I didn’t know about state of emergencies, sanctions and such other things.

None of it affected my life, it simply didn’t concern me.

However, there are a couple of very vague, very confusing memories in my head, and I think this is about the time I started realising. One of them was when the beaches were “opened”. I don’t know if I actually remember ever seeing a sign that said “slegs blankes”, or if I added it to my memories from seeing them in pictures years later, but I sure as hell remember the day they were taken down.

I don’t recall anyone in my “camp” being particularly happy or upset about what was happening, it was pure apathy.

But, I do remember hearing a family acquaintance letting everyone know how he felt. It was likely the first time I had heard the word “k****r” used with true hate. The barrage of swearing and metaphors about animals made me almost think that this was a big joke, he couldn’t be serious.

Could he?

It wasn’t until years later when I first visually recalled that memory that I realised it was not a joke at all. Two epiphanies had occurred at once. Firstly, I figured out that we were separated, so much so that we couldn’t even share the same piece of sandy beach and blue water, and secondly some people were actually upset that they now had to give up their “private” beaches.

Really?

How did it ever get that far?

Somehow, I learned the “feeling” of separateness and with that came the fear of the unknown. He was the bad guy, the one who would steal everything I had, kill my family and destroy everything I loved – but I never saw him.

He wasn’t the the “boy” who did our garden once a week nor my father’s colleagues, nor was he the father of the black kids in my school. They were all regular people, sharing (and I’m pretty sure about this) the same faults, tendencies and good traits as their white counterparts.

But they got the bad rap, all because of the invisible man who was waiting to wreak havoc.

How blind we were.

I know that my mother and her siblings were given a hard time by the local kids when they arrived in South Africa in the early 60’s and I believe that a lot of rooi nekke were in the same boat, especially the ones with fresh English accents.

So it’s a possibility that I started off my learning career with a little disdain towards the language and the people. And I say that with the utmost ignorance because I didn’t know anything about them or their culture.

And that’s really where my problem lies.

From the age of six to fifteen I had but one Afrikaans person in my life per year – and that was my teacher. I still remember most of them by name and definitely remember what each one looked like because I used to loathe walking into that classroom each and every day to sit and listen to something that I had no will to learn.

We learn our primary language by speaking and repeating what our parents say which is a very different experience to being told to sit down, shut up and memorise grammar and punctuation rules for an hour at a time.

Yes, the Afrikaans teachers I had were by far the most hardcore of disciplinarians.

When I look back at them all I realise (conversely) that we probably treated them the worst of all, and we knew how to make a teacher cry. After all, we all hated their class. As I thought about it more while writing this piece I figured that they probably felt like the real outsiders. No matter what they thought or who they were, they were just the Afrikaans teacher to us, and at a very liberal English all-boys school in the 80’s and 90’s that might’ve not been all that pleasant.

Of course, what pre-teen is going to rationalise to that extent. I simply didn’t like the language, the class, the lectures or the exams and I did my damndest just to pass. And pass I did, with a flying “E” on higher grade. And “E” really does stand for Enough because an F would’ve cost me dearly.

My reckoning is that I learned as much Afrikaans at school that I would have picked up anyway just living in the country. I can understand conversations but it’s impossible for me to join in and that has served me just fine. Even when working for two years at a predominantly Afrikaans company I sat in meetings which were held in Afrikaans and just replied in English – everyone was happy.

What surprised me was that on my last trip back home I felt a newly found soft spot for the language, especially on our tour through the small towns of the Western Cape. It made me realise (as I picked a peppercorn out of my teeth from my freshly cut biltong) that it was a part of what made me and whether I like it or not I’m a small part rock-spider.

And even though I was born in South Africa in the heart of the East Rand in Germiston City hospital (which I hear now is one big ARV clinic), I didn’t understand the concept of being South African for a very long time.

I was privileged in the sense that my parents worked very hard and spent everything they had practically to send my brother and I to private schools, the majority being spent at Catholic schools (without the baptismal badge of honour to be fully accepted). Being a predominantly “European” school, and I say this because there were not many students with a long family history in South Africa.

I believe there’s an identity crisis lurking in the mind of a first generation child, they cling to their parents culture as the one they respect and know – it defines them for a very long time, and it also sets them apart to an extent. I, for one, always found it very interesting visiting my Italian and Portuguese friend’s houses, having different food and hearing different languages – we were all special and unusual.

At the age of eight I had the amazing opportunity to go to Greece with my father. He was working on a long contract in Australia at the time and we actually met at Athens airport – not something I would recommend to a seasoned traveller, let alone a pre-teen who doesn’t speak a word of Greek.

This isn’t story of cultural differences, however, that would be way too simple.

It was, during that trip that I really started to realise that the country I had been born in was different. I had heard of some problems and questioned every now and again why there would be days on end when the black kids in our class didn’t come to school but I never remember getting a satisfactory answer. I also heard about things like the Equity Ban and riots every now and again, but I was obviously sheltered enough that it didn’t affect my daily life, never mind the fact that I could barely tie my own shoelaces.

What made me open my eyes happened in a sad little hotel room in Lisbon. Portugal wasn’t on our itinerary, except for a brief stopover, but problems arose with my father’s friend’s Mother (we were escorting her from Greece to visit her family in South Africa).

So what was meant to be a few hours ended up becoming a two (maybe three) day bonding experience for us at the Hotel Presidente (2 stars and as dirty as you can imagine a downtown Lisbon hotel to be).

Our luggage was already in South Africa and we really didn’t want to do much, so we sat around in the hotel room and talked a lot.

It was September I believe in 1988, just a month after Adriaan Vlok banned the ECC (End Conscription Campaign) which spurred on protests by UCT students and the confiscation of the Weekly Mail by security police.

It was essentially a blow to my future because as it stood I would still be doing two years forced army service after I finished school. My father explained to me the importance of going to university and getting a good education which would at least make my stay bearable.

I remember asking something along the lines of why my dad didn’t go to the army. And he explained it quite briefly, in that he wasn’t South African when he arrived in the country, he simply didn’t send the papers back and they didn’t bother him.

I wouldn’t have had that choice if the law stayed in effect. I couldn’t even comprehend what it would have been like, it was ten years away and a concept I couldn’t grasp, but even so at eight years old I secretly resented my country.