Mary Robson

Mike and Mary Down Under - The Final Episode

The Final Episode

On Wednesday evening, we had dinner with Pam Martin and her partner Paul. Pam was the director of Children’s Fund Kirklees, the initial funders of Roots and Wings. They emigrated to Australia a couple of years ago. Pam is now a Programme Manager with Anglicare Victoria and Paul a social worker.  Paul was recruited as part of a drive by the services in Victoria, who employed forty six social workers from the UK. They are very happy with their new lives, and fascinated by the differences in the work between the two countries. In Australia, they find that the main thrust of work is to help ‘fix’ poor parenting and that children’s rights aren’t the main focus. In the UK, we have Every Child Matters. Introduced by the last Labour government, in the aftermath of the Victoria Climbie case, it underpinned the Children’s Act 2004 and put the child at the centre of services.

During the conference week, fellow presenter Lindy Joubert had suggested that Mike have a phonecall with her Melbourne University colleague Pera Wells from Ormond College. The first question Pera asked of Mike was whether he knew her niece… none other than our own dear Durham colleague Angela Woods. Needless to say, we were amazed.

As Angela wrote

I am completely gobsmacked that of the 210000000 in Australia you

managed to be introduced to my aunt.

Thursday morning, we went to Ormond to meet with Lindy and Pera. It rained intermittently and the air was heavy and warm and scented with lavender. Modelled on an Oxford college, Ormond’s dining room was large and filled with hefty refectory tables and carved chairs. Over breakfast, we learned that the University recently redesigned its curriculum and is now operating the Melbourne Model, to encourage more depth and breadth of study. Pera suggested we organize an Arts in Health sideshow for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in Perth next year.

We were then given a tour of Ormond and the college next door, Newman. Designed by Walter Burley Griffin, who was a colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright, Newman was built in the early twentieth century. A rotunda houses the arts-and-crafts-gothic dining room, which would be the perfect backdrop for a 1915 children’s fairy tale illustrator.

Friday morning, and Mike has flown back to the UK.

Pam Martin had Chickenley in mind when she commissioned an art therapist, Kate Perry, to work in three primary schools in the Frankston North area of Melbourne. Pam arranged for Kate to come to the conference when she knew of our visit and now here was a chance to further engage with local schools and officials about the work. So Mary got a train to Frankston to meet with Pam, Kate and the rest of the team. Frankston is an area south of the city, on the coast of the bay. Whilst there are desirable properties on the coast, Frankston North (sometimes known as ‘The Pines’) is an area of multiple deprivation. We went to Monterey secondary School and met with the school nurse, teachers, classroom assistants and two year 10 pupils. Mary gave a short slideshow on transition projects at Chickenley and a conversation ensued about the value of such work in the community.

The upshot is that Frankston North may well have its own transition parade this time next year – everyone was enthusiastic and Kate is already working in the three feeder schools, all of which are in walking distance from the high school. Chickenley’s year 6 will be encouraged to be in touch with their Australian counterparts in the summer, giving them topical tips on event management from the child’s perspective.

It was grand to end the trip on such a practical note. There is real potential to help make a difference here.

Time to get on a delayed plane home…

 

 

 

 

Mike and Mary Down Under - Episode 2

The story continues…

After a lost weekend of local tourism and farewells to our conference chums, we headed south to Tasmania on Monday November 22^nd. We arrived in Hobart accompanied by the strange sounds of unidentifiable birds. Our host, Jacquie Maginnis, of the charmingly named Department of Health and Human Services, took us to the venue for the workshop we were to run in the afternoon.

Moorilla - a new building set in a vineyard, it afforded floor to ceiling views. Not one screen but two for our presentation – sensurround! Outside the temperature was as much of a surprise to the locals as to us – 30 degrees and rising.

Participants came from the arts, health, local government and voluntary sector. We were asked to give a presentation and so we introduced the workshop with an outline of Common Knowledge methods, including a practical reflective practice exercise.

Then, together, they tackled the question of how best to build strong arts and health networks that will help support healthy, sustainable communities. They were committed to the task and entered in to some strong debate about language and methods. We resolved the concensus with moments to spare…

Subsequent feedback has been very positive and we are forwarding to Jacquie the summary table with further reflections and recommendations.

Tuesday and our diaries were full of on-the-spot consultations. Not your average appointments:

We began the day with the Gambling Addiction Support Service, asking our advice re imaginative interventions. It was most useful to reflect on the NEF statistics re: happiness. This is how some people fill their 40 per cent of activity time. There are only half a million people here, living what some would consider a perfect lifestyle, and yet gambling losses account for astonishing sums of money. Ten per cent of the state budget is derived from gambling  and so any projects that deal with its negative consequences need to tread very carefully.

Every one is Australia was given $800 to stimulate the economy. Certainly in Tasmania and no doubt elsewhere, a huge proportion of that money was fed in to slot machines and wagered away. At a casino in Sydney, staff no longer encourage patrons to take breaks from the slot machines or ‘pokies’ as they are called here, and so there are reported incidents of people losing bladder control as they continue to play. Another horrendous tale was of a patron who suffered a heart attack whilst playing a pokie. The paramedics couldn’t persuade those playing at adjacent machines to move so they could best attend to the stricken…

We discussed several ways of modelling healthy social living that would build social cohesion and distract from the hideous persuasion of gambling and its dealers. There is a great potential to create work that is indeed radical and of necessity under the radar of the vigilant treasury.

It was a great conversation. We all walked away the richer.

Then, we visited the Choir of High Hopes, which had gathered in an extraordinary assortment of marginalised people. Currently in rehearsal for festive jingles for the local community TV channel, we happily joined in with the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Off we went to meet with Pippa, the public art manager for GASP!, a new waterside sculpture trail adjoining the venue where we held the workshop. Our advice was sought re how to best involve community health issues in the project without losing the quality in challenging commissioned works. Mike’s experience at Gateshead, commissioning Gormley’s Angel, and Mary’s from working at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park set some parameters for the conversation.

We left Pippa and walked over to city hall to meet with officers from Social Inclusion and Cultural Development departments. Here was an oppressively civic atmosphere - panelled walls, plush patterned red carpet and thick mustard velour curtains closed to keep out the heat.

We were welcomed and asked to talk of long-term community engagement and arts for social change. They were aware of Gateshead and spoke highly of the recent Melbourne conference as one of their number had attended and brought the learning south.

We weren’t done yet… Back at our hotel, we said goodbye to Jacquie and met ceramic artist Sara Wright. She told the tale of her recent history and how her brother died of testicular cancer at 23. She spent a year making exquisite work in his memory. We talked of how arts, health and flourishing could be focussed in palliative care.

Sara took us for fish and chips on the beach. Just like home, but not. Here, an impressive array of freshly cooked alternatives. With salad! Afterwards, we drove to the top of Mount Wellington, almost 1300 feet above Hobart. We gazed down at the island, blurred by distant rain, the air full of the smell of pine and eucalyptus. Or as Mike so fetchingly described it,

“Smells like toilet cleaner up here”.

