Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa by Mark Mathabane

Author:Mark Mathabane [Mathabane, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Millennium Books
Published: 2011-04-18T18:30:00+00:00

AUTHORIZED TO CARRY ONLY 65 SEATED

PASSENGERS, AND 15 STANDING.

But there must have been close to a hundred perspiring people squeezed into the stuffy bus. People sat on top of one another, some were sandwiched in the narrow aisle between the rows of seats, and some crowded on the steps. I sat on Granny’s lap, in the middle of the bus, by a large smudged window. As the bus droned past Alexandra’s boundaries, I glued my eyes to the window, anticipating my first look at the white world. What I saw made me think I had just made a quantum leap into another galaxy. I couldn’t stop asking questions.

“What are those?”

“Skyscrapers.”

“Why do they reach all the way to the sky?”

“Because many white people live and work in them.”

Seconds later. “Wow! look at all those nice houses, Granny!

They’re so big! Do many white people live and work there too?”

“No, those are mansions. Each is owned by one family.”

“By one family!” I cried in disbelief. Each mansion occupied an area about three times that of the yard I lived in, yet the latter was home for over twenty families.

“Yes,” Granny said matter-of-factly. “Your grandpa, when he first came to Johannesburg, worked for one such family. The family was so rich they owned an aeroplane.”

“Why are there so many cars in the white people’s homes?”

“Because they like to have many cars.”

“Those people dressed in white, what game are they playing?”

“The men are playing cricket. Master Smith plays that too. The women are playing tennis. Mrs. Smith plays it too, on Tuesday and Thursday.”

Suddenly the bus screeched to a halt, and people crashed into each other. I was thrown into the back of the wooden seat in front of me. Smarting, I asked, “Why did the bus suddenly stop? I didn’t see any robots [street lights].”

“Look over there,” Granny pointed. “White schoolchildren are crossing the road.”

I gazed through the window and for the first time in my life saw white schoolchildren. I scrutinized them for any differences from black schoolchildren, aside from colour. They were like little mannequins. The boys were neatly dressed in snow-white shirts, blazers with badges, preppy caps with badges, ties matching the badges, shiny black and brown shoes, worsted knee-high socks. The girls wore pleated gymdresses with badges, snow-white shirts, caps with badges, blazers with badges, ties matching badges, shining black and brown shoes. A few of the girls had pigtails. On the back of each boy and girl was slung a schoolbag; and each frail, milky-white arm had a wristwatch on it. It suddenly struck me that we didn’t even own a clock; we had to rely on cocks for time.

The white schoolchildren were filing out of a large, red-brick building with many large windows, in front of which were beds of multi-coloured flowers. A tall black man wearing a traffic uniform, a whistle between his thick lips, stood in the middle of the paved road, one hand raised to stop traffic, the other holding a sign that read in

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