A journey of a few pictures and even more words

I am privileged, blessed and humbled by my wife, stha, as I have come to refer to her, especially in print. She insisted that we do something that we have both mentioned often enough to each other without doing anything about it. This piece is in gratitude to stha and the forces that conspired to put her in my life and I in hers. We drove to Graaf-Reinet with the kids. We drove to Graaf-Reinet to find Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.

Graaf-Reinet is a typical small South African town. We should in the future write about the people of Graaf-Reinet but now I wish to write about only one person who once, many years ago lived in Graaf-Reinet and is now buried there. This is my family's experience of Graaf-Reinet and of Robert Sobukwe, posthumously.

This small town is a town of museums. In the short time that we were there we counted no less than 5 museums, that is buildings labeled as such, where you may go in and browse around and learn a thing or two. In my view, whatever it is worth, the whole town is a museum.

This is the museum in which Robert Sobukwe now resides. The museum is in the main road of Graaf-Reinet diagonally across the road from the post office. It is well preserved and my thanks go to the lady on duty who made us welcome. Unlike the other lady at the spur, but about that you will hear in good time. I would like to thank her on behalf of my children and all Africans, and those who put together the Sobukwe exhibition in the museum. Considering the man it potrays, it is not much, however it is there and my children got to see it and to ask questions, questions I was only too happy to answer. Once inside the museum, one is lost in the little pieces of the life of this gentle giant of a man. I got goose bumps looking at the set of toiletries, shaving stuff and all that he used. Go figure. I was fascinated to discover that a university in Nigeria had bestowed an honorary doctorate on Sobukwe. The modest room with a table and chairs in the middle of the one half of it has pictures of Sobukwe, his friend and family. The majority of these pictures speak of him as a leader of the people and a fighter against the oppression of the African people. Then there are the newspaper reports, articles written by then great journalists such as Mothobi Moutloatse. Sobukwe died in 1987, some 10 years after Steven Bantu Biko.

This is the Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe Wing as the arching inscription boldly proclaims as the Prof (as he was also knows) looks on almost as if amused by all of this. My gratitude to the lady in charge who allowed me to take this particular picture as the museum does not allow taking of pictures without prior arrangement. There items in the Sobukwe collection range from ties, academic gown and hoods, letters, photographs and newspaper reports. The collection left me thinking that more should be done. Here in this town, the legacy of Sobukwe is dying and will like the man himself, be buried in this modest room with its arched entrance. We left the museum happy and sad and a little hungry. The next stop we hoped would be the home of the Sobukwes of those many years ago. The house Sobukwe and his siblings would have grown up prior to leaving to go to the missionary schools.

This part of the trip is nothing but sad. Firstly, the nice lady at the museum had no clue where this house would be and could not give us directions there. Why this part of Sobukwe's life is not incorporated into the museum by reference and definitive directions and a map, simply beats me. Anyway, we did what any self-respecting Africans would do, we headed to the township armed with the belief that we will ask the locals and surely they will give us directions. We found the way to the township without any problems. As we entered the township we met some young lads who after exchanging the usual pleasantries, told us where to go. We were to drive up the road and just before a church we would turn left into Sobukwe street, the house is green, we won't miss it. Excitement reigned in the car as we set off to go see the house where greatness started. We saw the church for sure and that is all that assured us of the young men's directions. The streets leading off the main road into the township are nothing more than passages and we could not believe that we would be allowed to drive down one of these passages. A remark was made as to how the town planner may have spent some time in Alexander township, that bustling metropolis in the north of Johannesburg.

To avoid getting lost and more confused, we stopped a lady (not by design and having nothing to do with the disappointment by the young lads) who not only told us where to go but physically pointed out the street we were meant to go down. This was all well and fine until she said that the house we were looking for is white. Anyway, we proceeded down the narrow street with stha driving, worry written all over her face. We saw a house that we thought looked like the house we saw in the pictures at the museum with the front door, a stable door, open. Armed with my camera with stha by my side we walked over to the house. An elderly lady answered the door and on enquiry, told us that the house in front of which we had parked the car, on the other side of the street and some open veld, is the house of the Sobukwes. It looked nothing like the house we had seen in the pictures and honestly, it did not feel like the right house.

To say that this is a disappointing experience is an understatement. Here is a piece of South African history that we have done nothing to preserve. We were pointed to no less than 3 houses as being (at least one of them) the house that Sobukwe once lived in. If you were to find yourself in Tlokwe (formely known as Potchefstroom) you will with ease a house in which Totius lived. If you were lost and you were to ask any Afrikaner worth his khakis, you will be pointed in the right direction. How does a township forget one of its greatest? For me this is not the end of the story, I am hoping throught the municipality of Graaf-Reinet, to find the right house and maybe put up the pictures on this space, lest we forget completely. Incidentally, and as a complete but related aside, if you look carefully at the picture of the museum's Sobukwe Wing, you will spot a notice board to the right of the doorway. One of the notices on it depicts another of Graaf-Reinet's finest sons, Mr Rupert himself, he of the Rembrandt group fame. I bet his earlier home is a museum and is probably sign posted, if not, the lady at the museum would give spot on directions to the house, which I suspect would be white.

Sobukwe lived in another house, this is after he was released from prison. This house in the township near Kimberley. This house too, is not a museum from the research I have managed to do. If my journey to Graaf-Reinet is anything to go by, that modest room in the museum is all that is left of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe.