Roots
By
Jennifer-Anne Humphreys
I woke up
with a start, sitting straight up in my bed, heart pounding, my eyes darting
feverishly around in the dark. Ah, thank you Lord, as they focused on the
familiar shadowy outline of a wingback chair in my bedroom. My racing heart
started to beat a bit slower, my body relaxed as I realised where I was. The
bed covers crumpled around me, my pillow mingled with sweat and tears. The beat
of African drums was still loud in my ears, but nearly all my fear had gone.
Roots tumbling round and round in my mind.
***
My sight
was blurred as I gazed upon the Liverpool Giraffes, so very different to the
African giraffes that I had been used to seeing, my long, grey-blond hair
whipping across my face, tears streaming down my cheeks, the blue, choppy
waters wavering as the wind blew like a dervish around me. These Liverpool
Giraffes have a charm all of their own, tall red and white towers hard at work
loading containers onto waiting ships. At night all lit up, their red brilliant
lights shimmering, shining like guiding beacons, reflecting upon the Mersey
like a silver mirror, creating more Liverpool Giraffes.
They have
a little bit in common with their South African counterparts, both having tall,
long necks and legs. Each having their unique purpose in the rhythmic cycle of
life. One a hard, cold steel working giraffe, and the other a warm, long-necked
animal, with a beige pelt and dark brown blobs all over its body. One anchored
firmly into the hard, unexciting drab concrete, the only movement coming from
it the single hoist that lifts and lowers containers. The other roams freely in
the dry, savannah bush, eating leaves from the tops of the trees, legs splayed
apart as they bend their knees backwards, to gently lower their necks whilst
drinking water from the watering holes, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from
predators lurking beneath the muddy waters. Roots popping into my mind once
again as I thoughtfully and excitedly explore the contrasts and similarities of
two varying countries and cultures.
Leaning
against the railing and looking across the expansive dark, moody body of water,
my heart leapt at the sight of the iconic Liverpool skyline. The Three Graces
with their varying shapes of spire, clock, Liver Birds Bella watching with
eagle eyes over the Mersey and Bertie looking over the city and all its hustle
and bustle, a square with an obvious flat roof, and then small domes, with a
domineering centred dome. My mind imagining it as a line of heartbeats.
My lips
move...making sound...Ferry Cross the Mersey. Argh, was I singing out loud?
Hopefully just softly to myself as I watched a ferry going to dock off-loading
and loading passengers on their various excursions. “Life goes on day after
day, hearts torn in every way.”
My heart has
been torn in each, and every, way since we’d moved over here to Britain, thus
bringing me back to roots again.
Continuing
my walk, I see a lifeboat on the river and wonder how many people have been
saved by the RNLI. The lifeboat, riding the swelling waves, reminds me that
life is a series of waves to be ridden. Some waves at times threaten to engulf,
then others gentle, helping us to recover our breath for the next engulfing
wave.
I’m pretty
certain that I felt a drop on my head. Hearing the raucous, shrill cries of
seagulls, I really hoped I hadn’t been blessed. Don’t they say that if a bird
drops its poo on you that you’ve been blessed? Anyway, their cries reminded me
of the Hadedas that we are used to in South Africa. Big grey birds with a
greenish sheen on their wings, long, downward pointy, sharp beaks, tallish legs
compared to other birds. Noisy things, their loud three or four note piercing
cries, ha-ha ha, or ha-ha ha-ha as they fly off in the mornings and return to
roost in the early evenings. Really, the seagulls here are the noisy
equivalents of them, another familiarity or similarity, whichever way you look
at it. For me, I see it as a comforting familiarity.
Another
drop, and another, closer together now, the sand starting to splatter on the prom.
I found myself seeking shelter in a building resembling the bow of a ship, its
gleaming windows availing the surveyance of the mouth of the Irish Sea and
Liverpool Bay. Beckoning me into its dry warmth, being drawn up the stairs to
the velvety, deep wine-coloured floor, where I immediately feel at home, and at
peace. There, I can finally collect my un-gathered, frenzied thoughts flying
around in my head. Roots!