The next morning, we bade sweet farewell to Tasmania and returned to a humid Melbourne. We met with Rosalie Hastwell of the Festival of Healthy Living It isn’t a festival, but a mental health promotion strategy, auspiced by The Royal Children's Hospital Mental Health Service, which links communities, mental health promotion and the arts. We talked of artists’ training, reflective practice and interdisciplinary work.

 

 

 

Mike and Mary Down Under - Episode 1

The Art of Good Health and Wellbeing, Melbourne 2010

2nd Annual International Arts and Health Conference

16 – 19 November 2010

Sidney Myer Asia Centre, University of Melbourne, Victoria

 

The Art of Good Health and Wellbeing, presented best practice and innovative arts and health practice and programs, examples of effective healthcare promotion, methods of project evaluation and data from scientific research.

This year's Conference had a special focus on arts and health strategies for children and youth; the built environment, design and health; mental health and creative ageing.

 

 I have been in Australia with my colleague from the Centre for Medical Humanities, Mike White.

Phew! What a time we have had…

This was a big conference, with 300 delegates from all over Australia, plus the USA, Europe and the Far East. The programme was very busy, starting at 8.45 in the morning and often finishing on or around 7.00 in the evening. There were 24 breakout sessions per day, each consisting of 2-4 presentations, in addition to keynote presentations, conversations and plenaries.

Before the conference began, the presenters were invited to a private view of Lyon Housemuseum  In 2000, Corbett Lyon and Yueji Lyon built on their interests in contemporary art and architecture and developed the concept of a ‘housemuseum’ to accommodate their family and the Lyon Collection.

Our visit to the finished project prompted musings about the nature of public and private. For example, there were no tags on the artworks; a conversation was necessary in order to find out more.

Corbett has played the pipe organ since childhood and has commissioned a contemporary full sized organ. It is sleek, all pale wood and gleaming metal and he played it for us. Bach filled this most modern space.

Our week started by taking part in the pre-conference workshop: Toolkit: Arts in Healthcare Program Essentials, Building and Sustaining Arts in Healthcare Programmes.

Our contribution was a presentation about Common Knowledge past and present, stressing the value of interdisciplinary relationships.

Other presenters included Dr Gary Christenson, Director, Boynton Mental Health Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota Medical School,

Minneapolis, USA. Amongst examples of art at the clinic, he told the tale of renting an Art-o-mat. Art-o-mats are retired cigarette vending machines that have been converted to vend art and well worth a look.

There were lanterns dotted around the conference centre, from various community events. Three-dimensional stars hung outside the theatre and a tableau of Chinese birdcage house lanterns was nestled in a corner.  We felt right at home as a result.

The official opening of the conference included a conversation between the aforementioned Gary Christiansen and Australian of the year Professor Patrick McGorry AO, facilitated by Dr Jill Gordon. It was a pleasure to reconnect with Jill after an unbelievable two years. It seems like only yesterday she was with the Centre in Durham…

 Wednesday 17^th was our big day – we presented a keynote session in the afternoon. Around and about that, we helped the organisers by chairing breakout sessions. Being asked to chair sessions solved the problem of deciding which ones to attend.

I started the day with The Lost Generation Project. This project seeks to find the life stories of people with learning difficulties. Simone Flavelle, the co-presenter, from DADAA, used the phrase ‘People are people because of people’ which is essentially the African concept of Ubuntu.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Ubuntu in 2008:

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

There is a distinct link here with our notions of what makes for collective flourishing as opposed to individual well-being.

We began our presentation where Mike left off last year, on resilience and emotional learning. We carried on to describe what we and CMH have been up to in the last year, leading to the challenges of social injustice, health inequalities as outlined in the Marmot review and the health service restructure in a time of austerity.

 

We paused for collective thought and invited our audience to discuss these issues in the light of their own experience, before concluding with upbeat narratives on Wrekenton, Chickenley and Tilery. We finished by looking at how ‘Five Ways to Well-being could provide an evuative framework and we highlighted often overlooked factors of resonance, aesthetic agency, and communal will in the modelling of healthy social living.

We invited folk to write a placard – what did they want to say to policy makers? We received about forty,  which we typed up and exhibited in the conference foyer. Here are a couple of them:

 

LIVE VULNERABLY AND FLOURISH TOGETHER

CONNECT AND FLOURISH!

 

A major contributor to the conference was Bruce Esplin, Victoria’s Emergency Services Commissioner. He spoke eloquently of the value of the arts as part of recovery – not just of the individual, but of the community. After ‘Black Saturday’, the culmination of terrible bush fires in February 2009, Bruce helped support Regional Arts Victoria to include the arts as part of the response. He is actively encouraging that the arts be part of the state’s protocols re: disaster response.

For some of the projects, see Illuminated by Fire

On Thursday, MMU’s Clive Parkinson gave a provocative paper on the medicalisation of unhappiness. It was an abbreviated version of a longer paper that we invie him to come and give in Durham.

One session covered three aspects of living with advanced cancer. Carolyn Rickett, along with Jill Gordon gave a workshop entitled “Singing Bodies into Shapes of a Different Kind – metaphor and transformation in cancer patients”, telling of the particular power of a poetry writing module that gave patients the skills to articulate benign metaphors of their condition none of which were to do with waging war!

 

Mike chaired a session on evaluation with quantitative researchers from Curtin University in WA including a paper from the University of Melbourne problematising arts in health methodologies, and an interesting account from Christine Putland of Flinders University on evaluation as a planning/development tool for a new arts precinct adjoining Adelaide’s main mental health hospital.

Quotes of the day from David Ames:

Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease

from his witty presentation that also included this memorable lyric about ageing and time from Der Rosenkavelier:

I hear it flowing unrelenting.

Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and stop all the clocks, all of them.

Mike’s book signing sold out all 25 available copies and in the evening he met with an interdisciplinary group of researchers from La Trobe University who would be keen to collaborate with CMH and offered to help road test evaluation instruments in Victoria communities.

We met with our Aussie chums to discuss preparations for our Critical Mass gathering in Durham next June. We also invited the aforementioned Gary Christiansen to join the merry throng.

The finale of the conference was excerpts from Florence! The Musical! Songs about the trials and tribulations of being a nurse, honestly referring to the grotty aspects of care giving.

We ran an evaluation workshop with over thirty delegates on Friday afternoon. It was a challenge to reach concensus not least because of the festive, post-conference mood of some of the participants, but we got there! The organisers now aim to act on the table summary of the workshop as they plan next year’s conference.

And last but not least, there were awards presented as part of the conference to encourage and acknowledge developments in the field. We are most pleased to report that Mr Michael White was given the award for International Leadership in the field of Arts in Health. No one was more surprised than the man himself and no one was more delighted than his good chum here! Huzzah!

