Banishment

From the book: My Spirit Is Not Banned by Frances Baard and Barbie Schreiner

Just before my five years was finished in 1969, they took me to Pretoria jail. At that time they were looking for a place to send me because they had decided altogether now that I am not going back to Port Elizabeth because they thought I was a trouble maker, and I would be less trouble in a place which I don't know and the people don't know me. So they asked me where I was born and what nationality I was. At first they were going to send me to Qua-Qua, because some people are saying I am Sotho. I told them I am not Sotho, and they ask me what nationality am I? I said, 'I'm a Tswana, I'm Tswana-speaking.' So they told me, 'you are going to stay in Pretoria; you've got to find a place here in Pretoria.
After that week they released me from jail and they took me to a little house there in Boekenhout, that other side there in Mabopane. A dirty corrugated little house, which was really very dirty. No one stayed there it appeared and you could even see holes in the floor. And that time when I was sitting on the floor I saw a mouse turn across, and I saw another one, and! Said, 'Whoo! It's where the mice are having their home!' And I thought, well, if the mice are running round this place, I'm sure there must be a snake too, because people used to tell you where there are lots of mice you must know there are snakes too.

They put me in that house and they said I must wait until they come; they are going to fetch me a bed and blankets because I had nothing. I just had the clothes I was wearing” and a little coat, a sort of jersey. I waited there for them to come back. I stayed there the whole day until the evening and they never came back. This was in September and it was still cold. Nobody came, and I just waited. How am I going to sleep? My worry was that. How am I going to sleep in this place? The whole night I was sitting there, and so until it was dark, nothing, nothing, nothing.

The next morning they came. They brought a bed, two blankets, one pillow, two sheets, one table, one chair everything one, one, one, just for me. They brought all these things to this little house, but they told me that there was another little house, another corrugated house that they could take me to. They took me to that house and it was a little better than the one I was from. They gave me the bed, and the table and all those things, and they gave me a bag, a big bag of mealie meal, and they gave me salt and dripping. Salt, dripping and mealie-meal; that's all. I said, 'Hawu! How am I going to cook these things?" So they gave me a pot, a small three-legged pot, I've still got that pot.
Then I asked them, 'But how am I going to make fire?' I knew nobody. The people were far from me. They didn't even want to come near me thinking that perhaps I was a policewoman here to arrest them. They didn't understand what was taking place; they just see the police bring me here and they think maybe I am working for the police.

Anyway, it was the shopkeeper who brought those things, the mealie-meal and stuff, and so I asked him if he couldn't take most of the mealie meal and just give me a little bit, and give me some sugar or tea instead. He agreed and he took away the mealie-meal and he gave me candles and sugar and so forth. But now the thing was how am I going to make fire? Where am I? to get things? Why should they give me this pot? Better they should give something or me a primus stove. You know, they didn't even give me curtains ”” I had no curtains in that house, nothing.
I had to take out of my own things, my clothes, to make a sort of curtain for the front window until I got some newspapers from some other people whom I got to know. I put the newspapers on the windows to make curtains.
I asked the man who brought me here, the policeman, if he couldn't get me some old curtains from his wife. He said, 'Oh no! My wife has no curtains!'

I said, 'Oh, that's funny.'

I remember I wrote to Helen at that time to tell her what things were like with that and me all was not good. She got me onto the Dependants' Conference and they helped me, and the Council of Churches too. And she too helped me. She was working in a hotel then and she got some of the old furniture from the hotel when they were fixing the place to look better, and she sent me a chest of drawers, and a table, and some other things. They were very old and not so strong any more, but they were wonderful for me because I had nothing in my house there.

So I stayed there in that tiny house. But I had no money or anything. Then this man, the policeman who took me there, he said to me that I'd better go look for work. But I said, 'Where can I look for work? I don't know anybody.'

'Alright, tomorrow morning I'll come and fetch you and take you to the factories.'

The next morning he came and took me to the factories at Rosslyn. We went from factory to factory trying to get me a place, but nothing. Then we go to another place and the man there says, 'I don't need her, but I'll take her,' because we had been going from place to place without getting anything. And so I got a job in that factory. They used to make berets you know, and woollen things. I started to work there. We were repairing garments that were torn from the;, machine.
The trouble was when I started work there I didn't have a single cent with me. I didn't know how I was going to come to work. I had no penny, nothing, nothing, and I couldn't walk there; it was too far. I told this man, the policeman, I said, 'Well, how am I going to come to this place? I have no money and I can't walk from Boekenhout to that place, Rosslyn; how am I going to get there?

He said, 'the best thing is; we must go to those people who are giving the tickets.

We used to buy tickets for the whole week there at one place. When we went there I thought this man was going to give these boys money and give me a ticket because he was told in front of me that he must give me everything I want. But he refused to give me even a cent. When we get to the ticket office he tells these boys, 'Well, you'd better give this woman a ticket. She has no money, but at the end of the week when she is paid, she'll come and pay you for this ticket.' So finally those boys gave me a ticket, and I went home with it. The next morning I went to work with that ticket and I worked the whole week with it.

