a mixed family under apartheid was just that unbearable.
Once Mandela was elected we could finally live freely. Exiles started to return. I met my first one when I was around seventeen. He told me his story, and I was like, “Wait,
what
? You mean we could have
left
? That was an
option
?” Imagine being thrown out of an airplane. You hit the ground and break all your bones, you go to the hospital and you heal and you move on and finally put the whole thing behind you—and then one day somebody tells you about parachutes. That’s how I felt. I couldn’t understand why we’d stayed. I went straight home and asked my mom.
“Why? Why didn’t we just leave? Why didn’t we go to Switzerland?”
“Because I am not Swiss,” she said, as stubborn as ever. “This is my country. Why should I leave?”
S outh Africa is a mix of the old and the new, the ancient and the modern, and South African Christianity is a perfect example of this. We adopted the religion of our colonizers, but most people held on to the old ancestral ways, too, just in case. In South Africa, faith in the Holy Trinity exists quite comfortably alongside belief in witchcraft, in casting spells and putting curses on one’s enemies.
I come from a country where people are more likely to visit sangomas —shamans, traditional healers, pejoratively known as witch doctors—than they are to visit doctors of Western medicine. I come from a country where people have been arrested and tried for witchcraft—in a court of law. I’m not talking about the 1700s. I’m talking about five years ago. I remember a man being on trial for striking another person with lightning. That happens a lot in the homelands. There are no tall buildings, few tall trees, nothing between you and the sky, so people get hit by lightning all the time. And when someone gets killed by lightning, everyone knows it’s because somebody used Mother Nature to take out a hit. So if you had a beef with the guy who got killed, someone will accuse you of murder and the police will come knocking.
“Mr. Noah, you’ve been accused of murder. You used witchcraft to kill David Kibuuka by causing him to be struck by lightning.”
“What is the evidence?”
“The evidence is that David Kibuuka got struck by lightning and it wasn’t even raining.”
And you go to trial. The court is presided over by a judge. There is a docket. There is a prosecutor. Your defense attorney has to prove lack of motive, go through the crime-scene forensics, present a staunch defense. And your attorney’s argument can’t be “Witchcraft isn’t real.” No, no, no. You’ll lose.
TREVOR, PRAY
I grew up in a world run by women. My father was loving and devoted, but I could only see him when and where apartheid allowed. My uncle Velile, my mom’s younger brother, lived with my grandmother, but he spent most of his time at the local tavern getting into fights.
The only semi-regular male figure in my life was my grandfather, my mother’s father, who was a force to be reckoned with. He was divorced from my grandmother and didn’t live with us, but he was around. His name was Temperance Noah, which was odd since he was not a man of moderation at all. He was boisterous and loud. His nickname in the neighborhood was “Tat Shisha,” which translates loosely to “the smokin’ hot grandpa.” And that’s exactly who he was. He loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him. He’d put on his best suit and stroll through the streets of Soweto on random afternoons, making everybody laugh and charming all the women he’d meet. He had a big, dazzling smile with bright white teeth—false teeth. At home, he’d take them out and I’d watch him do that thing where he looked like he was eating his own face.
We found out much later in life that he was bipolar, but before that we just thought he was eccentric. One time he borrowed my mother’s car to go to the shop for milk and bread. He disappeared and didn’t come
Once Mandela was elected we could finally live freely. Exiles started to return. I met my first one when I was around seventeen. He told me his story, and I was like, “Wait,
what
? You mean we could have
left
? That was an
option
?” Imagine being thrown out of an airplane. You hit the ground and break all your bones, you go to the hospital and you heal and you move on and finally put the whole thing behind you—and then one day somebody tells you about parachutes. That’s how I felt. I couldn’t understand why we’d stayed. I went straight home and asked my mom.
“Why? Why didn’t we just leave? Why didn’t we go to Switzerland?”
“Because I am not Swiss,” she said, as stubborn as ever. “This is my country. Why should I leave?”
S outh Africa is a mix of the old and the new, the ancient and the modern, and South African Christianity is a perfect example of this. We adopted the religion of our colonizers, but most people held on to the old ancestral ways, too, just in case. In South Africa, faith in the Holy Trinity exists quite comfortably alongside belief in witchcraft, in casting spells and putting curses on one’s enemies.
I come from a country where people are more likely to visit sangomas —shamans, traditional healers, pejoratively known as witch doctors—than they are to visit doctors of Western medicine. I come from a country where people have been arrested and tried for witchcraft—in a court of law. I’m not talking about the 1700s. I’m talking about five years ago. I remember a man being on trial for striking another person with lightning. That happens a lot in the homelands. There are no tall buildings, few tall trees, nothing between you and the sky, so people get hit by lightning all the time. And when someone gets killed by lightning, everyone knows it’s because somebody used Mother Nature to take out a hit. So if you had a beef with the guy who got killed, someone will accuse you of murder and the police will come knocking.
“Mr. Noah, you’ve been accused of murder. You used witchcraft to kill David Kibuuka by causing him to be struck by lightning.”
“What is the evidence?”
“The evidence is that David Kibuuka got struck by lightning and it wasn’t even raining.”
And you go to trial. The court is presided over by a judge. There is a docket. There is a prosecutor. Your defense attorney has to prove lack of motive, go through the crime-scene forensics, present a staunch defense. And your attorney’s argument can’t be “Witchcraft isn’t real.” No, no, no. You’ll lose.
TREVOR, PRAY
I grew up in a world run by women. My father was loving and devoted, but I could only see him when and where apartheid allowed. My uncle Velile, my mom’s younger brother, lived with my grandmother, but he spent most of his time at the local tavern getting into fights.
The only semi-regular male figure in my life was my grandfather, my mother’s father, who was a force to be reckoned with. He was divorced from my grandmother and didn’t live with us, but he was around. His name was Temperance Noah, which was odd since he was not a man of moderation at all. He was boisterous and loud. His nickname in the neighborhood was “Tat Shisha,” which translates loosely to “the smokin’ hot grandpa.” And that’s exactly who he was. He loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him. He’d put on his best suit and stroll through the streets of Soweto on random afternoons, making everybody laugh and charming all the women he’d meet. He had a big, dazzling smile with bright white teeth—false teeth. At home, he’d take them out and I’d watch him do that thing where he looked like he was eating his own face.
We found out much later in life that he was bipolar, but before that we just thought he was eccentric. One time he borrowed my mother’s car to go to the shop for milk and bread. He disappeared and didn’t come
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