The next instalment will tell you all about tourism in Melbourne, the dizzy heights of Hobart, on the spot consultancies and sundry dreams and schemes. Watch this space…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Day

Sunday August 17th

Klip Street, Johannesburg

Kate and Bob’s hospitality in Durban included arranging a trip into Zululand, to a bush camp. We left Friday morning, with a car full of supplies and my luggage, and headed North along the coast.  The road is straight and long, heading for Mozambique. The city is left behind and in its place, low hills covered with sugar cane, which will grow anywhere., with a huge sugar refinery in the distance. The cushioned hills of cane give way to miles of forestry. Wattle trees start out as innocuous shrubs that then grow atop a very long, bare trunk.
“…the trick is to grow them square,” said Kate.
Apparently, they are working on it.
The indigenous plant life has been cleared to make space for the wattle plantations. The blackened stumps of the previous inhabitants can be seen in amongst the serried rows of the newcomers.

We passed signs for Richard’s Bay. It is a huge port.

“If you could take all the ports in Africa, they would fit in it.” said Bob and he should know,  being a shipping pilot in Durban. He had a job in Richard’s Bay for eighteen months or so and so Kate and he lived there when the port was in its earliest stage of development. No shops, post office or anything much. Now, it is another story; terraces of grey smelting works and factories line the horizon.

We drove for a couple of hours or so and stopped at a market. Kate bought baskets for home and local avocados and tomatoes.  I was struck by the more laid back atmosphere here. We had passed settlements with gardens and small farms. Traditional, circular thatched houses on the same plot as newer models reminded me of the crofts of the Outer Hebrides. Traders by the roadside were selling pineapples that they had grown, baskets they had made from the palms on their land. People are happier here, have a better lifestyle I thought. And on one level that is undoubtedly true, but the spectre of AIDS flits from house to house here and has been catastrophic for rural women. South Africa has the largest number of people living with AIDS in the world and women bear a disproportionate part of the AIDS burden in Southern Africa:

As of December 2005, there are 5.3 million HIV positive people in SA.
There is an unfolding catastrophe for women as 30-50% of pregnant women
(age specific)attending ante-natal clinics are HIV+
In Africa, AIDS has created 14 million orphans.

Source: Abdool Karim, S.S.& Abdool Karim, Q. (Eds). (2005). HIV/AIDS in South Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.

We drove on and turned off the freeway onto a rough, red, dusty road and bumped our way
along it until we reached the railway line, a single track heading to Mozambique. We crossed it and eventually came to the gateway of Bonamanzi , our destination. I was wearing  Tabard from head to foot; not some quaint garment but insect repellent par excellence, It’s a malaria zone, but Bob reckoned relatively risk-free. However, given that last year I was bitten and ended up with  a bubonically landscaped arm, I did not want to get bitten at all.

Kate and Bob were last here some eight years or so and the place is now somewhat more refined. The tree house that they stayed in had been moved from in the tree to next to the tree.  There is still an upper-branch level verandah accessed by a vertiginous staircase or a helter-skelter ramp. We used the ramp. Number 12 was the best, we reckoned, as it was more off the beaten track. We saw wildebeest, reebok, springbok, kudu (a demonic looking beast with corkscrew horns) and a charge of warthogs, thin tails held vertically, during our stay. There were lots of inverted cone-shaped depressions in the sand around the house. Bob explained that these were the traps of an insect called the ant lion. They make the hole and sit at the bottom. Ants come trolling along and find themselves taking a spiral trip ever-  downwards into the ant lion’s awaiting jaws.

After a stroll at dusk, we returned to light the brai (the Africaans word for barbacue that everyone uses here) and get down to the serious business of roasting meat.  The brai hadn’t been refined as well as the house and so we ended up making use of the oven to finish off the cooking. We made a luminary out of the charcoal bag, some of the ant lions’ sand and a candle and ate on the verandah by the light of a very full moon. It was great to be outside, accompanied by the sounds of insects and frogs and such, eating good food in even better company.  We went to bed early and awoke early. More food on the verandah and then we headed back to Durban. The experience had made the effort worthwhile.

We bid fond farewell at the airport and I flew back to Johannesburg.

And so here I am, on the last day of my trip. The sad news here at Klip Street is that  Charlottes nineteen-year –old dog died whilst I was away and so the house is wreathed in sad silence – no clippy-clippy of its little feet on the floor.

I am going to meet Sibongile and Mercy for lunch and then try to fit everything in the suitcase ready for the late night flight to Amsterdam. This has been an extraordinary trip. I know that I will be reflecting on it for some considerable time to come. The people I have met and worked with, the relationships forged and nurtured, the places I have  been,  have amounted to a wealth  of deep experience that I could never have envisaged.

Tata for now…

To continue the tale...

Friday August 15th

Durban

To continue the tale…

Saturday last, after a very deep sleep, I accompanied Deyana to Santarama Miniworld, for a meeting about a new maths and science module she is developing. It’s a surreal place.  A giant statue of Gulliver stands at the entrance. We had Quintin, Dingani’s five-year-old son with us, and the eight-foot replica of King Kong next to the table football just past reception took him aback somewhat. In the park itself, miniatures of well-known South African buildings sit next to models of Zulu villages and a gold mine; a full-scale tall ship is near a Gulliver-scale statue of…Michael Jackson?! The latter is painted in shades of battleship grey…

Post meeting, Deyana, Valencia and I took Quintin, Junior (Valencia’s son) and his friend on the boat trip around the man-made lake. I was taking in the landscape of the far shore -weeping willows, tall reeds and a profusion of birds- when someone exclaimed
“There’s a naked man!”
In amongst the reeds, in gaps by the shore, were refugees (I now understand from the nearby camp created after the recent disturbances) washing themselves and their clothes. One had a small brazier to hand.
“I cannot believe I have seen this”
said Valencia, shaking her head.
It was disconcerting. People living their lives and unwittingly becoming another curiosity for a passing boatload of visitors to this already strange place.

We headed off to Eldorado Park to pick up my new spectacles. Deyana had recommended her optician to me last year. His identical twin is Imam in the local mosque - and he runs his Optometrist’s shop from his mother’s converted garage.  Thanks to his ministrations, I now have specs and a pair of prescription sunglasses for less than half the price I paid for my last pair in the UK. Plus the experience of going to an optician who can see you in the evening in between his own appointments at mosque.

We paid a visit to Maponya Mall in Soweto on the way home. It is astonishing that it and the informal settlements sit in the same area. Soweto is a big place – 3 million people live there – and is an object lesson in inequalities. We had gone there briefly last week:
“You are being stared at, Marykins” said Deyana
“That’s because I am the only white person here”
Our waiter at the coffee shop had asked where I came from and was keen that I tell people in the UK that Soweto is can be a positive, safe experience. This time, we “looked like the United Nations” according to Deyana, because we had Quintin with us. More stares from folk trying to work out the connections between the three of us. Maponya has black mannequins in the shop windows whereas elsewhere in Jo’burg I had only seen the occasional coffee-coloured figure. On the way out, you have to stop and restart your car for the security staff to check that you haven’t hot-wired your lift home.

Deyana and her husband Ibrahim dropped me off at CDP later. I was to stay with Charlotte for a couple of nights as they were off on holiday. Deyana and I had become even closer over the week and had so enjoyed working together. It was a wrench when they drove out of the gate.

