by Robyn Scott
“Obviously,” I said hotly.
Dad smiled. “Robbie, you’re a seventeen-year-old vegetarian who hypnotises people to augment dental anaesthesia. Born during an acupuncture session. And raised on Bach flower remedies, soya beans, and enough dietary fibre to meet the annual needs of a small city. The obvious is subjective.”
“But I have great hope,” said Mum. “Things are changing. The fringe is going mainstream. Twenty years ago my book wouldn’t have happened.”
The book she referred to was not Living on the Fringe, which – as the manuscript had just been rejected by the first publisher in South Africa – was anything but happening. “Probably a good thing,” Mum had said. “You know I’m sure they wouldn’t have been right for it.”
Naturally undaunted, she’d been on the verge of trying others when the rejecting publishers had offered her a commission for a different book instead. Mum had said yes at once, and quickly immersed herself in the new project – Natural Home Pharmacy, a mainstream, glossy guide to complementary therapies.
“It’s such a wonderful challenge,” she marvelled, at least once a day. “What an opportunity to communicate the benefits of natural medicine! Isn’t it amazing how well things always turn out? If I hadn’t plugged away at Living on the Fringe, this would never have happened…perhaps it was never meant to be published anyway…I mean, thinking about it now, who would really want to read about us and our mad life?”
At the dinner table, ‘the book’ and sterols and sterolins vied constantly for airtime.
Dad was technically a co-author – the thought being that a doctor would give the book more credibility. But really it was Mum’s project, and she did all the writing. Dad just occasionally debated some finer point of homeopathy, reflexology, or nutritional therapy and criticised Mum for using too many big words.
Mum said, “Well, you write some then.”
Which caused Dad to quickly retreat and say that Mum was the much better writer. “Anyway,” said Dad, “all my creative juices are sapped by my articles.”
In return for advertising space for Moducare, Dad had agreed to write a medical column in The Voice newspaper, a tabloid in Francistown. Initially prepared and eager to inform the district on the big health issues of the day, he had soon been infuriated by the stream of readers’ enquiries:
Infertility…
Penis problems…
Bad breath…
Men as well as women can suffer from infertility, Dad wrote again and again.
“Which most Batswana men aren’t going to believe anyway.”
Do not always blame the woman…
“I ‘wish someone would just ask about AIDS,” Dad complained. “It’s amazing. The biggest issue in the country, and no one seems interested – thank God for the Elizabeths of this world.”
Knowing Elizabeth’s story was still no preparation for the experience of meeting her. It was 1998, and Lulu and I had returned to the farm for a few days, eager to witness Mum and Dad’s moment of fame.
We were sharing Lulu’s room to accommodate the truly weird mix of guests. In my room were John and Beverley Parr, a trendy husband-and-wife team of TV producers from Johannesburg; in Damien’s was Elizabeth Kgano, one of the first women in Botswana to publicly admit to being HIV-positive.
Dad had said, “She’s not going to feel comfortable staying in the house.”
And Elizabeth didn’t. She spent most of her time at our staff quarters. She looked deeply awkward at meals, where she hardly spoke. After a while she announced she’d rather join our maids, Dad’s nurses, and Shimane and Joseph for dinner around the fire.
Elizabeth had been raised in a village, and had no more than a primary education. She wasn’t interested in anything we discussed – except for HIV and AIDS. Enter into the conversation these two words, and Elizabeth was unstoppable, speaking with a cheerful frankness and compulsion that was riveting.
Elizabeth said, “People would stop and say to me, Are you the one who has been in the newspaper saying you have HIV?’” She grinned and shook her head in mirth. “They stare at me like I should be ashamed.”
Elizabeth tested positive for HIV in 1991. “I was ashamed then,” she said. “And frightened.” Keeping quiet about her own condition, she spent the next few years doing door-to-door campaigns in the villages, talking openly and tirelessly about the problem and encouraging others to do the same. But then the opportunistic infections started to strike. Her weight dropped to forty-five kilograms. Barely able to get out of bed, and certain she would die, she decided to go public.
