God bless Africa. Really, though.

I’m sitting on an island in the middle of my Simon’s Town kitchen, with an American football game blaring in the background, as a very pregnant Anne watches. Although it’s very cloudy outside, the sun is soldering its way through the clouds, so I didn’t dare sit out there, for fear  that it might solder through my skin while it’s at it.

This week I joined a choir.

Anne – married to Andrew, who runs the prison ministry – plays the violin (and even plays in the Hillsong praise band. Pretty impressive). After living in SA for almost five solid years, she knows a guy or two, so managed to get me into Cape Town Philharmonia Choir, just days before they’re due to perform in Cape Town city hall. The choir is directed by a nice man named Richard, and is about 150 people strong. The choir is mostly White, with several Coloured members. It’s a nice privilege to be allowed in for one week only, especially when there were five or six rehearsals prior to me joining. It’s really nice to be in a choir again, singing choir-y songs, especially as I haven’t really sung all that much in the seven weeks I’ve now been on this end of the globe. But it’s not all bows and feathers. I realised that getting my choir-y voice back is difficult. On the setlist (I’m sure I should be using a much more appropriate term) are a whole range of songs – even several from our very own Kristyn Getty. I pointed out to the nice Afrikaans lady beside me, that Kristyn is Northern Irish, and how very nice it is to be singing some of her songs in a South African choir – the nice Afrikaans lady smiled sweetly and ducked her bed back into her folder, oh well. But, against a backdrop of songs I’m used to singing in Richhill Methodist – to which I’m very much looking forward to returning – and some airy fairy adaptations of Amazing Grace and All things bright and beautiful, we have some massive tunes. Some big hearty, high and complicated tunes. Not so much tunes, as Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. (The one with all the ‘hallelujahs’ – 167, to be precise.) When we sing this in rehearsals, there’s a really scary moment when all of the surrounding Sopranos close shut their folders in the most carefree manner, and I’m overcome by the most frightening of facts – they’ve all sung this ten hundred times before; they know precisely where all 167 of the ‘hallelujahs’ go, what notes to hit and how long to hold each of them. It’s at this point that I dig my nose as far into my folder as I possibly can, studying each ‘hallelujah’ and even using my finger to trace where each of the notes are headed. So, South African choir rehearsals have been a very different sort of intense from its prisons.

One song that has particular poignance to the choir members, is ‘God bless Africa’ – originally composed in 1897, under the Xhosa name, ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’, and now adopted into South Africa’s national anthem. The song has been adapted by a Mr Westwood, a paediatrician who also happens to be top-notch at composing and rearranging music, and has dedicated his arrangement to a man named James Thomas. James, an enterprise development specialist with an intolerance for poverty, was 57 when he was shot dead at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, a month ago. His wife was due to play the flute at Sunday’s concerts, but pulled out after James’ death. The dedication of this song at last night’s rehearsal brought about a roomful of nods and respectful words of support from the choir. The words of the song are big, too. The verses speak of the ‘drums of war in Africa’, ‘anger, bitterness’, ‘oppression’ and ‘violence’ – all words that resonate very brilliantly and all too evidently in South Africa. But then the chorus breaks into a cheerful ‘God bless Africa, guard our children, guide our leaders,’ in so airy a melody that I couldn’t help but view this arrangement as a White man’s song for Africa. While I’m not asking for a doom-filled anthem, this song almost acts as a microcosm for South Africa, itself; the truth-telling, hard-hitting verses are swept aside briskly by a light and oblivious chorus. Maybe it was just that I was singing it in the midst of very White South Africans in a very White looking church, miles from the townships in which ever-worsening crimes are being committed (two days ago, a 15 year old was beheaded in what is being seen as a Satanic killing on the eve of Hallowe’en) but it did strike me – and maybe only me, as the choir around me erupted into jolly song.

Earlier in the week I went to Dwarsrivier prison. It was my first time there, and possibly the last of the prisons involved in the ministry, which I hadn’t been to before. I followed Skumbuso – Black and Xhosa-speaking – and Stephen – Coloured and Afrikaans-speaking – through the barbed-wire enclosure and into one of the most well-kept prisons I’d seen here, complete with rose-filled garden and a painted portrait of Nelson Mandela in the entrance hall, decorated with the words, “Get well soon!” Honestly, it felt more like a primary school, and the colourful room that we were led into, lined with bookshelves and various science posters, only reinforced this feeling. The men filtered in and this time there were Nigerian and Zimbabwean inmates, too. Dwarsrivier tends to have a lot of foreign inmates, I’m told, and it was refreshing to see these lovely deep Black, statue-height figures in the room. Many of them have run into the law in a series of accidents and found themselves in a conundrum. One man had been arrested by the police when he didn’t have his drivers’ licence with him in the car, only to be imprisoned for several years because of his Nigerian nationality and the lack of support available to him within South Africa – much of the time, men from other parts of the continent are not given the benefit of the doubt.