Ruth and Daniel were at Charlotte’s too. It was good to see them before they flew back to Zim. Ruth commented that whilst she was happy to see friends and family, she wasn’t relishing the prospect of being back in the country.
‘Everyone complains and complains,” she said “but there comes a point when there is no point any more.”

Sunday was indeed a day of rest. Hallelujah. Charlotte and I went out for breakfast and talked of the socio-political implications of the work in Bertrams and then moved to Rosebank market for some light shopping. We came across an unusual stall, run by an Ethiopian couple. We were there for a while, talking of Orthodox and Coptic Christianity and the man’s journeys through life that had taken him from his homeland to South Africa via Canada and the UK.

I flew to Durban on Monday and was met again by Kate Wells. Tuesday and Wednesday, I ran a paper-cutting workshop with second-year Graphic Design students at the Durban University of Technology. Last year, we dreamed of lanterns here too, but it proved practically impossible this year. I first met Kate some years ago when she and her husband Bob visited Happy Hearts lanterns in Wrekenton. As well as leading the Masters’ students in the graphic design department, she runs the Siyazama project. Set up in 1996, Siyazama (‘We are trying’) interweaves the health education, life skills and economic development of rural women through the regeneration of traditional bead crafts. I recommend Kate’s PhD thesis on the project. It’s a great read, informative and fascinating.

Kate told me that keeping students informed about HIV/Aids in as many ways as possible is vital. As she put it in a recent presentation:

•    All of our students are very vulnerable
•    Keep the AIDS topic alive – embed it in debates and discussions and curricula. WE are morally bound to do this.
•    Create environments for open discussion
•    Get creative
•    Know just how much is enough! Do not overdo it!
•    Be alert + listen
•    Get real about the magical benefits of good physical and mental health
•    Stand back and watch how the students respond
•    Never judge
•    Be adaptable…
•    Lets keep talking! Lets make DUT “the University that really cares!”

To put it into very sharp perspective, the new infection statistics in South Africa are now just over sixteen hundred a day (15-34 age group).

…These are the same numbers as when I started my PhD! In short the numbers of new infections are growing and we already have a large pool of infections. People may think that prevalence is levelling off but according to Caprisa (AIDS vaccine unit) this is definitely not true.
Our AIDS/Open Door clinic now sees on average 20 students per day (that’s 100 per week) for VCT, CD4 count checks etc.
    Email update on DUT AIDS Conference. August 1st 2008. Kate Wells.

This made me think that the modest paper-cutting workshop I was about to begin could make some contribution. We began by exploring the world of the papercut, from Mexican, Jewish and Chinese traditions through Matisse’s ‘drawing with scissors’ to contemporary fine artists and illustrators. I showed them examples of paper cutting applications – high-fashion fabric, laser-cut metal, book cover design, campaign posters and community arts practice. The department runs an impressive online classroom and by the end of the first workshop day it was up and running with visual references, signposts to further study and a blog.

The students are usually found in front of computer screens, so this was also seen as a way of getting them connected with other ways of producing imagery. Firstly, they were asked to produce papercut lettering and then explored the technique further by cutting an emotion – fear, horror, love etc – in the style of the word.  There are sixty students in the group and whist all didn’t participate fully, a core of 35-40 stayed the course. A good result, I am told.

They were then invited to choose a beadwork doll from the Siyazama Project archive and use it as stimulus for a papercut image. Conversations with students revealed that some were thinking laterally about AIDS messaging. For example, that instead of going on and on about condoms, to stress making friends with people with AIDS, to reduce the stigma and therefore hopefully increase more effective communication about it.

The resultant images are great and have sown the seeds for more projects.  The students will continue working with paper and have a free rein over what they might produce – from postcards and print through to installations and animation. I suspect some will stay with an AIDS theme and others will use it for another subject. In any case, there is already a wealth of new images of the dolls that will be of great use to Siyazama.

Kate had a visitor on Wednesday morning. Mr Apostle Msila rang early and was waiting to meet us on our arrival at DUT. He was sitting patiently in the corridor, with a large market bag of artefacts from the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal. He buys things from local people and then brings them to Durban, contacting the likes of Kate to see if they are interested.  I bought two small beaded dolls from him. They came from his neighbours, the Ndlova family. Probably fifteen or more years old, they were made as love tokens. Young men would hang them from their belts. They have little beaded topknots, crowned with old military buttons that were allegedly taken from the uniforms of dead soldiers…

Passing the Light

Deyana and I visited five shack schools over Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. We also picked up yet more gummies and whizzed back to CDP for more workshops. The second group of children were more studious than the first and were  speedy when it came to making lanterns. We didn’t get any more adults but next year I think we will, because of the reactions to the event itself. Given that the children couldn’t cover  their lanterns because of the pesky tissue paper,  I took the opportunity to work with the children on the little ceremony that would begin the event.  The children were very taken with the idea that the light had been passed to them and needed to be passed on to all and sundry here. They suggested a song that they already knew and changed the words to:

Come and join the celebration
It’s a very special night
Come and join the celebration
Now it’s your turn to pass the light
See the light – pass it to community

They sang it with great gusto, only occasionally lapsing into singing its original words (For a new king is born today instead of Now it’s your turn to pass the light)!  The ceremony purposefully involved children – no adult speechifying at all.  Children would be leading the way. Literally and metaphorically. The plan formed was that all would gather at CDP for The Special Moment as the children christened it. Then the light would lead everyone to the site – the grounds of a social services building in the shadow of Ellis Park Stadium – one of the venues for the 2010 World Cup. There, all the lanterns would be laid out with luminaries (tea lights in sand in brown paper bags) creating pathways around and about them.  There would be a marimba band playing as children led their families and friends to find their lantern.

Meanwhile, Charlotte had designed a t-shirt for the participants. I had made a lantern for CDP to echo the one that the South Africans made at Chickenley. It served as a demonstration model but would also receive the light that had travelled all the way from England. Starting with a photograph of the lantern framework, Charlotte’s design added the names of African countries along the gummies, with the slogan Together Children Build the Future. Whilst we made the lanterns, the t-shirts were printed in CDP’s print shop.

Thursday and Friday felt like one long day. Dingani spent a lot of the time wearing a bandanna and hat to ladle the very dusty sand into paper bags. We made heart shaped signs of the children’s names to accompany their lanterns and invented new stands to display them as the ground was too hard to pierce with a stick. Sibongile and Valencia  joined us after their  office work was done on Thursday and stayed late to help cover  the remaining lanterns and then the next morning helped make doors in them to facilitate lighting the candles. There was a great atmosphere in the room. We made space to eat together on Friday lunchtime. It gave us a breather and the energy to carry on for the rest of the day. Best Bertrams fare – chicken, chips and a big bowl of fruit. Importantly, it marked a moment when we could all clock that we were part of that team. As we said at the time “The team that eats together, stays together”…

I recommend doing lanterns events in the sunshine. No wind or rain. No worrying that lanterns will be blown away. No concerns about what the heck Plan B might be.  The only perturbing news was that there was a big football match scheduled to start at 8.00pm on Friday. We could only hope that the stadium lights didn’t come on too early and swamp our candle-glow. Or that the world and her husband would be charging towards the stadium down Bertrams Road when our modest procession rounded the corner.

