Mother to Mother

Mandisa thanks Skonana for the information and begins to think through what she's just heard. She can't believe anyone would come to Guguletu voluntarily, and remembers when she first heard that the government might force its black citizens to resettle. While helping her mother serve ginger beer to a group of customers, Mandisa overheard one of the customers, Tat'uSikhwebu, mention the government's plans. Mandisa herself was too young and naïve to pay much attention to Tat'uSikhwebu's claim, and although the rumor quickly spread, most others in the community were initially disbelieving.

Months later, however, "the rumor, all grown and bearded, armed with the stamp of the government, returned" (55). Mandisa is outside playing with her friends and her brother Khaya when they hear a plane flying overhead. Looking up, they see the plane dropping something, which turn out to be pieces of paper informing the residents of Blouvlei that they will need to move next month. Mandisa, upset, shows the message to her parents, and the adults in Blouvlei call a public meeting—the first of several that take place over the next few weeks.

Despite appeals to the government, however, the residents are forced to relocate in September. One day, Mandisa's parents wake her early and urge her to help pack up the house. Mandisa looks outside and sees that Blouvlei is full of policemen and soldiers, who begin violently evicting people from their homes as Mandisa watches: "Abelungu men charged. Tin walls were torn down with the inhabitants of the shacks asleep inside some. Shacks came tumbling down, revealing Primus stoves alight, pots of mealie-meal porridge madly bubbling away in others" (65). Along with the rest of Blouvlei's residents, Mandisa and her family make the trek to Guguletu, where traditional family and community life begins to unravel.

Back in the present, Mandisa continues to worry about Mxolisi's whereabouts. Her husband Dwadwa gets home from work and the family eats dinner. In bed that night, Mandisa and Dwadwa discuss Mxolisi; Dwadwa warns that Mxolisi's "vagabonding" will get him into trouble, and Mandisa snaps at her husband even though she shares his concerns (71).

Afterwards, Mandisa lies awake thinking about her schooldays and the many flaws in Guguletu's educational system; Mxolisi, at twenty, is in a class designed for twelve and thirteen year olds. She reflects on the events of the day, and the lack of control she and other adults have over their children in their crusade against the South African government. Mandisa admits, however, that the older generations bear some of the responsibility, for teaching their children to hate and mistrust white people: "Our children grew up in our homes, where we called white people dogs as a matter of idiom…heart-felt idiom, I can tell you. Based on bitter experience" (75). But while the children began by stoning white peoples' cars, they ultimately moved on to destroying the cars, homes, and schools of other black people. At first, Mandisa and others tried to rationalize these attacks as actions against traitors and collaborators, but it became increasingly difficult to do so as time went on—particularly when the "Young Lions" stoned a black man before setting fire to a tire they'd placed around his neck.

Mandisa imagines how this first act of "necklacing" might have unfolded, and notes that the action soon became commonplace. Those who practiced it, as well as some of the community leaders, saw it as a weapon in the fight against apartheid, but Mandisa wryly remarks that she "had not known that it was our own people who stood in the way of the freedom we all said we desired" (77).