Everyone was shocked. Elizabeth lost friends, and received insults from strangers. “But I never looked away when they stared or swore at me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Sometimes I think they just wanted to know what someone who has HIV looks like. I think they thought I would look like a monster.”
With statements like these, Elizabeth had been shocking not just her neighbours, but radio listeners and newspaper readers across the country. “I have been insulted in every way,” she said, “but I don’t feel anger any more. I feel great pity.” She paused and sighed dramatically. “I feel sorry for them because they don’t understand AIDS is everyone’s problem.”
Practical, cheerful middle-aged mother of two, Elizabeth let nothing daunt her on her crusade. She hadn’t been on television before. But as she sat in our garden, staring intently at the camera, she spoke fiercely and without embarrassment – only encouraged, she said, by the knowledge she was talking to audiences across southern Africa.
“AIDS is everyone’s problem!” she said, repeating one of her favourite mantras. She paused, and launched straight into another. “I tell them,” she grinned, ’ ‘Intercourse is a short course, AIDS is a long course!’ ‘
Natural Home Pharmacy had just been published, and the film crew was visiting the farm to do a feature on Mum and Dad and the book. One of the angles they liked was Dad’s use of a natural treatment for HIV and AIDS. Dad had approached Elizabeth, a Moducare devotee, who had immediately agreed to appear on the programme.
“I would be dead without this stuff,” she said.
When Elizabeth had gone public, at her sickest, a friend had told her about the supplement. Elizabeth had set up a roadside stall selling single cigarettes to pay for it. Grinning nostalgically, she told us how soon her only problem was not having enough money to buy food for her new appetite. Her weight returned to seventy kilograms. She started again to rise at six in the morning to make her bed. “You smile,” she said. “But there were so many days when I couldn’t make my own bed. Or fetch water, or sweep, or cook. When you get better, you realise it’s these little things that matter in life.”
Her health renewed, she continued her campaigning with a vengeance and encouraged others to use the product. This was how she’d met Dad, who, as well as writing about halitosis and infertility for The Voke, donated Moducare to an AIDS centre started by Elizabeth and supported by the newspaper. Elizabeth had also been awarded a small government stipend, which she used to help run the centre.
Listening to her speak, it seemed she should have had a whole programme to herself. But there were other angles to be covered, and the Parrs soon returned their attention to Mum and Dad.
“Right,” said John. “Now we need some farm and family shots.”
Keen on the idea of two ‘natural medicine’ authors living in marital bliss in the beautiful bush, he shot some footage of Dad driving up in his car and parking in front of a verdant backdrop of acacia trees. Following instructions, Dad got out of the car, and Mum rushed out across the dirt to meet him, kissing him awkwardly on the cheek as he took her in his arms.
Lulu and I protested that they never did it like that and were brushed aside.
A horse-river combination was next on the programme. Mum had never ridden much, and now rode even less after a few bad experiences on Feste. So only Lulu and I saddled up with Dad and headed up the road towards the Limpopo, which had a splendid ba
ckdrop of magnificent trees. Riding his majestic, golden Thoroughbred, Squire, Dad looked light-years away from his first days on Quartz, and perfect for TV.
But a few minutes up the road, Dad realised that Squire was lame. “You girls go on,” he said. “It’s a pity. But you’re better riders anyway.”
John Parr barely hid his dismay when Lulu and I appeared at the river without Dad. He asked us to remove our hideous black pudding-bowl riding hats, undo our hair, and gallop past him.
We did.
“Do it again.”
After the fifth gallop past the camera, the horses were bucking wildly. We tried to calm them as we waited for the signal for another run. Lulu let out a nervous giggle. “If we fall off, Rob, we might die.”
“Not impossible,” I muttered. “Sbhh, girl.”
Lulu giggled again. “Say Goodbye, Rob,” she whispered.
Say Goodbye was my ominously named Thoroughbred. She was snorting furiously. The prettiest part of the river also happened to hold traumatic memories for her. On her I’d once chased a large troop of baboons who were threatening to savage our two Jack Russells. I’d screamed at the baboons loudly enough to summon Mum and Dad from the other end of the farm, and Say Goodbye had never quite recovered.
