Home
“It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, and even smells the same. You realised what’s changed is you.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is nothing more significant than a safe and secure home where families gather, friends always belong, laughter never ends, and memories are created.
Growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, in the apartheid era of the 1950s and 60s disempowered people of colour and banished us to a life of inequality and injustice.
Since moving to Sydney, Australia, among the many happy and soul-fulfilling visits to Cape Town, these pictures, elicit heart-rendering memories.
The changes post-apartheid is profound; however, many features of the apartheid era are still evident in the material inequalities, and poverty continues to shape the everyday life of most people who found themselves on the wrong side of the colour line.
Our visits are mostly fun-filled memorable catchups with family and friends, and nourishing times devouring the food dishes that are so reminiscent of our heritage.
I can’t explain what it’s like to eat a koesiesta, samosa, or roti and curry cooked in the Cape.
It’s something in the longing of our senses that makes it different from the food we eat here.
A homecoming of sorts even though we don’t have a home there.
Only memories of homes we once lived. Chris and I have these rituals to visit the places where we were born and some of the places that remind us of the hurts of the past.
We tell our children and grandchildren the same stories to remind them why we wanted a better life for them.
In those early years of return visits, Sasha and Michelin couldn’t understand why we had left behind so many cousins and friends to live in a faraway place where we hardly knew anyone.
So, a drive past number 3 Hanover Street, Diep River, and a small park with a sliding board and round-a-about further down the street would stir up the sorrow of the past.
In the rustling of the trees, we’d hear the strains in the voices of men loading the furniture onto lorries, pushing, and shoving to make it all fit.
Visions of children huddled in-between wardrobes and imbuia tables and sideboards for the ride onto the other side of the tracks with not an inkling of how the crossing would shape our future.
The stark differences are still there today in the townships created for those deemed too dark-skinned, compared to the lighter shades.
This house, pictured, is where Chris lived until they were evicted just after his 12th birthday. It’s still standing.
By the stroke of a pen, he could no longer play in the park down the street, nestled in the shade of these magnificent trees.
No matter what home means to you, there is something nostalgic about the place we call home. The homes our parents re-established post the enforcement of the despicable Group Areas Act in South Africa, embody the belief that home is where the heart is.
Comments (2)
Accurately depicted
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