Going Home - Doris May Lessing [53]
When we had finished seeing the homesteads, the Native Commissioner and I had a sandwich lunch under a tree near the Women’s Centre, whose foundation-stone had been laid, but which was not finished for lack of funds. The two Africans who were with us, the demonstrator and the interpreter, wandered off tactfully to find their own lunch. As usual I felt bad about this; and as usual could say nothing—it was not as if I were an ignorant visitor who did not know it was impossible for them to sit and eat with us. And I felt bad, too, about this official, who was kindly and helpful; just as I felt embarrassed the day before by the other Native Department official, who was so pleased because the grass had grown up over the eroded land. For so deeply ingrained in these white people are the ideas of segregation—that it is right and proper for a white farm to be thousands of acres, and a black plot one acre, or, for a few, a couple of hundred, that any discussions taking place can only be on this accepted basis. Therefore we sat under the tree and talked about the role women were playing in these Purchase Areas. It seemed that in this case it was the men who had pushed the women into starting a Women’s Association—because it made their wives more house-proud, better cooks and better mothers.
I wished very much I could have had the chance to be alone with the two Africans for an hour without the Native Commissioner; not, I must emphasize, that he was concealing anything from me.
Before we went in search of the two Africans, he said that Mr Todd was a wonderful Prime Minister, and that if only they were given time to create a middle class…
Going back in the car, passing a clutch of straggling poverty-stricken huts, I asked the interpreter how many of these farms had good houses, such as we had seen; and he said eagerly, as if he had been waiting for me to ask it: ‘Only eleven, Madam.’ And the Native Commissioner said quickly: ‘We have seen the better houses, of course.’ As if he were saying: ‘If you were me, wouldn’t you have shown the better houses?’—Well, of course I would.
I asked the interpreter if there was a library. He said there was not. No, the people did not read newspapers. He added that there was no electricity in the whole area, no telephone, no laid-on water. He said that to reach Salisbury, the people had to walk a minimum of seven miles to the bus-stop; the bus made the journey on the main road, once a day, in and out of town.
There are now 5,000 of these better farms in the Colony. One eighth of the land available for purchase has been allocated. There will be 40,000 farms; but the Purchase Areas will not be settled as quickly as the Reserves, because they are being surveyed properly.
‘And why can’t they be photographed, like the plots on the Reserves?’
‘Because if people buy a bit of land, they have the right to be fussy about their boundaries; and because the Reserves are more urgent—we’ve got to save that soil before it blows away.’
There is a waiting list of tens of thousands for these farms. To own one is the summit of ambition of most Africans.
A conversation which illustrates the Native Land Husbandry Act from the grass roots:
A friend and I had made a trip into Marandellas to buy stores. It is a pretty little village. The sun glistened off the leaves, the wall of the post office glared white.
An old African, passing the parked car, stopped and said:
‘Morning, baas.’
‘Ah, that you, Thomas? And how are you?’ He settled down for a talk, one foot on the running board, while the African stood on the pavement, hat in hand.
‘Ah, baas, things are very bad.’
‘Ah? And how’s that?’ (This talk is in kitchen Kaffir.)
‘Baas, baas, the Government is shupa-ing me meninge.’ (‘The Government is pushing me around.’)
‘Yes? And what is the Government doing to you, Thomas?’
‘Baas, I have just come from my kraal. The Government says I must put my cattle into a house in the winter and feed them.’
‘Well, Thomas,