Author's note: I have not been lucky in the collection this year of Mandela with the photograph. In June I lost a small and very resolutive canon. In December the big team was spoiled. A pity for photos of a historic moment. I made them with a small compact.
"I hate Mandela. I am a PAC member (Pan -African Congress). My referents are Mugabe, Gadafi o Castro. Those are leaders who helped their people. Look here, Everything remains in the hands of whites. Mandela sold us to all ". Those words told me in Mthatha, a 30 kilometers of Quun, An African girl of unrepeatable name during the dinner of a crowded restaurant, where there were hundreds of journalists, in which we had to share a table due to lack of space.
Thousands of kilometers of the problem were trained in Portuguea
I have had to wait almost four years and travel to Mandela's own house to listen so clearly a message that other South Africans share. "My father and my mother are anc members. He says he fought for liberation and I tell him that he did nothing, who trained in Portugueka thousands of kilometers from the problem. Those who fought here and fought. Those who were in Lusaka or Robben Island did nothing. Mandela did not fight, His arrest was for bureaucratic things. Everything is for Mandela, But it was Sobukwe (PAC leader who was isolated in Robben Island) The one who spent years locked in worse conditions ”, The university sympathetic tells me. "All important revolts were led by others, not the ANC ”.
“I have told my parents that I would kill them if they get in the socialist revolution. The problem is capitalism, You have to end him ”And what do they say? "They laugh like you do now (I started laughing when listening to the youth impetus with which he defended that he would even kill his parents for an ideology). Are there many young people with your same ideas? "Not, unfortunately we are few, But in the university we are not joined and creating debate groups for people to know reality ”. "I hope you don't kill me too, Remember that I spent the ketchup ", I say to say goodbye. She laughs and doesn't answer.
I have told my parents that I would kill them if they get in the socialist revolution
Neck had visited the Transkei area. The Heroes region, where myths like Sisulu or Mandela come from, It seemed much more beautiful than every time I imagined it in Mandela by reading her long way to freedom. They are hills covered by a green mantle, With just trees, dotted with houses and animals. It is a very far South Africa from Johannesburg's luxuries, Cape or the close coastal towns of the Durban area in which I was in 2010. It was a South Africa with a special characteristic: lacked almost white.
And in the kilometers of the car I left the small round houses, almost all of cement, but very humble, Very rural. So until reaching qunu. I think Mandela couldn't rest in a better place. Will do it as he is, in a flat site, unpretentious, where changes are only noticeable for those who suffered the past. "There was no light until 1995", One of the guys with whom I waited for the Mandela coffin is told the day before his burial.
The words of that old man who shared 26 Years in jail with Mandela are the most beautiful thing that has happened at this funeral
That was my farewell staff "from the leader, of the guide, of the friend ", that his friend Ahmed Kathrada would say on the next morning in one of those speeches that are always heard with a knot in his throat. I think the words of that old man who shared 26 Years in jail with Mandela are the most beautiful thing that has happened at this funeral. "You're leaving with Anc team A. Con Walter; Mbeki, Tambo, Slovo ... my life is empty, Who will change it ", an old fighter who almost asked to go there, To heaven, to meet with his (That is a generation of unforgettable men who have little to do with the current leaders of the ANC. Almost offends to compare them).
But my moment was the previous afternoon. I left the Nelson Mandela Museum, en Qunu, And I lowered the slope that took the road. Most colleagues went to the step of the coffin to Mthatha, capital, where there were thousands of people in the street. I thought about staying there, near the grave, Together with the humble people of his people. I recognize that it was almost more a personal option than professional.
I saw dozens of people leave their humble houses and go to the road
Then, while going down the way I saw dozens of people leave their humble houses and go to the road. There would not be more than 200 People, which must be a figure very close to the total that lives in that specific area. They sang, laughed, They danced. "What do you do with cross hands?”, A young man tells me. Then, Seeing my face of doubt before their intentions, He tells me “Take, Today we are here to celebrate ", While I am given a small South African flag that has come to me to Maputo.
And then the words began: There we were about five scattered journalists and the two hundreds of neighbors, Mandela's neighbors. And while I waited they told me stories of the school that he opened; And what always helped everyone; And of the days that worked on their farm or house that summed up with a "that man never stopped smiling"; And of races all over the slope of the children who wanted to shake hands when they saw him in the distance; And what Mozambique, They always aroused curiosity that I lived there, I was less developed than that place, something they listened with pride and distrust : "Less?, That is not possible "; and Christmas….. Christmas! When they said it I was surprised, true, We were almost Christmas. There was nothing in all that environment that remembered it, but there, en Qunu, They remembered the parties a few minutes after the coffin of their neighbor passed by. Why?
The 25 December he invited us all home
"He 25 December he invited us all to his house and gave every child a gift. I did not want any child without a toy stay. The 1 January was the same but with the elderly ". That was Christmas in Qunu. And then more sirens began to sound than usual and in the distance because of the number of motorcycles we understood that this was already his neighbor's car. And everyone began to sing the anthem of South Africa, And I realized after passing the vehicle that I had not looked at the car of the guy I have admired most in my life when I had the last chance to do it, I looked at them, Mandela's neighbors.