Deyana, Thando and Dingani ferried lanterns and sand-bags to the site whilst the rest of us cleared and cleaned the big room ready for the guests. By 3.15 we were all on site to set out the lanterns. It was so warm  that we borrowed hats from the children’s dressing-up corner to wear.  I looked like I was heading to church in a fetching red number complete with bow. Mercy looked stylish in a straw and Deyana majestic in wide-brimmed lilac. Valencia sat patiently digging the wicks out of the tea lights ready for lighting.
“I’m up-wicking”, she said
Some of the children turned up and followed us to the site, so excited about what was to come. 
“Please can we stay? We’re never bored when we are with you.”

By 4.30, Deyana and I were heading back to CDP. Mercy and Dingani and Thando were left in charge of the site and of lighting the 500 or so candles and tea-lights. The fuel lighters we had bought didn’t work but thankfully they had 9 boxes of matches as back-up. They used every match and had to start lighting candle to candle, Mercy told me later.
Some children turned up at the site and had to be re-directed to CDP.

At CDP, Sizwe (aged 10) was at the door, patiently recording all adults’ names in The Book.  A television crew from eTV  had turned up – he got their names as well. Lots of children turned up on their own,  sadly without parents, and excitedly played games in the courtyard. Those parents that did come waited patiently in the training room for events to start,  clearly baffled as to what they had come to.  I asked some children what their expectations of the night were:

“We’re going to see the lanterns. Our parents have to see what we have done. It is a special day for them.”
“And for us!”
“I just want my parents to be happy.”
“I want to enjoy this day.”
“I want to have fun, to have a better future”.

Only some of the children who were to speak had turned up and so a few children and I had to quickly rearrange everything. That was a mite stressful. I introduced the children and we were off…

One of the girls, who wanted to be known as Brandy (Who’s Brandy? Asked the others?) had the line

“There is a place in England called Chickenley.”

Which she delivered with great aplomb, giving me goosebumps. They mentioned that Beijing was also having an event that involved a flame that day and that Bertrams had its own special light. They invited Deyana and Sibongile to bring the light that had travelled all the way from England. The lantern was lit. Phineas and Beauty lifyed it into the air with the line

“The light has passed to Bertrams!”

and Marlo added his own words

“It is the light that is inside all of us!”

They then launched into the song and headed for the door at a rate of knots. We had to stop at the gate so that adults could catch up. Deyana gave a short, sensible brief asking adults to be mindful of the children and we  turned right and never looked back. Bertrams didn’t know what hit it. It is an inner city area that you just don’t walk around after nightfall. Here we were at dusk and groups of men were gathered on the pavements. Phineus and Beauty with their lantern between them, surrounded by a large collection of children singing at the top of their voices and waving hearts on sticks, just carried on through. The men had to move. One football supporter, somewhat the worse for wear, wanted to join the parade but was dissuaded by Deyana ‘lioness’Thomas.

We turned in to a more residential street and every dog in the neighbourhood woke up. Dogs were leaping, their drooling heads appearing over gates. The children were unperturbed and carried on singing. People from the houses appeared, slack-jawed, never having seen the like. The children carried on singing and waved.  Deyana came up to me, tears streaming down her face and that was me gone.
“I can’t believe it’s happening. We’ve done it” she said.

We turned the corner and the procession had to filter, single file, through the pathway created by the construction work. From there, we could see the lanterns winking at us from the park. The children were beside themselves with excitement but then hushed when they heard the marimba band play. It was truly magical, the sight of the children leaping into the world they had created. Theyhad no notion of what it would look like and were entranced. I thought
“it’ll never be like this again because now we have all seen it.”

I had my sound recorder with me and captured some reactions on the spot:

“Am I dreaming? It is so beautiful. My eyes are open?! For the first time I see the lantern magic. I can’t believe my eyes.” Yvette

“It is very beautiful.”
“It’s fantastic”
“Amazing. So creative. Wonderful.”
“I’m so shocked. I’ve got photos to show the school. The question is – is this the end of it? This is for the whole community. We must keep the light on and on and on. This is more than…I don’t know what to say. It is for me a new thing. We are learning. Now we are learning. I nearly cried. Just imagine, in my house this week (referring to the lantern) I’ll be burning this candle all week.” Parents.

It seemed like a long time, but it was only an hour or so. Families asked for their photographs to be taken next to the great Zimbabwean lantern. The band played on. The children swarmed – one moment hanging on every beat of the band, the next swerving through the lanterns, whooping with delight. There were a few gatecrashers – boys who really wanted to be part of it and so parted with a lantern in tow.  Some children sat quietly in the glow of their lantern, chatting.  Lanterns were taken home, passing the light along.

The lights of Ellis Park did come on – perfectly in time for us to pack everything up. They were the bright lights “but ours were nicer” said one child. We cleared the site to the roars and hoots from the stadium crowd. Everyone helped ferry lanterns, bags and buckets of sand. We made an arrangement with the site security team to stash it all in the social services hall until Monday. Quintin fell asleep on my shoulder. He woke up in the car and sang Twinkle twinkle little star to great effect.

Deyana and I dropped Dingani and Quintin at home. We stopped at a takeaway  for supper and marvelled at the day. I can honestly say that it was one of the happiest of my life. From the very early start of the day, driving in to work with Deyana and Sibongile, through the graft of the morning, the laughter of lunchtime, the setting up of the site and the event itself.  I just kept grinning, with only the occasional tear and that stemmed from joy.

From Zimbabwe to the Shack Schools

Thursday August 14, 2008

Durban

Well, here is a bumper edition. This is the first chance I have had to do the get-the-blog-online business.

It has been quite a time…

Sunday August 3rd saw our Zimbabwean friends Ruth Makumbirofo and Daniel Maphosa arrive, fresh from Harare. They are part of a the Savanna Trust, an arts for development organisation that produces community plays, radio and video.  In spite of the constraints of life in Zimbabwe, they are a subversive force with their hit-and-run performances.

http://www.savannatrust.org/

They are very interested in lanterns and their potential inclusion in their work. They came to the workshop on Monday. I showed them slides of lanterns events from home and we had a lengthy discussion about how they could operate in Zimbabwe. Running with lanterns came up – the idea that small, portable battery operated lanterns could take to the streets in a mass light-up protest. They began work on their own lantern contribution to the Bertrams event.  Its design incorporated the two most potent symbols of Zimbabwe – the ruins of the Shona Empire and the great bird.

The ruins at Great Zimbabwe are the most extensive in sub-Saharan Africa, and arguably the most emotive. The name 'Zimbabwe' probably comes from the Shona phrase Ziimba dza Mabwe, meaning 'Houses of Stone'. Thirty km south-west of Masvingo in Zimbabwe, the ruins sit on a 1000m plateau, at the base of some low granite hills on otherwise open plains, with few trees.

Read more at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe

As we worked, we talked of life in Zim. The news here is full of the power-sharing talks between Mugabe et al yet the reality of life for people there is incomprehensibly poor. Here are examples from these two young professionals, fresh off a plane, taking part in our workshop.

