Alien Experiences

Experiences can be strange sometimes.

Here I was, in my house, in Johannesburg, South Africa and opposite me sat a white woman from Essex. I found her number in Yellow Pages because the TV set we brought from London could not pick up the signals and needed adjustment. After phoning various outlets her shop was the only one that could do it. When she heard my accent she asked what part of London was I from. And when I told her I was black, she couldn't wait to meet me.

Rita was a large woman; shiny earrings dangled from her ears, purple eye make up stared out from under her brows and her high heels tramped noisily on the marble floor. She and her husband had been in the country for twenty-five years and owned an electrical shop in Orange Grove, central Johannesburg. Before talking about the business on hand, we talked or rather she reminisced about Britain and wanted to know how it looked, as she hadn't been back in years. After some minutes, the conversation moved to the present day situation: South Africa - its people, her worries and fears. I offset this by telling her how excited I was to be here, in the continent of my forefathers. I suddenly realised I said this without thinking when I saw the look on her face.

But you're not African!' she exclaimed, 'You're British ' as I am!'

It was said with some desperation and urgency. For that split second, images came flooding in my mind. Some years back when I was a student at Southgate Tech, on my way home there would be times I would have to wait for a bus either in the pouring rain, the cold weather or the hot sun. I'd meet little old ladies whose conversations would always begin about the erratic nature of the British weather and then progress to explaining at length how they loved everybody and wasn't prejudiced. Then they would spoil it all when they said how they wanted to go to my country and try some of that hot weather.

'Don't you want to go back?' When I told them I'd had never been 'back' or that 'back' for me was a road somewhere in Edmonton, they'd totally disconnect and keep persisting with that 'hot' weather. But now, it looked as if fate was giving me a chance to play the part of the little old lady. Here was somebody trying to make sense of the New South Africa, but couldn't. She knew that with the new order, Africans had won the right to be masters in their own land. Her understanding of this was vital if she, and people like her, were to survive. Grabbing at anything that resembled herself, even if it was black, was all she could do to keep afloat of what she understood as the unpredictable sea of change taking place.

'You're as British as I am!' She repeated; making sure I fully heard what she was saying.
I didn't answer. I couldn't answer, as I never thought that I would live to hear a Brit proclaim me as one of them. And now that one of them had I was numb. My life up to this point had been preoccupied in looking for my roots; seeking out an identity. I was too far-gone in my search to ever think about Britain again as the homeland, and Rita's craving for some sort of connection or link made me feel that she had delivered this 'British' like it was a new pair of shoes that I was now entitled to; but all I felt I had received was a second hand pair, full of holes with the soles almost coming off.

She had another go. 'You don't understand. They're on a different level. It's difficult to talk to them. Y'know, the English. The language. It's not there, like your's. I know we can talk¦be friends. What's it been like for you in London, then?'

I wondered how much should I tell her. I decided to lighten it a little with an edited version. She listened attentively while I recounted one or two experiences. She picked up on my anger and that confused her even more.

'Well it wasn't like that when I left. My family and I lived next door to a West Indian family. A great laugh they were. They used to bake a Jamaican cake almost every week for us¦¦or least I think it was Jamaican¦or maybe they weren't from Jamaica¦'. Andrea Levy in her novel ' Never Far from Nowhere relates how Black people exist on the periphery in Britain. But listening to Rita, her feelings were the new political dispensation had placed her bang in the middle of nowhere, with only fear and apprehension as company. She talked about the possibilities of returning home to England, to Essex.

'If I went home, I would have to get a council flat?' she said it with her eyes fixed on me making it sound like a statement, but really it was a question. 'Do you think I would be able to get one?'

I told her I didn't know but maybe she should get in touch with the British Embassy. I thought I was helping her but instead it left her even more anxious.
'But a lot of us are leaving the country. And those ones leaving are all skilled, educated and I don't have any qualifications. What would I do if I went back?'

Again I was speechless. What was I supposed to tell her? We sat in silence for a while. I offered her some tea but she declined and shifted her attention to the problems of the TV. When she had written down all the details she told me two men from the shop would come the following day and with that, she left. The two men, Zulu's came the next day to take the set. We chatted for a while; dealing with questions about myself and their fascination of meeting a black person from overseas. Then they said they had to return quickly, as they didn't want to annoy their 'madam'. A week later the TV was returned, working and I never heard from Rita again.

I was sad for her but tried to understand my own responses. Rita held out a hand to me but I rejected it. Holding out my hand in the past where it had been repeatedly rejected was something I had grown accustomed to. After all it was normal. A relationship with a white person was done on a superficial level and that was what I was conditioned to do, something I did not realise until now.

This bizarre turn around of Rita desperate to be friends seemed abnormal, almost alien. Living in South Africa would provide me with many disturbing encounters like this.