At the end of that week when the other people were getting their money I was also in the queue. When I got to the end of the queue to collect my money they told me, 'No. Not you. You are not getting any money till next week.' They tell you that they are going to keep that money from the first week until the day you go out of the factory. You won't get that money until you leave the factory!

Hoo! My heart was ill. How am I going to get another ticket? That was my worry now. I went home and I thought well, the best thing is to go to those boys again and tell them the whole story. So I went to them and told them that I didn't get any money, that I would only get money next week, and I asked them if they would give me another ticket. I think that bus ticket was about 75 cent or so. Those boys gave me another ticket and I travelled with that ticket until the end of that week. When the end of that week came I received my wages, I think it was about R4.25 or so, and then I had to go-and pay for the two tickets, which I had used, and for another one, which I had to use for the next week. So I had absolutely nothing left for the whole week now to buy something to eat, because the money was so little.

I worked at that factory until one day the man comes to see me and he says, 'You can't be registered until you have a pass.' And so this pass business comes back again. I still didn't have a pass at that time and they told me, 'Well, you must take it.' I said, 'Well I didn't want it, and I don't want it.'

Then they took me back to the police station and I was arrested and put in jail again. On Monday I came to court and the magistrate asked me, 'Why don't you want a pass?'

'I don't want it and the best thing is 1 must go back to jail.'

'Why do you want to go back to jail?'

'Because I refuse to; take this thing.'

'Well you are not going back to jail. I am going to give you two weeks suspended sentence, and within two weeks you must make up your mind and you must take a pass.'

'Well, for two weeks I can go to jail.' I was sounding so brave but I was not meaning it. It was because they made me fed up. I don't want to go back to jail! But I don't want this pass either.

Then the magistrate says, 'what did you do in jail? Why do you want to go to jail?'
They took me to one side and there were meetings, meetings, and meetings. 'You can't be registered until you have a pass', and so forth. And they made a paper and they said that’ it was a pass and I must take it. But I’ told them, 'I am taking this thing under protest you understand.' Then I went back to work at the factory.

After I was finished with jail I was banned and banished for two years. For those two years I was not allowed out of Mabopane. So I lived in that little house in Boekenhout for that time. When that ban and banishing was all over I asked them if I could take a house this side where they were building these houses, which were better. They said, 'Well, it's up to you.' And I decided to come to this side, to this house, and I stayed here.

Now my ban was finished, and after a while I saved some money, and after about another two years, I thought now I must go to Port Elizabeth and look where my children are. When I got to Port Elizabeth, I found that I had no house; I had no nothing, no furniture. My children had no home of their own. The other one was staying here, the other one there. After a time -I found the older boy and I asked him, 'Where's your brother?'
'He's in jail,
'What for?'

'Passes. He left his pass.'

So now after all these years fighting these passes I had to go to jail to ask them for that boy. They told me the fine was R15 but he had already stayed some days so I had to pay about six Rand for the days that were left. Then they brought him to me and I took him out. When we got to the place where we were staying I asked them, 'Where are the things?'

They started telling me this story of how they were chased out of the house after I was convicted. The superintendent of that place came with a whole truck and some men and told them to get out of the house. Those men started putting everything on the truck. The children were just left like that in the yard. They didn't know where that man took the furniture to. Then the children went to live with other people, because they had no house. The people there said, 'Well, you can come and stay with me,' and the other said, 'well you can come and stay with us.' And my daughter came and took the little ones back to Kimberley with her. So that was how the children went on while I was in jail.

But it was very funny you know, because after they took my house away while I was in jail, then Ariah wanted a new house, and they gave her that one of mine. So even now, my-friend Ariah is living in that place, 102 Aggrey Road!

'While I was in Port Elizabeth to look for my children the police followed me the whole time. But each time they came to a house to look for me, I am already gone to the next house. So they kept missing me. After I had booked my ticket to go back to Pretoria I decided to go and find out what it was they wanted with me. So then I go to the special branch there and they want to know what meetings did I address, who did I see, what houses did I go into, and whom So many questions at one time that I couldn't even answer one. Hoo! When I answer I say, 'Well, I am sorry, I didn't have a diary with me to say on such and such a day . . .'

Hoo! Those people! They showed me a lot of things, which they had on a big board there. There were photos there; all the political people were on that board. And on the other side was the Freedom Charter. I said, 'Oh! You have got the Freedom Charter. It's a pity I haven't got it man, but you have got it.'

Then they said to me that one of their men had been at the station and he had seen that I had booked a ticket back to Pretoria, and they were tired of me now so, 'Please go. Leave!' I said, 'you know, I am from Pretoria. I never heard such things like you here. I only came to see my children, to see where are my children and so forth, and to see my furniture and things. But you don't want me here so you are making all this nonsense, getting excited over nothing.'

And then I went back to Pretoria.