Moshe (Part 3)

The new medical doctor in the remote village of Taung returned to his room in the SADF house he would share with seconded national servicemen – one of three houses in a gravel cul-de-sac at the edge of the residential area. After a long, tiring journey from Cape Town in his old Pontiac, he greeted his new housemates politely, engaged in some small talk to make his fleeting acquaintance with them, and retired for the night on a typical army bed with noisy springs and a thin foam mattress to rest his weary back. Sleep came quickly and, as it was a Friday, he would not have to bother about rising early and could gather his thoughts and remaining strength in anticipation of getting a medical consulting room up and running during the course of the next week. 

Moshe discovered, to his surprise, that he was not the only chap in these houses with a Jewish background. He met one of the veterinary doctors who was rendering useful service to the farming community both in this “homeland” and the surrounding smallholdings in the Vaalharts district. Jeff was a highly competent Vet who was doing his national service immediately after qualifying at the Pretoria University’s world-renowned Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute. Extremely knowledgeable, he was focusing on honing his practical skills in the field. Moshe was pleased that someone with a seemingly shared culture meant that he was not the only Jewish chap sharing the house with Afrikaners and English speaking “souties” (the army reference to English servicemen in the SADF). However, Moshe had been raised in a strict religious family that valued their adherence to the precepts of Judaism, but Jeff was a secular Jew who was outspokenly irreligious and not a stickler for adherence to cultural prescripts. His parents had given their heritage a nod by attending readings at the synagogue on the odd important occasion or religious festival. Religious they were not. Indeed, when their son refused to accompany them to the synagogue, he brazenly declared that he had no intention of listening to a Rabbi pontificating about some or other “superstition.” Inclined as they were to his non-conformist bent, they left it that and offered no resistance. If they were marginally secular, he was adamant about being an agnostic. Nevertheless, there was a somewhat shared heritage, albeit tenuous. Moshe was, though, a bit taken aback by Jeff’s apparent hostility to his cultural and religious roots, but was not about to make an issue of it. Later, he did find Jeff to be an engaging fellow and they got along amicably.

During the weekend he would get to know a motley crowd of characters brought together by the unique obligation to complete this part of their national service. Amongst them was Archie, a Vet who had initially been rejected by Onderstepoort, so first completed a science degree. A fellow who had paid equal attention to his studies and his social life, it was a monumental surprise to both his parents and the university administrators that he obtained that degree Summa Cum Laude (with the highest honours). He was let into Onderstepoort as a slightly older student, via the backdoor of another degree. He qualified as the top student and at the very pinnacle of the Dean’s List. This was also no doubt because of his brilliance and certainly not because he was a hard working industrious student. He emerged from the Veterinary Institute without a single book to his name and with only the most sketchy notes. However, he was a walking veterinary encyclopedia and the go-to person for diagnosis and treatment plans. He was at the top of his game, as it were. However, Archie would turn out to be the “naughtiest” of the disparate crowd. He was so far off the scale regarding conforming to the norms of the rest of society, that he completely ignored the behaviour codes expected of an officer in the SADF by having his girlfriend (one of many), stay with him in a house rented by the military. She was a nursing sister in Kimberley and spent her time off with Archie. Had the SADF top brass been aware of this, he would have been unceremoniously court martialed and stripped of his officer “pips.” Archie was a law unto himself, but added much value as a brilliant Vet and was the source of much amusement with his keen sense of humour and quirky rebelliousness.

Moshe met the others as the weekend wore on. The lecturers were diverse, too. All were at the top of their game academically, hence their selection by the SADF to help set up a system that could function in this part of Bophuthatswana. One was an ornithologist, another a language specialist and a Business Economics honours graduate. All were able to both educate and train students to play leading roles in the fields of conservation, business, governance and communication. Their success is reflected somewhat in the fact that some of their students still have important positions in business and government more than forty years later – long after the transition to a “New South Africa.” There was always some suspicion that the contribution made by all of these national servicemen was a cover for another political agenda – being the eyes and ears in an enclave that the SADF was determined to keep on a short leash. However, this was by no means a “cloak and dagger” spying outfit even though the South African government were notorious for planting individuals in key positions with an underlying ulterior motive. It remained a suspicion and, in all likelihood, the South African authorities’ only motivation for this project was to ensure their hare brained “homelands” scheme worked and would be viable.

Monday. New week. New problems.

Before leaving for his “consulting room” at the Mothusi complex, Moshe enjoyed a scrumptious full English breakfast prepared by Emily, the domestic worker who kept the house in good shape from Monday to Friday and cooked, cleaned and ironed for the fellows. She was like a mom to these young chaps, as was Pauline, the domestic worker that looked after the other two houses a half kilometer further along the gravel cul-de-sac. He would have to return to the house for lunch, the main meal of the day. Supper had to be taken care of by the “boys” sharing the house.

Moshe had brought only the most rudimentary of medical instruments with him from Cape Town. A stethoscope and some other odds and ends were in his bulging doctor’s bag. He found out to his surprise that he would have to procure everything else he needed – to be reimbursed by the new Bophuthatswana government. He was in charge in Taung and he had to make it all happen. This had not been spelt out in the contract he’d signed prior to his appointment, but was a foretaste of the dealings he would have with the administration, and would be another good reason for him to henceforth refer to it as the “so-called contract.” One concession (a useful one) to Bophuthatswana’s commitment to their agreements, however, arrived later that morning. It was a “YB” registration government vehicle. To be honest, he needed it, given the state of the old Pontiac and the dreadful roads he would have to traverse to reach the remote farming compounds. It was a new Land Cruiser for his use in the area. There was that troubling little issue that he had to have a “YB” driver’s licence to officially be allowed to drive it. This he ignored for a week or so until he could be issued with the appropriate paperwork confirming he had taken and passed an official vehicle driver’s test (which he hadn’t). Clearly, this is the way the “stooge government” of the homeland operated, and he started to accept that he would have to “roll with it” to make his life easier. Fuel would be from the Co-op on the YB account, just as the R (SADF military) vehicles obtained theirs on the SA Government account. 

The new doctor in town set about stocking up his consulting room with all he felt he required to be able to serve the community – and this service was really a passion for him! He signed the requisitions with the confidence that his budget was practically bottomless. To his amazement, it so happened that all the bills were duly paid – thanks in no small part to the largesse of the South African government attempting to make their Bantustan policy work. Their bizarre programme of splitting South Africa up according to race and tribal affiliation would prove in the long run to have been a futile project – a concept, to be fair to the architects of the policy, that the majority of white voters blindly accepted and enthusiastically supported over many years. Apartheid at the point of ordinary people’s experience, as well as at the level of international acceptance or rejection was totally unworkable. This was something that began to inform the attitude of increasing numbers of white folk as the government later tinkered with and eventually dismantled the entire edifice of apartheid. Throwing money and human resources at the project proved, in the long run, to be utterly futile. Making the policy look better was the equivalent of applying lipstick to a pig. 

As the months and years progressed, Moshe worked hard. He put in much effort to make a difference at the level of the immediate needs of the community. The futility of the programme and the unlikely attainment of the goals of his employers became ever clearer as he had to begin to push back against broken promises, broken contracts, political intrigue and incompetence on a grand scale. A year or two before the final demise of the homelands project in 1994, he extricated himself from the “so-called contract,” the efforts to make this doomed system viable, and any vestige of his part in a political experiment that attracted harsh opprobrium from all but its political architects in Pretoria.

Next week: Moshe starts to offer his services to the local community as a doctor on a state salary. Life in the small village and an overwhelming number of patients.

©Paul M Haupt