The session had a lovely, relaxed atmosphere, and Stephen gave the inmates a chance to ask ‘the Irish girl’ some questions. They asked what the weather was like at home, and wasn’t I afraid to come into prisons and meet murderers, rapists and thieves? As the session ended, a man approached me and wrote his prison address down on a piece of paper. “Google me,” he instructed. “I’m famous.” When I replied and told him I had no interest in what crime he’d committed, he objected, “No, no. Google me. I want you to see the change in me, now that I love the Lord.” If I had any reluctance to Google him before then, I quickly lost it. And, while I’ve only met the man once, and know well not to naively assume this man is now ready to preach to the world and stand up for his new-found faith in any situation he may face in prison, I thought I ought to Google him. And share it.

So I Googled, ‘Henrico Pietersen’. Only two articles appeared – I was most disappointed with Google – but enough to tell me that Henrico was 18 when he was found guilty, along with three other men, of ‘two counts of murder, one of attempted murder and one of aggravated robbery.‘ The four had shot a man, stolen his car, and then shot dead two women, several days later, while they stood at a viewpoint in 1999. Henrico has now been in prison for 14 years, and has a double life sentence. Heavy. Throughout the session he had smiled and with a great eagerness to talk and offer his opinions – if I was only 14 years into a double life sentence at the age of 32, I’m not sure how hopeful I’d appear.

On Wednesday, I woke up at 5:15am and arrived at the rehab in Mitchell’s Plain at 9:15am. Not a pretty four hours of my life – but my hasty transition to embracing public transport is something that I’ll take home with me, and maybe I’ll even start taking the 51 from Richhill to Portadown, maybe. It was very worth it, though. A woman named Natasha – one of Janina’s many friends here in the Cape Flats – was sharing her story with the guys and girls at the rehab, and she has quite a story to tell. Janina met Natasha when she was working with a newly released inmate. When Janina came to the house, she found that the ex-prisoner’s entire family were drug addicts; the only member of the household that wasn’t taking drugs was the inmate’s cousin, Natasha. A few days after they first met, Natasha rang Janina out of desperation, explaining that she needed out of the house. Janina was house-sititng in the pretty seaside town of Muizenberg at the time, and instructed Natasha to hop on a train and join her for a few days. After several years, during which Natasha flew to Germany to be Janina’s bridesmaid – she had always promised herself she would one day fly on an airplane, and Janina promised herself  that she would make this a reality – Janina and Natasha are best of friends.

Natasha grew up with a mother and father who were addicted to tik. Quickly, her brothers and sister also became addicted to tik. Natasha made a decision early on that she was not going to join them, and became a Christian at a young age. Natasha was 21 years old when she was raped by someone she knew, and became pregnant as a result of the attack. She lived in a house filled with her drug-addict family, and so had no one to turn to – no one to weep with or find comfort in. Before she gave birth, she had seriously planned to give the baby up for adoption, but God changed her heart. Vastly. Eleven years later, and Natasha still bumps into her attacker regularly on the street, but has the incredible strength to greet him politely, ‘without recalling what he did’. She is now married, and has two sons. Her first son is named Jonathan – a name which came to her as she read the story of Daniel, and found out later that it meant ‘gift from God’. Jonathan was born as a result of the attack, but today she loves him very much – despite doubting very much in the past that she could ever love the outcome of such horrifying circumstances. She is happy. She wears a joy on her face like no one else. Janina has taken her into several prisons to share her story, and she tells me that she receives the same response there as she did on Wednesday at the rehab; men cry and immediately confess to being rapists, themselves. Two men at the rehab raised their arms after she had finished telling her story – and sung a short song, the strength of her voice piercing the roomful of awe-filled listeners – and confessed to having raped in the past. Janina tells me that roomfuls of prisoners have stood, explaining that rape is the reason they are in prison, and admitted that they had never before, considered the impact that their actions had had on their victims – never thought that those women had undergone lasting fear and suffering. Again, the same concern, the same problem is evident in South Africa; the people don’t know that they are committing crime. Rape is seen as a demonstration of manliness, an assertion of male dominance – encouraged and applauded by friends and fellow gang members.

To find a woman like Natasha, then, is incredible. It forced me to ask myself a thousand different questions. Even as I ate lunch with her, I knew there were questions I ought to be asking her. I knew this was a huge privilege to be sitting with a woman of such integrity and strength to have made the decisions that she made and to love the child that she didn’t choose to create. But instead I sat and gazed at her. I thanked her for her story, yes, but there was not much else I could muster. Natasha’s sister and two brothers were drug addicts. Her father was an addict for 32 years. They have now become Christians and are no longer dependent on crystal meth – a change that would not have happened where it not for Natasha and Jonathan.

Cape Town Philharmonia Choir are performing at 3pm and 6pm in Cape Town City Hall on Sunday 27th October – tickets are 100Rand – and you’re all very welcome to come. In the wake of this week’s various harrowing news articles and Natasha’s stories, I think I’ll sing ‘God bless Africa’ especially loud. For women like Natasha, and for boys who are being raised to know rape as the definition of man. For South Africa.