Art & Apartheid #100convos #7

I first met Sid at a mixer for creatives, and bumped into him a few times over the next few years. Sid is creative for a living as a graphic designer. He is also a total sweetie and I must admit that I didn’t give him much of an option about this interview. I pounced over a home cooked meal.

We chatted about my project in general, and I told him about interviewing the kids. He grabbed at my “kid friendly question of the world cup, and claimed that he had a great story about the final.

“I was in bed that evening with flu and I tried to watch the game on streaming, but it was very slow and I ended up listening to it on the radio instead – and sat on social media.”

It’s that the story?

I put him on the spot and demanded something juicy. Sid totally delivered with something beautiful.

“Growing up in Durban, because my mom was a domestic worker, I grew up with the family that she worked for; Until I was 5 and had to move to a different neighbourhood, away from my mom but with my other siblings. It was still apartheid and I couldn’t go to a “local” school. After ’92, my sister really pushed for it, the people my mom worked for said I could come to this new mixed race school, Northcrest Primary”

He clarified that while the kids were mostly black, the teacher were of mixed race.

“It was basically a stepping stone to a new life and new experiences. I had a teacher, Mr Mkhize, he was basically the first teacher to say that he was open to anything.”

Sid went on to explain how this extraordinary teacher really focussed on the kids as individuals, encouraging special skills and interests. This is how Sid discovered Art and it changed his life. “It was exciting” he said, and I could almost imagine him exploring colours and form with powder paints.

I was so moved by his story. Here was a story from the past, a past that I feel like I was almost oblivious of - I could go to any school that I wanted to, my parents grew up in an area that was very integrated, or maybe Cape Town just wasn’t as segregated. Or maybe I was just oblivious?