We meet in Mazimbu, Tanzania.
I think it was Mendi Msimang, an ANC leader, who met me in Mozambique in October 1979 and persuaded me to work at the school which the ANC was building in Tanzania: the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO), named after a young ANC soldier who had been captured and executed.
What impressed me was that he had travelled to Inhambane, where I was then teaching English.
It was a seven-hour drive from Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, or over an hour by air in a tiny plane. We agreed I would start in January 1980 after visiting my parents and sisters in London.
Pay was not discussed, but that did not matter. I was filled with a revolutionary spirit.
SOMAFCO was situated close to the town of Morogoro, on an abandoned sisal estate called Mazimbu, which was loaned to the ANC by the Tanzanian government.
It was perhaps five kilometres wide in a beautiful valley formed by mountains that rose behind the town. I worked at the high school there for six years (counting my time spent in London writing a history textbook), developed part of the curriculum, and ran a resource centre that I initiated.
After staying in makeshift accommodation for months, I had been allocated a room in a newly built staff house that I shared with others. I was sitting in the common sitting room when the manager responsible for feeding the students came in with a young woman. She introduced me to Ntombi, explaining that she had studied catering in Zambia and would set up modern kitchens.
She was twenty-five and I was thirty-one.
Ntombi’s face lit up as she passed a window. The light made her coppery skin glow and her black eyes shine. She was dressed neatly with a hint of efficiency. I was lean and fit, but what Ntombi saw was a balding white man with a thick beard, in bell-bottoms and a crumpled T-shirt.
If an oyster could talk, it would tell us stories of irritation, familiarity, and the strengthening of glutinous bonds.
The courtship was brief but active. I was eager and confused, and Ntombi took charge. I had a rival, supported by a mother who was a Leader, whereas my mother was in London.
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Ntombi was not the kind to be unduly influenced, but seeing my lack of social awareness she made sure that somebody informed me that (a) she was serious, (b) there was a rival, and (c) the person informing me – a senior comrade – would announce she was my supporter.
Ntombi’s plans included suggesting a brief ride on the back of my small motorbike along the bumpy track that ran along the mielie fields.
A river ran on the other side of the complex, but it was too public. This was unfortunate, as I now know that Ntombi is a deeply traditional Zulu. Courtship involves approaching a girl as she collects firewood near a river.
Declaring your love in this well-defined space initiates a series of events that in peacetime leads to the two families, and often clans, being united on many levels.
We married when Ntombi visited me in 1984 in London, where my parents and sisters had gone into exile, one by one, over ten years. I was on sabbatical at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), writing a textbook for SOMAFCO.
It was a year before the repeal of the Immorality and Mixed Marriages Acts, which outlawed marriage between whites and any other designated race.
Our marriage was not recognised as lawful in South Africa, where we would in any case have been jailed as members of the ANC.
Our marriage had other dynamics. As a black person, Ntombi was not considered a citizen of South Africa and was not afforded basic human rights.
Members of the ANC were united around a war against apartheid, but it was primarily a nationalist movement that had grown out of the misery and oppression of the African majority, who were united by similar languages, traditions, clan systems, and kingdoms.
I did not speak isiZulu or any other African language. I was uncertain what to do when I heard Ntombi’s father wanted lobola in the form of cattle, which in the eyes of many is the only way to bind the two families and secure full rights over the couple’s children.
From his side, he sent us a diamond ring from Swaziland, where he was based.
Years later I was finally able to pay lobola.
Within two years, in 1986, we had our first child, Busisiwe, or Busi as she is known.
Busi was born in the government hospital in Morogoro. The beds were dirty, with hardly any linen, and most were already occupied. Ntombi birthed our daughter on the floor, which looked cleaner. I was not allowed in until after the birth.
The nurses were tough and expert.
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Ntombi now denies telling me that one nurse shouted at a screaming woman, “Yes, you like it when things go in like a banana but not when they come out like a pineapple.”
One risk for a country hosting refugees is that the exiles may be pursued by those from whom they are running away. This was true under apartheid: ANC exiles living in countries bordering South Africa were attacked, and hundreds of citizens of those countries died in the cross-border raids.
It was not near the sea and I assumed we were out of range of the South African Air Force. Then, shortly after the birth of Busi, we were told that bombers could refuel in a third country and reach us.
It was believed that they would attack us at dawn. For some weeks, Ntombi and Busi, with other new mothers and their babies as well as pregnant women, were bused away from Mazimbu before sunrise and returned later in the day.
We were advised to take precautions, without being given much advice and no training.
I dug a deep pit outside our house with a sloping trench leading to it. If there was a raid, my idea was to clutch the infant Busi to my chest and roll down the ramp.
This is an edited extract from The John and Ntombi Story: A Memoir of their Love and Times by John Carneson (published by The Grasped Image). The recommended retail price is R250 and it is available on takealot.com and in all good bookstores.
