and bouquets of flowers outside these spots, reflecting the cathartic mood of a nation whose identity is so closely linked to an ailing man who is out of public sight.

The former president is visited daily by his family, and on Monday the three other surviving defendants in the sabotage trial in which Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in 1964 visited the hospital.

Even in this most vulnerable moment, Mandela is again emerging as an enabler, this time for a new generation, across racial and gender lines.

“I am a 16 year old girl who wanted to meet you very much. Unfortunately I did not have the oppurtunity, but even in the early stages of my life I decided that I wanted to be a caring, loving person just like you,” writes Carien Struwig, who left a note at the Mediclinic Heart Hospital entrance.

“Ps. I am Afrikaans, sorry for any incorrect spelling or grammar,” she writes in English.