Now she lashed out at Beauty, whom Lulu was riding because we were worried that skeletal Winnie might provoke viewer outrage. Beauty, who had a generous dose of Feste’s character, kicked, bucked, and then reared viciously.
“Shall we ask for our hats back?”
“No, man, we can’t look like wimps.”
“Better than dying. Or being concussed again – ”
The distant thunder of hooves silenced us, and quieted the horses.
All eyes and the camera lens focused on the empty road, in the direction of the sound. Moments later, little Quartz tore around a bend in a cloud of dust, Dad standing up in his stirrups and bouncing on top.
Charging towards us, Dad swung his arm in the air. “Yee-hah,” he yelled.
He was wearing his pudding-bowl hat, accessorized with a blue sun hat strapped on with Velcro, giving the effect of a flying saucer. His feet dangled well below Quartz’s belly, which was filthy with dust, and wet with sweat from the gallop.
“Decided I couldn’t miss out on the action,” said Dad, grinning, as Quartz skidded to a halt beside us. “Can’t let you two hog the camera.” He patted Quartz affectionately. “Thank goodness for my trusty steed. What did I always tell you about Boerperds? My kind of horse.”
Later Mum and Dad drove down to Johannesburg for a live studio appearance, which Lulu and I watched on satellite TV in Bulawayo. Damien, although not in the preshot film, arrived in time to be in the studio audience. The theme of the week’s episode was complementary health, and Mum and Dad were featured beside a crystal healer.
Dad had been on TV once before in New Zealand, talking about biodynamic farming. But sitting there under the bright lights, he looked as if he’d been doing this every day of his life-smiling levelly at the camera, implacably calm. He showed not a trace of his initial irritation at being featured alongside a crystal healer.
Mum, as I’d expected, looked earnest, pale, and tremendously nervous. She grinned unconvincingly.
For days, she’d stayed up late studying her book. Dad had tried to calm her down: “Lin, you wrote the jolly thing. You know what’s in it.” But Mum would just mutter, “God, how embarrassing if I don’t know something in my own book…you should read it too, Keith. I bet you don’t know everything that’s in it.” Dad had said of course he didn’t, but he’d pass all the hard questions to Mum. Which had made Mum panic further and haul out reference books so she could expand upon her own details.
I nevertheless felt confident on their behalf. Dad always said exactly what he thought, and I knew no question would rattle him. And Mum, I knew, would have by now stored enough detail to speak about her book for weeks.
After a discussion about crystals, the beautiful TV presenter turned to Dad and smiled. As a medical doctor, she asked him, what did he think of crystal healing.
And suddenly I was holding my breath. I felt embarrassed in advance for the crystal healer and the presenter. Dad’s opinion on crystals would be withering. He paused before answering. Then to my amazement he gave a diplomatic, non-committal response.
It was one of the only times I’d ever known him not to say exactly what he thought.
Mum looked relieved.
The five-minute film on the Scotts of Molope Farm, condensed from hours of footage, was then shown. There were shots of Mum and Dad in different places around the farm, and of the two of them smiling uncomfortably as they walked beside each other to Dad’s car. There were a few minutes of Elizabeth talking. Lulu and I waited expectantly for our moment of glory. Then a shot of Dad pulling up on faithful little Quartz suddenly appeared on the screen. And then it was over. Lulu and I, having gallantly risked our lives, had been edited out altogether. We couldn’t believe it.
The presenter turned to Mum. “So, tell us, Linda, I’m fascinated, why did you decide to homeschoolyour children?”
Now Mum looked like a hare caught in the headlights. I held my breath again. This was her moment: her chance to tell thousands of people about her passionate philosophy of learning. And she was totally unprepared. I could feel her feeling sick. As she started to speak, her voice cracked slightly, as if she might cry.
But Mum had been practising for years. After making a joke about needing a crystal to calm her nerves, she took no more than a sentence to warm up. Partly, she said, homeschooling was a way to keep the family together when we lived so remotely. Mostly, though, she’d wanted her children to learn in a happy, stress-free environment, to ensure they never lost their interest and enthusiasm for learning. Mum looked like she wanted to say more, but the presenter moved on.
