|
Upon successfully
completing her studies in 1983, her husband
convinced her to accompany him to Tintswalo
Hospital, located in a small rural town
called Acornhoek, in the Eastern Transvaal(now
known as Mpumalanga), South Africa, where he was
offered a position as a Senior Medical Doctor. "It
was very difficult for me to decide to join him, in
what turned out to be an unexpectedly extended stay
in South Africa. With my credentials and background
as a South African, I had been offered several
attractive positions with big corporations in both
the United States and South Africa. Furthermore, I
had just left South Africa a few years earlier, to
escape the trials and tribulations of apartheid in
that country". Nonetheless,
in the spirit of family solidarity and, perhaps, by
a quirk of fate, I ended up returning to South
Africa with him to help the poor and needy people
in rural Gazankulu(Mpumalanga). While my husband
worked as a missionary doctor, I spent my time
serving as a community worker, part-time lawyer,
business-woman and mother. I spent six years in
various parts of South Africa, far more than the
one year, I had been led to believe. It was a
challenging era of my life which turned out in the
end to be one of the most socially-productive and
personally rewarding years of my life. I finally
came back to the United States with my family in
1989, with a clear conscience that I had done my
part in directly helping meet the health and social
needs of people in their struggle for liberation
and equality. I was therefore, filled with pride
when I watched television, with the rest of the
world, on February 11th 1990, to witness Nelson
Mandela triumphantly walk out of prison to
freedom." Acornhoek is
located in the semi-arid, but scenic, Eastern part
of South Africa, a few kilometers away from the
Orpen Gate and Numbi Gate entrances to the famous
Kruger National Park. Several other privately owned
game reserves are located nearby: notably Sabi
Sabi, Mala Mala, Skukuza, Londolozi and Timbavati.
This is where Nomvimbi got her first exposure to
the exotic wilds and tourism in South Africa. She
gained insight into principles of park management
and conversation. Kruger National Park is a vast
game reserve, internationally renowned for its
splendid selection of Africa's "Big Five":
elephants, lions, leopards, rhino and buffalo. "The
town of Acornhoek, at the time we lived there,
formed a border between Gazankulu and Lebowa
homelands, assigned to Shangaans/Tsongas and
Pedis/Northern Sothos, respectively, by the old
government of South Africa". This is where she
learned a lot about wildlife and gained experience
with safari. "It was not unusual for wild animals
to roam around the villages and the hospital
grounds at night. I recall driving on dusty back
roads to Welverdien and Hluvukani health clinics,
situated along the game parks, and occasionally
encountering elephants, giraffes, springbok and
warthogs, which had broken through the fenced
areas. Once or twice a week, I accompanied my
husband to remote Shangaan village health clinics,
and served as his interpreter, while taking care of
the medical needs of patients. Sometimes we had to
drive to game parks in the area to rescue villagers
who had been attacked by wild animals and needed
medical attention. This was particularly true
during 1984 - 1986, when a half-million refugees
fled the civil war in the neighboring country of
Mozambique trekking 200 miles on-foot, through the
wild Kruger National Park". "Thousands of
visitors stopped by Acornhoek, from other parts of
South Africa, the United States, Germany,
Australia, England and other overseas countries and
we conducted tours to neighboring Shangaan
and Pedi villages for a real-life cultural
experience. We conducted small group tours to
game reserves in the area. We also showed visitors
the spectacular Blyde River Canyon, God's Window,
Hazyview, Hoedspruit, Pilgrim's Rest and many other
areas". The many seven-hour trips they made between
Acornhoek and Johannesburg, to visit family,
provided the Meriwether's with access to Ndebele
culture as they drove through villages with
colorful murals and crafts. They occasionally
stopped to participate in cultural
ceremonies. Nomvimbi worked as
a coordinator for community projects of a highly
effective Johannesburg based non-profit
organization called Operation Hunger, which
distributed food and clothing to thousands of
destitute South Africans and Mozambican refugees.