***
I woke up,
heart pounding, jumping out of bed, the sounds of screaming and shouting
outside of my bedroom window. A black, bare breasted woman with a short dark
flared skirt on, colourful beads swaying around her neck in time with her
frantic footsteps as she ran around our house. A tall, black man, with white
teeth baring against his ebony skin, chasing her with a short, sharpened wooden
stick in his hand, his arm bent trying to stab her again. Her left breast
already bloody.
She banged
on the front door, wailing and begging for help outside. My mom going to open
the front door, and us begging her not to from the safety of being inside our
prefabricated, rural house. The young African woman’s stab wound necessitated a
visit to the local hospital which was, that night a very long, thirteen miles
away.
The
compound, where the African farm workers lived, was only 500 yards away and
often had African get togethers where too much Umqombothi,
which is a South African traditional beer made from maize, and other strong
alcoholic spirits were drank. We often heard them singing over the weekends,
beating their drums, and watching the vivid orange finger flames of the cooking
fires dancing, reaching higher and higher against the expansive black
bejewelled night-time skies. This nine-year-old girl was not used to the
savageness, nor beauty, of Africa.
Yet, it
grew upon me, my second home country. Its stunning white-gold sandy beaches and
high sand dunes, one as tall as a double storey house. My cousins and I would
endlessly climb it, the sand burning our feet and, as we ran down it, we would sink
to our knees, tumbling and rolling our bodies sideways for the last part of it.
Glorying at the splendour, and vastness, of it all, our shouts of laughter
egging each other on. A well-beloved country that turned its back against me in
my middle-aged years. Leaving me, and my family devastated, with nothing. No
jobs, no income to live on, no help.
***
It was the
end of September in 1982 that we left Blighty for ‘Braaivleis, rugby, sunny
skies, and Chevrolet,’ South Africa. Our parents humble beginnings there,
similar but very different to our own stark, bare beginnings here in 2017 UK.
We lived
in a camping caravan in a caravan park for the first twelve months of our life
in South Africa. My Afrikaans uncle had arranged for us to live there when my
British dad had gotten the job in Eshowe, KwaZulu Natal. My white South African
mother had hated living in the UK, so that is why we ended up in the situation
that they now found themselves in. My dad had loved her enough to return to her
South African roots. Us kids squealed with joy whilst my uncle towed the
caravan, with us in it, down towards the semi-coastal town vibrant with
brilliant scarlet, purple and yellow flower bushes. A lush canopy of emerald
trees its main attraction, the Dlinza Forest, of which bordered the caravan
park. Monkeys jabbered away in the branches and leaves whispered to each other
in the breeze. A vlakvark, bushpig, came out to chase us whilst we were running
around the open space of the caravan park. Our Afrikaans cousins yelled at us
all to run, my sister and I scared as we’d never experienced wild animals
before.
We then
moved to Nkwalini after a year, which is where I first encountered the savage
beauty of a native South African culture. Too many memories to tell, of a
country steeped in violence and anger, yet people came together as communities
to work together against the hardships, laughter and singing ringing out. A
country where armed robberies, one of which I had a gun held to my head, and
two more further ones of which the third one if I hadn’t have moved from where
I usually stood, I would have been shot, rule the day. But not all my memories
are of doom and gloom, many, many of them are amusing and happy. My husband,
and my children being one of many of them.
***
Thirty-four
years later, on a cold icy, snowy day we set foot upon British soil again. My
husband and I, having to leave our precious children behind to join us later,
ready to start our own humble beginnings on the Wirral. Not without its
battles, leaving us scarred, a future faced with uncertainties. Our daughter
facing battles against her own demons, courageously. Our son excelling in life.
Thinking
of The Thing Is, by Ellen Bass, this excerpt is familiar to my ending
and beginning.
When
grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening
the air, heavy as water
more
fit for gills than lungs;
when
grief weights you down like your own flesh
only
more of it, an obesity of grief,
you
think, How can a body withstand this?
Then
you hold life like a face
between
your palms, a plain face,
no
charming smile, no violet eyes,
and
you say, yes, I will take you
I
will love you, again.
Once
again, I am riding the waves of life, with courage, hopefulness, joy and above
all, love.
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