My Friend, Mandela

Introduction

Nelson Mandela was the famous prisoner in the world. He is probably now one of the most famous grandfathers in the world! Here he is celebrating a birthday with his family.
This book is about another grandfather, who is not world-famous. He is talking to his young grandson about Nelson Mandela. The young grandson is called Andile (And-eel-ay) and he is growing up in a very different South Africa to that of his grandfather and Nelson Madela.
Andile has friends who are both black and white, and knows little of the struggle that Nelson Mandela fought for a better life for South Africa's black people. So, Andile's grandfather tells him that story.
Andile calls his grandfather tamkhulu, which means grandfather.

CHAPTER 1: Childhood (1918-1941)

Nelson Mandela was a country boy. When I first knew him he lived in a small village near the Indian Ocean, in a hut shaped like beehive.
With his mother and his three sisters, he ate meals out of a communal pot. The food was usually samp, a porridge made from corn on the cob. Mmm, it was delicious!
He was five, enen younger than you, when he bacame a herd boy. He looked after the sheep and cows. It wasn't all hard work. He played tag and hide-and-seek with his friends, just like you do. The winters were cold, I remember, so sometimes he would wear a blanket. And he loved to drink the warm milk straight from the cow.
When he turned seven his father sent him to school. He was the chief of the village and he wanted his son to look good. He cut down a pair of his trousers and tied them with string round his tummy to hold them up.
It was a Methodist Church school and he began to learn English. The teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each pupil an English name. Who knows why she did this? But suddenly, he was called nelson. Did you know, he was a famous English admiral?
The Nelson's father fell ill and died. It was a blow, but now he had a stroke of luck. His father was a cousin of the king.

ANDILE: Aah, so he was a prince?

Not really... So the regent, the king's son, invited him to live in the royal palace. He had a good education. And he learnt about his own people, the Xhosas, how they had fought bravely against the British, though they lost much of their land.
The regent liked him - maybe because he worked hard and was ready to pull his weight. One job he liked doing was to iron the regent's trousers. People have always said Mandela is fashionabley dressed.
The regent sent him to boarding school, and afterwards to a university for black students. But then he found a wife for Nelson. He was only 22, too young to get married. So he ran away. Of course, the regent was cross, but what could Nelson do?
Andile, his Xhosa name is Rolihlahla. Do you know what it means?... "The troublemaker". That's what people said he would be.

CHAPTER 2: A Leader (1941-1962)

So he went to Johannesburg, the City of Gold. It was a good place for rich white people but hard work for the black men who dug out the gold in the mines a mile below the ground.
He decided to study law. He had barely enough money to buy candles for light to read in his room. But he passed the exams, and with his friend, Oliver Tambo, they opened a lawyers' office.
Apartheid is gone now, Andile, bug it was bad. It meant separating white and black people, but whites got the better things. Black children ofter went to school without breakfast, walking barefoot for miles. There could be a hundred pupils in one classroom. Think of that.
So Nelson joined the African National Comgress, which helped black people. He became one of its leaders. He was away from home and married by then. One day his son asked his mum: "Where does daddy live?" he was only five. It mad Nelson sad.
You have heard how he liked to keep fit by doing exercises every day? He was a keen boxer.

ANDILE: Why did he like it, tamkhulu?

He's over six feet tall and was quite strong. He said boxing taught him to stand up to bullies.
Eventually, he and his friends realised that peaceful protests would not change the laws. The decided to fight the goverment. Nelson became the commander-in-chief of the army, the Spear of the Nation.

ANDILE: A soldier!

It was long ago, my boy.
The police wanted to arrest him for this. He disguised himself in old clothes and grew a beard. He was captured and put on trial. He escaped and was working as a chauffeur when the police caught him again. He was prepared to die for the freedom of his people!
The judge sentenced him to prison for the rest of his lift. He was 45 years old. The government thought it had got the better of hime.

ANDILE: And had they?

Wait and see.

CHAPTER 3: Prison (1962-1990)

The prisoners were considered dangerous. The polices flew them to Robben Island prison. It was a green place with penguins, antelopes and a lovely view of Table Mountain. But is was no holiday in the sun. It was a fortresss, guarded day and night.
His cell was tiny. He could cross it in three paces. At first he slept on a mat on the floor. In winter he shivered under thin blankets. He had to wear a shirt, shorts and sandles. They worked in the blinding light of a lime quarry. The food was not at all nourishing. But on Christmas Day they were given an extra cup of coffee.

ANDILE: No turkey and Christmas pudding?

Don't joke, please.
It was awful being seperated from their families. They were allowed to receive only one letter every six months. How they looked forward to news of their loved ones. Nelson said a letter was like the summer rain which makes the desert bloom.
But at night they worked hard at their studies and educated themselves. And he did his exercises before dawn. Secretly, in the long nights, he wrote the story of his life and buried the book in the yard because it was smuggled out. That is the book you see in the shop windows, Long Walk to Freedom.
After many years things became better. The outside world began to hear about them. People wore T-shirts saying, "Release Nelson Mandela". In London, the BBC organised a huge pop concert at Wembley Stadium to celebrate his seventieth birthday.
He was becoming as big a nuisance inside prison as he had once been outside.

ANDILE: Your friend had a pop concert, tamkhulu!

CHAPTER 4: Mr President (1994-1999)

Nelson wrote that he knew some day he would feel the grass under his feet and wald in the sunshine as a free man. In 1990, he was freed from prison. For twenty-seven years no one was allowed to see his face. Now millions could at last see him on television.
Four years later he became president of our country, South Africa. For the first time, all our people, white and black, in cities and small villages, voted in the election. He tried hard to make all the people live together in friendship.
When he met the Queen of England, they walked in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. He told her he was still a coutry boy at heart. He wanted to build a home near his boyhood village where he would spend his old age.

ANDILE: I would like to visit hime there, tamkhulu.

Story backgroud

Apartheid was the law of racial segregation which allowed the white minority to keep politcal power in South Africa. Between 1948 and 1994 the white National Party used this law to discriminate against the rest of the population.
Today there are over 40 million people in South Africa from lots of different backgrounds. That is why it is sometimes called "The Rainbow Nations".
South Africa is beginning to grow away from the bad years of apartheid. Many people travel there now on holiday or for their work. South African sportspeople, both black and white, are now taking part in events at the highest levels. This was not always possible because of apartheid.