DFL Freshman at Wits - Recollection
March 11, 2010 I arrived at Wits on February 4, 2010, which was about 15 days later than I should have. I had missed the orientation and international students’ tour of Johannesburg’s historical sites. I had missed four days of class too.
Mr. Munyaradzi Chatikobo received me at the Wits School of Arts (WSOA). After a few formalities and meeting Warren Nebe, the Head of Dramatic Arts, I was introduced to Ruth from Zimbabwe and Sheila from Cameroon. They were here to help me with registration and some basic orientation. At Senate House, after walking through a maze filled with milling students, I met a Zambian student who was also at the international students’ clearance office. His name was Kelvin Muzyamba. He recognised me and said he was actually my wife’s “workmate back home”, in Zambia.
Ruth and Sheila, both MA students, left me in the queue because they had to go to class. They left me in the hands of Tshiamo and Pearl, my fellow BA (Hons) students on the Drama for Life programme. Tshiamo is from Botswana and Pearl is South African, but originally from Lesotho. The registration process took quite a while. It was eventually time for class for them too, and they left.
After I had sorted out my clearance, I found my way back to Chati’s office, as Mr. Chatikobo is affectionately called at WSOA. But even then, the process was not yet complete. While there, in came Dr. John Kani, a thespian of great repute on the African continent, who had gone on to do big movies too. We had a brief chat about the encounter we had in Zimbabwe during the filming of Kini and Adams. He wondered why he had been everywhere else on the continent so often, yet scarcely leapt across the Zambezi to share his skills and work with the blooming talent so close to home. He pledged to look into that, got what he wanted, took a photo with me and left.
Chati and I went to the I-CAM office, where I got my student ID and access card; then to the bank to open an account. We went to the cafeteria to announce my arrival and eat something.. Now all was done, save for one thing; logging my registration and clearance documents with the faculty. The day was drawing to a close and that would only be done the next day.
As soon as we got back to the office at WSOA, Evaristo Abreu walked in. My face and heart lit up, as I met the first person I really knew. Evaristo, from Mozambique, is a friend of mine from Finland, where we attended the World Village Festival in Helsinki. Since then we had been in touch, shared ideas and plans, met several times in various theatrical and artists’ conferences, seminars, workshops and festivals worldwide over the subsequent years. Here in Johannesburg, Chati informed me that Evaristo was going to be my flatmate off campus, at our residence in Parktown.
I have been to Joburg several times before, but I was not really familiar with the Braamfontein and Parktown areas, where the University of Witwatersrand had several campuses, with student residences dotted around.
Chati drove us home after my first meal at the cafeteria. Argyll House on Queens Road, Flat 38, up on the third floor, was probably going to be home for me for the rest of the year, if the West Campus residence was not going to have any rooms vacant. I had relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa, for 2010, from where the World Cup fever affecting the whole world was emanating; where colourful branding of “The World Class African Host City” is everywhere; where talk about Obama and his lifetime achievement is scarcely heard on the streets.
Almost every corporate advertisement on television, billboards and buses has a football theme to it. Even the Telkom tower in the famed Hillbrow area is snugly fitted with a giant football around it.
The two-bedroom flat was of a modest size. It was empty, apart from a bed in each bedroom, cupboards, a small fridge and a stove in the kitchen. Evaristo had been here for about five days already and had chosen the warmer bedroom with a carpet for himself. The flat was dusty and had a stale smell that often exists in places that have not been lived in for some time. It must be the blocked kitchen and bathroom sinks, I guessed. The windows let in a good amount of light, and offered a view of the skyline. Evaristo led me to the vacant bedroom – cold, lonely and empty – before showing me around the rest of the space. We briefly chatted, catching up on a few things and discussing the Drama For Life study concept.
Before retiring, I stood by the window to take in the feeling of arrival, looked at the city skyline outside and saw the gigantic ball on the Telkom tower – unlit. I wondered why, especially as the Telkom emblem itself shone fiery blue just above the ball. Even the lanky looking antennae on top of the tower were lit up. Sporadic gunshots, much less than I have previously experienced, I must admit, and the intermittent wails of police and ambulance sirens pierced the cold night air. My whole being instantly registered fatigue. It had been a long day, especially after I had scarcely slept the previous night, putting things in place at home and justifying every article of clothing I had to pack or leave behind. I did not need all the formal clothes my wife was putting in the case because I was now going back to a life similar to that of thirteen years ago; a life of T-shirts, jeans and sneakers.
Sao Mendes’ office was the first stop for Friday morning and the last point in the registration process. Evaristo was on hand to help with that, before Chati asked, “So you are ready for class?” I had read very familiar-sounding names on Chati’s board in his office. Names I had seen on the emails which were so regularly doing rounds prior to my coming to Wits. Now it was time to put faces to the names. Just in the car park outside WSOA were faces I had met the previous day and a number of new ones – joking and laughing about their experiences on campus so far. I was introduced by Evaristo to Eben from Ghana, Bernard from Cameroon, John from Tanzania, Tonderayi from Zimbabwe, Faith from Kenya and Kitso from Botswana. We exchanged greetings with those I met the previous day too.
Sexuality, experimental dress styles, attitude of South African students to foreign ones, the domineering gothic architecture of the campus buildings, were all topical issues open to scrutiny among these highly observant and creative minds.
Elements of culture shock, envy of the infrastructural development of Johannesburg, and the disparity between the haves and the have-nots could not escape inclusion in that passionate morning chat. Outright, I could pick out the outspoken ones, who did not wait to let their hair down, and the fairly modest ones who only butted in with comments, in this little crowd of twelve. Before long, it was 10h15; time for my first class – Special Study – up on the 15th floor of University Corner, with Kathy Barolsky and Vinoba Krishna.
NOTE: I never met Kelvin again. The next time I heard that name mentioned was in a phone call from my wife restating her cautions to me before I left home. In a solemn tone she ended with the message that her workmate, Kelvin Muzyamba, was found dead in his room at a university in South Africa.
My heart sunk, but I quickly composed myself and decided not to worry her further by telling her that I had met Kelvin at Wits. A few days later I read about his death in a story, Another student death in res, by Bianca-Maree Sampson, in weekly Wits student newspaper, Vuvuzela.
I also learnt later that the frequency of shrill police and ambulance sirens in my neighbourhood is because we are situated on the edge of Parktown, at the intersection that divides Hillbrow from Braamfontein. We are sandwiched between the Hillbrow Police on one side and Parklane Hospital and the Mission Life Brenthurst Trauma Centre on the other. Appropriately located in the same vicinity is the Headache Clinic, to treat all those affected by the gunshots and wailing sirens that punctuate the air, even in the dead of night, in this neighbourhood.
By Benne Erasto Banda