Ruth told us that when Charlotte took them to a supermarket, the sight of shelves occupied by goods was almost too much to bear. They are used to empty shops. Their usual fare – let us call it the Mugabe diet, although he would never follow it -is:

Breakfast:
Black tea with sugar
Lunch:
Cold sadza - a kind of maize porridge, equivalent to the South African pap.
Dinner:
More Sadza, with vegetables. and some meat if you are very fortunate.

Sugar is bought from the black market. Milk and bread just don’t exist any more. Meat is at a premium – chicken skin, intestines, necks and claws are the more readily available cuts.  Foreign exchange – whether UK Pounds, US Dollars, or SA Rand – is necessary for survival . New Zimbabwean bank notes, to the value of a trillion dollars and more, are printed on a regular basis. A teacher’s monthly salary will buy two packets of crisps.

Deyana had been to our official supplier to get more gummies. She returned with a bonus – a couple of sections of trellis that became the foundations for the Great Zimbabwe. 

The Big Test of glue and paper happened. The glue was fine, but the tissue is not all that it could be.  We used the tissue I had imported and then the local stuff, but covering became an adult activity as it was too difficult a task to workshop with the children. 

Tuesday morning found Deyana and I taking a trip to Soweto. It is home to two of the pre-schools that the children of Chickenley and King Edwards have helped. Their contributions have funded the training of women from nine such schools. The women have formed a network and plan to come together once a month to share ideas and experiences. The training has included:

•  How to better manage finances
•  Health advice including hygiene, menus that are affordable and nutritious and safety.
• Creative  and educational activities that include painting, storytelling, songs and games.

We plunged – and I mean plunged as the tarmac stopped and we didn’t – into the informal settlement behind the painted cooling towers of Soweto. It has been unseasonably warm this past week or two, with daytime temperatures reaching 24/25 degrees, so all is very dry. Clouds of dust everywhere.  We had made a phonecall to check we were heading in the right direction as the townships can prove difficult to navigate.  The shacks in this particular settlement are cheek by jowl, all greys and browns, corrugated iron and wood cobbled together.with a few fences to indicate boundaries between plots. Numbers were painted large on doors or walls. I couldn’t work out the system, but saw numbers over 800 and so reckoned it could run to at least a couple of thousand.

Lots of curious eyes, children and chickens checked us out as we edged up the track.  I have never in my life felt so conspicuous. The very bluey whiteness of me – skin and hair; my clothes, camera,  specs, watch, everything about me screamed difference. No hiding place. I was never scared, though, and after a little while I didn’t feel so out of place. I just determined to be myself and take those I met for the people they are rather than the situation they find themselves in.

Another phone call to our hostess – she could see the car and so guided us in. She had moved the school which accounted for the confusion. In the midst of the grey and brown were rows of child-sized brightly coloured plastic chairs, set out ready for breakfast. Indoors, the children were waiting for us. All under six, they were dressed in an extraordinary assortment of clothes. It transpired that this was for our benefit – they were wearing the best garments available to their household, irrespective of size, age or gender. So boys wore dresses over their jeans and satin scarves on their heads. One was wearing a man-sized red shirt with a jauntily placed baseball cap. One girl had a mass of chestnut corkscrew curls topped with a pink knitted hat. On closer inspection the curls proved to be an adult’s wig.

We were there for story time and singing and breakfast. One child of about three was crying, arms stretched out. I picked her up and distracted her by admiring the strings of beads around her neck. She is called Busiswe. She fell in to a fire at five months old and bears the scars above her right eye. She walks haltingly and is developmentally impaired. She was fascinated by my hair, whispering words to me that I couldn’t understand. Whilst she was somewhat sidelined because of her disability, I felt sure that she could communicate and understand more given more stimulation. Deyana’s involvement means that she is no longer invisible and some further help might well be forthcoming. 

Busiswe is something of a symbol for me of how this work makes a difference. The invisible made visible as persons, to each other, to themselves . The small network of women created has already made a palpable difference.  They are obviously able to advocate more powerfully for what is best for the children because they now have more knowledge. What has been a hand to mouth activity – poor women looking after other poor women’s children  for very little money – that has meant a perpetuation of their poverty is very slowly changing. We talked together of how they are beginning to challenge parents’ perceptions of what childcare is. Simply counting in English shouldn’t be seen as a pinnacle of acheivment for a four year old ensuring a more successful adulthood. Eating well, playing, making friends and being safe will ensure far more.

Lanternland, Jo'burg style.

Sunday August 3, 2008

Koorsboom Street, Johannesburg

Since our visit here last year, all has gone to plan. March saw us hosting CDP visitors in the UK: Deyana Thomas,  Sibongile Busakwe and Nancy Kubu, principal of the Land of Joy pre-school in Soweto , took part in Lanternland at Chickenley school and King Edward’s school’s Africa project.  Charlotte Schaer,  director of CDP, gave a presentation at CAHHM’s schools seminar at the Wolfson Research Institute.

Relationships were further nurtured and the resolve to have a lanterns event in down town Johannesburg strengthened.  Thanks to my Nesta Fellowship, I am back in South Africa. We are holding a small lanterns event in Bertrams next Friday, August 8^th, a precursor to a larger one next year…

On August 11^th, I’ll be travelling to Durban to run a workshop with second year Graphic Design students on papercutting.

This is my first chance to post since arriving here on Wednesday. It’s been a blur of preparations for and delivery of lanterns workshops. Then yesterday,  Deyana whisked me out of the city to Hartebeespoort Dam.  En route, we  saw lions and fed giraffes, like you do, and visited the Cradle of Humankind – a World Heritage Site – and toured a 60m deep cave where the fossils of some of the earliest hominids have been found. I found the latter unexpectedly moving. From such simple beginnings we have made such a spectacularly complicated hash of things.

Lanterns

Materials

Deyana has done a magnificent job in sourcing materials. We were determined to find a South African equivalent to withies (willow sticks) and by George, I think she’s done it.

Her beady eye caught a man making baskets and such for flower arrangements.  When she investigated  his premises further, she came across gum tree sticks and bought a goodly amount for the workshops. They have been rechristened gummies. They are heavier than withies and somewhat less flexible, but we have adapted the making process to suit. They are cut to order – in one or two -metre lengths. She also found some bundles of a nameless flexible cane from a florists’supplier and went to the Johannesburg Society for the Blind for rattan.

Bernie's Stall. Official Supplier of Gummies.

Weirdly, SA is a desert when it comes to deep bottletops (essential to hold the candle in the lantern) so I came with  90 of them in my suitcase, along with rattan and tissue and masking tape. We have since shopped together for wire and more masking tape and have been to a glue factory to sample latex. We are hoping that F101 as it is called will do the job – it’s thinner than Copydex. The tissue paper isn’t as wet-strength as we may have hoped. We’re doing The Big Test tomorrow morning.

The Workshops

We visited Bertrams Junior School on Wednesday afternoon to finalise plans. It is situated in the heart of Bertrams, with some 340 pupils. Many are from refugee families. Many have had difficult lives. Deyana had already given a presentation to the children, explaining how the light from Chickenley lanterns had been passed to her to bring to Bertrams. It would be their job to accept it and pass it along to their community and, next year, to other communities in Johannesburg.