That was the only question Mum was asked.
When Elizabeth’s face appeared on the screen, I’d wondered what she was doing – while her voice blared through living rooms across southern Africa – in her tiny ramshackle house, where Mum, Lulu, and I had dropped her back home in the darkness.
There was my lasting memory of Elizabeth: not in our garden, or at the dinner table, or staring at the camera, but standing outside her hut in the warm night, waving cheerily good-bye as we drove off along her dingy, rubbish-scattered street. For a few minutes afterwards, Mum, Lulu, and I were silent, staring out into the darkness, our minds reeling from two uninterrupted, uncensored hours of Elizabeth’s thoughts.
Then Mum said, “Shit.”
Lulu gasped. “Mum!” she admonished.
“Shit!” said Mum. “You know, that woman makes me want to weep with admiration. And weep with shame that I don’t do more. And weep with joy that it’s possible to do so much, with so little, for so many.” She paused, and sighed. “This is a truly Churchillian battle…”
I said, “Don’t be so dramatic, Mum.” But I was shaken too; with an acute, disconcerting mixture of fascination, hope, and horror.
To begin with, as we’d set off from the farm to take her home, Elizabeth had just repeated all her favourite pithy statements. But as the sun dropped below the horizon, and mile after mile of the darkening bush sped past, she began to elaborate.
“The problem, you know, is that sex is so nice. You understand, Linda?”
“Absolutely,” said Mum, as Lulu and I blushed painfully in the backseat.
Elizabeth then proudly reminded us about her daughter, who was part of a ‘Say NO!” group at her school. “You know,” she continued, “once an AIDS educator told me I was going to have to abstain or have safe sex. Ee! But did she think I was mad? I told her, “I love sex. I will never abstain.” She chuckled. “But, as you know, I have changed my mind about that too.”
This fact Elizabeth had shared with the whole country, announcing in a newspaper article that she had trained her mind to resist the sexual urge, and forgotten about sex.
Now she explained why.
At first, when she’d gone public, few people, let alone men, had wanted to go near her. She was ostracised in every way. In addition to the blatant insults, there were small hurtful things too. Sometimes when she visited people in their yards, they would look away. Some offered her water in chipped mugs and glasses.
But as she put on ‘weight and once more looked healthy, many people’s manners changed. “They thought I did not have AIDS any more,” she said. “Even at the hospital. Sometimes the nurses laughed at me and said I was too fat to have AIDS. I told them I’d had a test, and they laughed and said the test must have been wrong.”
Then Elizabeth got a boyfriend. At first, they’d used condoms. But after a while he asked her for unprotected sex. “Skin to skin!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Can you believe it?” She turned to the backseat, just to check Lulu and I were looking appropriately shocked. “I told him I have HIV,” she said. “I told him, ‘The whole of Botswana knows I have HIV’.”
Elizabeth’s boyfriend explained he never saw her with another man, so he could trust her. Elizabeth retorted that this was irrelevant. She was still infected. Then her boyfriend said he had special medicine from the jangoma to stop him getting HIV. Elizabeth told him muti from the sangoma doesn’t work.
“He didn’t believe me,” she said, “then he offered me money to have skin-to-skin sex. I told him, “Intercourse is a short course, AIDS is a long course.” Then I threw him out and told him to go and swim in the HIV sea somewhere else. Then I told him that before he went swimming, he must put on his costume!”
Elizabeth slapped her thigh, and gave an exasperated laugh. “There is this ‘wilful ignorance like this everywhere.” And then her thoughts on wilful ignorance occupied her for at least half an hour. “People are terrified to know they are going to die. Of course they are! And then sometimes they are angry. I had a friend,” she said. “Eel This is a terrible story. She discovered she had HIV. She was angry with the man who had given it to her. But she didn’t know who he was. She told me, “I am going to have sex with as many men as possible.” I told her, You can’t do that. But she was too angry to listen. Then she sat outside her hut with her legs open and no panties on. Begging men for sex.”