She independently established agricultural
self-help projects for villagers distributing
seeds, fertilizer and provided tractor-plowing
services. "Participating in daily activities in the
village helped me learn the Shangaan language and
culture which I was not exposed to while growing up
in Soweto". She also established a sewing group
called the "Village Women" which created employment
for impoverished villagers and successfully found
commercial outlets for their garments. In 1987, on
behalf of the "Village Women", she obtained
sponsorship from Fluor Engineering Corporation,
based in Irvine, California, for their exhibit at
the Matchmaker Fair held under the auspices of the
U.S. Embassy, in Johannesburg. The fair was
designed to introduce small businesses to large
corporate buyers. The "Village Women" were awarded
first place for the best exhibit among 83
small-business exhibitors. "Being a part of
the daily activities of local people brought me in
close contact with the Shangaan culture and hence
became fluent in Shangaan language, adding to the
list of 10 South African languages I speak out of
11 in the country". Nomvimbi opened and
shared her home with Mozambican refugees and
started a refugee camp in her yard, feeding,
clothing and taking care of their medical needs as
they arrived after walking for days through the
Kruger National Park seeking refuge from Renamo
rebels. The
Meriwether family moved to Soweto, Nomvimbi's
hometown to operate a family transportation
business, hauling commercial steel and other
commodities for export overseas. Their long
distance haulage business took them all over South
Africa including dramatic mountains and
breathtaking shorelines of Cape Town, Durban, Port
Elizabeth, East London and Namibia. They
transported perishable produce to and from
Swaziland and Mozambique, and established an
auxiliary, international office in neighboring
Manzini Swaziland. Most of the workers were
diligent employees who came from
shanty-town/squatter camps in the
Soweto/Johannesburg area, where the Meriwethers,
also found time to help organize health-care and
other volunteer services. Nomvimbi established
contacts with people in several squatter-camps and
became an expert at conducting special tours for
foreign visitors and delegations from the U.S. and
Europe and other parts of the world. She ,also,
became adept at showing the more standard tourist
sites, in and around Johannesburg, Soweto, Pretoria
and Sun City. "Growing up in
Soweto I did not appreciate the history unfolding
before my eyes, until I came to the U.S.. It was
only after I traveled to America that I began to
appreciate the significance of some of my
day-to-day experiences. My home in Mofolo Village
was located two blocks away from the South African
world acclaimed musician Miriam Makeba's home.I
attended Orlando West High School, located a few
blocks away from the homes of three men who are
prominent in contemporary South African history:
Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and
Walter Sisulu. Vilakazi street has become the only
street in the world to bear the addresses of two
Noble Peace Price recipients . My school was also a
block away from the site where Hector Peterson was
killed, the first black student who died during the
1976 Soweto school uprising. These student-led
riots, were inflamed by the South African
government's attempt to impose Afrikaans as a
medium of instruction for black students. Black
schools were closed during the riots. School
closure, widespread violence and the refusal to
admit me to the University of the Witwatersrand Law
School for LLB, on the bases of my skin color,
contributed to my decision to leave South Africa
for better educational opportunities in America.
Places of additional interest, in Soweto, were
Shebeens, township taverns, which have become a
very popular stops for foreign travelers to South
Africa. My home was adjacent to a busy and well
known Shebeen. To this very day, I can recall some
of the jazzy tunes, blaring through the window of
the local hot-spot, on weekends". " Like all
Sowetans, my parents were victims of apartheid and
suffered from the lack of economic opportunities,
however, they persevered and managed to achieve
success for their family and the community. My
mother worked as a nurse at Baragwanath Hospital,
recognized, internationally, as the largest
hospital in the world. She was the first black
nurse to climb through the ranks to become Chief
Matron/Head Administrator of that hospital. Gamboot
dance has become one of the world acclaimed dances.
My father grew up at the Modderbee mine complex. My
grandfather was an administrator at the mine. When
he died my father had to stop attending
college to secure a job at Modderbee so the family
could remain residents in the complex. He was
transferred to a mining hospital, Mzilikazi, where
he work as an administrator processing miners
coming from other African countries to work in the
gold and diamond mines. We use to visit
occasionally to watch and learn gumboot dance. The
contemporary version of gumboot dance has become
world renowned and several expert troupes have
toured the United States and Europe. This is where
I learned fanakalo, a language spoken by
miners". Nomvimbi
transferred to a prestigious Zululand boarding
school for senior high school after which she
attended college at the University of Zululand.
This is where she experienced and witnessed the
traditional Zulu life style. Although raised in a
multicultural African household, where,
interestingly, she spoke Zulu to her father, who is
Zulu, and Sotho to her mother, who is Sotho, it was
not until her time at school, in Zululand, that she
experienced traditional Zulu living, firsthand. She
learned a lot about basket weaving, beadwork,
traditional dances, spear-making, craftwork,
pottery and traditional Zulu cuisine. She
frequently drove down the coast through sugar
estates and rolling hills on the North Coast to
visit the bustling Indian markets and shops in
Durban. In 1989, after it
had become generally known that Nelson Mandela
would soon be released from prison, and when it was
unequivocally certain that a democratic path for
the country had been laid, Nomvimbi and her family
returned to the U.S. She spent a year as a lecturer
and guest speaker on South African art and culture
at Albion College, Michigan State University,
Earlham College, Oberlin College, Antioch College,
University of Michigan and the Albion library and
public school system in the Midwest. She was
given an award for the most outstanding African Art
Exhibit at the Michigan State University. She
delivered a speech on "The Role of Women in South
Africa" during the inauguration of Bishop Tutu as
an honorary degree recipient at Albion College. The
family returned to the Washington D.C. area in 1990
where she continued her lectures on "South African
Culture and Art" and conducts cultural,
historical and educational group tours to South
Africa. "When I conduct my group tours to South
Africa, I am narrating the story of my life. I am
retracing my footsteps. I am a destination
specialist by birth, experience and
fate. "Meticulous Tours
and Adventure Travel, Inc., is dedicated to
educating and exposing the public and
businesses to South Africa. When you travel with
us, for business or pleasure, you will experience
the warmth, generosity and spirit of South
Africans. Meeting the locals in major cities,
villages, townships, restaurants, bars, sporting
events, beaches and on the streets will touch you
forever. The South African people invite you to
share with them treasures of the past, triumphs of
the present and dreams of the future. South Africa
, in my opinion, truly, lives up to its reputation
as a world, in one country. So, I personally,
invite you to visit South Africa with us, and see
its wondrous treasures and natural
beauty". ATA
Head Office: 347 Fifth Avenue, |
||||||||||||||
.
.
Nomvimbi
Meriwether