We had places for forty children in the workshops – seventy applied. I felt we had to stick to the plan for forty children, given they could only come for two hours a day. To give them a quality experience, we split them in to two groups. Twenty  children started on Thursday and will hopefully finish their lanterns tomorrow. The next group comes Tuesday-Thursday.

The first group have had a great time. Aged between 9 and 14, they are from Burundi, Rwanda,  Congo and South Africa. When they arrive, they have their ‘snacks’ – bread and peanut butter and jam and juice and fruit – as they have done a full day at school. The first day, we talked of community and what it meant, of respect and friendship and tolerance, and why we were making lanterns to celebrate all that is good about community.  They were amazed at the workshop environment at CDP. Some couldn’t believe that it existed, just down the road from their school. It has an innocuous exterior, hiding its Tardis-like interior.

Their initial shyness gradually disappeared. They took to making lanterns as if they had been doing it for years. And just like children from Southwick and Chickenley, there is the argumentative pair, the laid back pair, the serious engineers and the giddy kippers. We are encouraging their teachers to visit, convinced that they will see a very different and more positive view of their children.

We have other participants  - Yvette is principal of one of the shack and shelter schools being supported by funds raised by Chickenley and King Edwards’ children. She does a day of work at the school and then comes rushing to the lanterns workshops with her children and their friends. Mercy, a Nigerian student of Community Development is working with us for the duration. Dingani Ngcube is an artist who  is an indispensable helper at CDP. He brought his friend Thando along and they made small lanterns. Dingani’s five year old son Quintin will be helping to finish his Dad’s work. Two artist/performers from a Harare theatre group will be joining us tomorrow. Others have been invited – we’ll see who turns up.

Domestic affairs...

Wednesday August 22, 2007

Here I am at Charlotte’s house in Observatory, Johannesburg. She has a wonderful garden, full of pots and birds. There are incongruous daffodils amongst the succulents, reminding me that this is the beginning of spring. I am using her office to listen to my recordings, update the blog, write and muse. The inevitable fight with technology has cut down on the musing…

Charlotte and I talked yesterday of the challenges and contradictions of aspects of society here. Most people have black domestic staff. Wages are now regulated and conditions supposedly much improved, but there is still abuse.

If you have a housekeeper, she may well live in your home. The relationship needs to be boundaried but is inevitably intimate. Nowadays, a lot of domestic staff are professionals who are economic refugees from Zimbabwe. A housekeeper could be supporting up to 10-12 people, and unemployment is high, so there are undoubted benefits. Especially to women, and women who missed out on education. They have families back home; relatives who have come to SA and may well be destitute. Lines need to be drawn and re-drawn, mindful of being fair and respectful but also negotiating some very tricky cultural corners. For example:

A brother of a housekeeper rings her to say that his sixtteen year old daughter has gone to South Africa and cannot be found. It is cultural practice that she is ‘the other mother’ and therefore has the responsibility to find her niece and look after her.
She is found, but is pregnant, with boyfriend and in another city. She has come to South Africa as many young women have; by sleeping with truck drivers in exchange for lifts. Truck drivers are renowned as carriers of HIV. The housekeeper’s employer has to point out that the girl cannot come and live in the house. The employer would inevitably become responsible for the mother and her child – both potentially HIV positive and illegal immigrants and as such not eligible for any health care in SA. Therefore, the housekeeper has to ring her brother and tell him that his daughter is his responsibility.

So – the housekeeper is bucking a cultural custom of her people, albeit one that is unfair to women. She has risked her standing with her family, but stood up for herself as never before. It is complicated, very complicated…

Sunday August 26, 2007

I’m back in Johannesburg after a day or three in Durban. Whilst there, a couple of mosquitoes decided to have a feast on my left arm, hand and face. Only one paid with its life. My left hand now resembles an inflated rubber glove and my arm has acquired the hills and dales of a bubonic landscape. Even after citronella, lavender, eucylyptus, tea tree and yes, antihistamnine, it all itches like crazy. Typing is a challenge…

Durban is lush. Jacaranda, hibiscus and bougainvillea grow untrammelled even in winter (I use the term in the South African sense, not the Northern European). If you stick a stick into the ground, it will grow into something, probably with enormous leaves and a straight, smooth trunk so tall you will have to inform the airport. And full to the brim of birds.

I went there to meet Dr Kate Wells, Head of Graphic Design at Durban University of Technology. She has run an amazing project called Siyazama, working with Zulu craftswomen for over ten years to produce tableaux and dolls symbolizing the suffering of the community through HIV/Aids but also to educate and empower the women with information about the condition.

The craftswomen were coming in to the University for a day of conversation, making and marketplace activities – and to meet me. They come from two different parts of the Kwa-Zulu Natal province. It takes them 2-3 hours to journey to the project. They bring their wares with them; dolls and tableaux produced to order for exhibitions and retail outlets, plus Kate has built a chronological collection of their work that is housed in the Graphic Design Department.

The women arrived with their mats and towels, ignored the chairs and set up camp on the floor of the staff room. They got out their current work and began beading. With the help of two students who translated, I chatted to the women and learned a lot, as much about my naivete as anything. I was asking questions of them as individuals but soon sussed that they thought in a much more communal way. They are not a collective as such but one will represent another, take dolls and deliver her wages, irrespective of the amount. There were natural leaders in the groups but no detectable competition.

I recorded conversations that I will unpack back at home and reflect upon them in the light of Kate’s Phd thesis which is packed full of fascinating cultural detail.

We all shared food, and I was invited to stitch a motif on to a tableau. My hands were sweating, but I passed. It wasn’t unpicked. In the midst of the room, Kate and her colleagues met with each of the women in turn, doing the business of the market place. Their mutual regard was apparent; an ease developed over all these years, in spite of a lack of mutual language.

Kate has gone to Uganda this week to further connections between RSA, Uganda and Northumbria University. They are working with basket weavers and bark cloth embroiderers there on a parallel project and will be based in the School of Art at Makerere University.

There’s a lot more to be written when the hand is recovered. Watch this space…

Constitution Hill

Tuesday August 21st 2007

The Guide Book says:

The ramparts of the Old Fort were built by Paul Kruger in 1896-99 to protect the ZAR (Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek) from the threat of British invasion. and to keep watch on the miners flocking to find gold in the village below. Reverting to a jail after the South African War, all male prisoners passed through the foreboding tunnel beneath the ramparts, but only whites were held in the Old Fort itself.

I went there on a hot, bright morning. It is near Hillbrow, so not a place you can stroll to, so Charlotte dropped me there. I ended up in a Guided Tour with three white, German-speaking women who pointedly announced that they were from North Johannesburg. I was curious about this and asked Charlotte about it later. She thought that perhaps they had come from Namibia.

Our guide was called Precious (later, she told me her preferred Xhosa name, but said that no one used it). She told us that the tour takes at least an hour and a half, whereupon the ladies asked if we could do it in an hour. I politely pointed out that I was in no hurry and negotiated that I could return to some exhibits to better appreciate them.

We headed for the Women's Prison. I thought two of the ladies were au fait with The Struggle, and supportive of it, given their positive reactions to the names of some of the white political prisoners written on glass at the entrance. But it soon became apparent that none of them were particularly interested in the prison element of the tour.

In what was the prison yard, Precious asked us to each select a white stone from a dish in memory of those who had been falsely imprisoned and those who had lost their lives fighting for the freedom of their country. We were to walk to another bowl, stand around it together and place our chosen stones amongst those already there and spend a moment in silence. Starting the tour with such a ritual seemed spot on to me. Not only for those who had gone before but also in communion with my fellow travellers. Only one of the ladies picked up a stone. The tallest of the ladies declined to take part at all, and the third said she would 'stand by' as we did it. I was now really curious about their behaviour.

Built in 1910, the women's prison has an oval atrium at its centre. A deceptive space, seemingly airy and congenial but in fact the scene of many indignities meted out to black and white women. This was designated as a 'holy place' where the prisoners could come and pray together but in reality they were asked to line the walls, forbidden to occupy the central space in case they communicated in any way. They were further discouraged by the white warders, who told them that there was someone buried under the floor at the heart of the atrium. Not true, of course...

I couldn't help but think back to our conversations about congenial space. Here was somewhere seemingly with all the physical attributes -natural light streaming in from the arched windows around the balcony; an airy communal space at its centre - but that was utterly tainted by what had happened in it. Any work done here would have to be of a deep, difficult and hopefully healing nature. I imagined one of the Sangoma’s child figures from the Stirring Waters exhibition at its centre.

One exhibit on the balcony was a pair of women’s pants. Precious told us that women were not allowed underwear or sanitary protection until a Norwegian charity provided them. (I'm not sure when, but presumably late in the day. The prison was operational until the mid eighties.) The taller of the three women spoke to me, sotto voce, as the others moved on

“But it is a prison!" she said, clearly implying that this order of hardship should be the rule of the day.

“But there is such a thing as humanity.” I replied.

“So are you telling me that all prisons in Europe weren't like this?” she hissed and strode off. Oh dear. I noticed that she had little metal-tipped bows on the heels of her patent court shoes and that they clicked as she walked.

She was obviously unsettled by the whole experience, tutting one moment and the next telling us

“I am too weak to go in there” when we reached the isolation cells.

The site is a combination of new architecture and the original buildings. The stairwells of the Awaiting Trial blocks have been preserved. Two have been incorporated into the Court building and a further two stand sentinel in the space left by the demolition of the rest of the building. The original yard, where the men were fed and strip searched, is still there. When we reached it, one of the ladies stopped at the top of the steps.

“When are we going to get to the Court? We have another appointment.”

“But this lady” (me, of course) “wants to see everything” said the most conciliatory of the trio. Precious said she would bring me back later, so we trooped back the way we had come, heading for the Constitutional Court. And I buttoned my mouth.

On the way, Precious told us how her own mother had been twice imprisoned here. The first time for trying to go to a shop after curfew, the second for brewing beer during Jo’Burg’s White by Night era – from the late 60s to the early 70s. Precious’s grandmother came to the prison to find her, only to be told that she had been sold as a farm labourer. Her family were oblivious of her eventual release and so she walked the 25-30 kilometres back home to Soweto.

The doors of the Constitutional Court are hand carved with the essential tenets of the new constitution, in all eleven official languages of the country plus sign and Braille. Through them is a foyer supported by slanting pillars and hung with branches of beaded leaves, representing the trees under which village ancestors sat to solve their community’s problems.

The Court itself has a wall built of the bricks salvaged from the demolition of the prison buildings, with a narrow strip of window running through it representing transparency. The new flag is there, as if it were flowing in a breeze. Look again. It is made of beads and wire. The carpet has been woven through with shadows as if from the trees overhead. The eleven judges sit on a bench faced with eleven cow hides, all from the same herd but with different markings, representing the different minds and opinions of the justices. One of those judges is Albie Sach, victim of an assassination attempt when he was in exile in Mozambique and in which he lost an arm. The Court is an intimate space, redolent with meaning.

“So, if I were to come here with a problem, who would pay for it?” asked my tall friend.

“You might have to pay for a lawyer, or if you were poor it would be free”, said Precious, never losing her composure. “Remember this is only for Constitutional cases. So, for example the Tsonga women who want equal rights to their men, because they have to have a king and never a queen. Or that same-sex marriage one, that was decided here.”

“What I don’t understand” said my tall friend, “is how the same-sex marriage got through when most of the judges disagreed with it.”

“Ah well,” said Precious, “the problem is that everyone has rights here.”

“And we should all know what those rights are.”

“I will get you a book about it” said Precious.

“Will I have to pay for it?”

“Of course not. It is free.”

Precious returned to present us with copies of the full Constitution, published in small paperback format.

And then they were gone, off to their appointment. I am glad to have experienced their complex responses. It kept me on my toes, mindful of stereotyping people. I am also glad that I then had some time with Precious. It was something of a treat to have a guide all to myself and we got talking about all manner of things. But everything is pertinent.

Precious had been back to Lesotho, where she was born and had been baptised the day before. She is married with two children

“…girls. I will try for a boy. But I am going to stop at three. I won’t go for number four.”

We talked about relationships and how they have to be worked at. She and her husband have been married for eleven years.

“My church, this church I am with, says I should be watching for a husband. But I have a husband. What do you think?”

“Mmmm. I think you should be wary of people telling you what they think you should do. Do you want to deny your husband? Your children their father?”

‘No, I do not.”

So here we were, two very different women, talking as we strolled back to the men’s yard. She has been a guide for six months and wants to improve her lot, do some office work, get something on her CV. We stayed for a while in what had been the Visitors’ Centre at the prison and is now devoted to Ghandi who was held there in the early 1900s.

“It is Women’s Month, you know… …When I am back visiting home, the older women expect me to do everything, get the water. They use the water for frivolous things. When visitors come to the house, they just make a look and I am expected to do everything. Because I am the wife of the brother.”

Beyond the yard and the Visitors’ block were more cells, communal and others for isolation. Number Four. Ex prisoners have been back to the prison and participated in arts workshops there. The men have made sculptures out of the grey blankets. One of a tank, another of a sofa. I found these deeply moving, that the men had returned to the same cell and created such images of violence and relaxation; of struggle and domesticity, from the blankets that had been the currency of depravation.

These communal cells had been the stomping ground of the bosses – those prisoners who had been there longest were top of the heap. They got the most blankets. They slept the farthest from the toilets. They procured sexual favours. They might get some food that was worth eating.

The rotten system that prevailed in the communal cells of Number Four was the making of the authorities that ran the prison. Precious and I talked of how it mattered not what people had done but that they were treated with dignity. Of course, the majority of prisoners under apartheid shouldn’t have been there at all. When Mandela visited, he declared

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.

Prisoners weren’t allowed to look up. They were forced to walk with heads bowed, hands clasped behind. Mandela’s quote is placed over a walkway. You have to look up to read it.