by Gaynor Paynter

G21 Africa Columnist

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Gaynor Paynter & her sons

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - With this letter, I send you greetings from a beautiful South Africa. The first of September heralded a new season, Spring, in this our most beautiful of countries, transforming it in a matter of weeks into a harmonious cacophony of colour. You may be able to tell that I love this season. It's the season when we can shed our winter clothes (not to mention kilograms!) and haul out our old favourites; the sun is warm and transluscent before the harshness of the summer months, the air smells sweet with the blooming of the flowers, and the world is a green, happy place to be. Spring allows me to indulge in the simple, most beautiful pleasures of life ‚ planting flowers in the garden, playing ball with my sons in our balmy evenings, and organising our favourite activity ‚ good old South African braais (which I think Americans know as a barbecue), in which we are free in socialising with friends, bringing out meat, beer, drink, salads, paper plates and garden furniture, and just generally relaxing and getting rid of the day's stress in the most pleasurable fashion.

This article is the first of what I hope will be a weekly "Letter from South Africa", in which I intend to give you a positive (I have a gut feeling that most South Africans you would have come into contact with are the ones who have immigrated to your country and have nothing but morbid, politically based, biased stories about our country) non-political (as much as I can) account of my life in South Africa. To this end I would like to introduce myself to you ‚ I am a 27 year old South African female. I am a married mother of two sons, and would ultimately like to be a freelance writer from home so that I can structure my days around them and my husband. This is a typically South African situation ‚ I know of a lot of mothers who only work full days because they have to, and to the feminists of yesteryear, I give a hearty THANKS ‚ we didn't all want your help! By day I am a full time Administration Clerk at a Recruitment company, and as part of my functions I interview job applicants ‚ this gives me first hand experience at meeting and getting to know South Africans in all the walks of life this country has to offer.

There is something about Spring that brings out the best in South Africans. We extricate our bright summer clothing ‚ and the fashions in our country this year are beautiful with crisp black and white being coupled with pastel pinks and purples, making us all look like the most gorgeous flowers ourselves (okay ‚ point of clarification ‚ that is the female fashion!). We truly are the Rainbow Nation that has been talked about so much in this most glorious season. With this in mind, travelling home from work today, I found myself pondering the following question: What makes a South African?

A simple question, agreed, with a rather more complex answer.

Is a South African a colour? Yes, each of our skins is a colour ‚ but we are not all Black, not all White, not all Indian, and not all Coloured.

Is a South African a language? Yes, we all speak a language (and some of us speak many more languages than others), but with eleven official languages, we are not all Zulu, not all Xhosa, not all Pedi, not all Sotho, not all Afrikaans, and not all English ‚ although for the sake of convenience English is the language most of our communication is in even though it is a second language for 90% of the country.

Is a South African a gender? Yes, we are all a gender ‚ not the same one, obviously, but women are learning to take on more of the male's traditional functions, the most noticeable of which is being a major contributor to the income of the household, and men have taken on far more familial responsibility than before, with some men taking paternity leave on the birth of their babies, and some men becoming househusbands. Also, the recent 13th Annual Gay Pride Parade served to remind me that some people are men in women's bodies, and some people are women in men's bodies.

Is a South African a profession? Yes, we all have to make our living, but with unemployment rates reaching levels of 50%, employment in the formal sector is looking less attractive and there is a vast increase in entrepreneurship, with pavement hair salons, informal peddlers, flea markets, etc. coming to the fore in a big way. People like my brother have started their own businesses, provided employment for others and have kept their companies running through sheer grit, determination and hard work.

Is a South African a song? Yes, we all like music ‚ and Westernised South Africans are having much exposure and gaining much enjoyment from cultural music, just the same as those from an ethnic background are benefiting from exposure to Western music.

No, in my opinion South Africans have for the most part one thing in common ‚ our South Africanness is defined by one thing alone - the land of our birth, the land we love, and enhanced by all the other factors - living in this multicultural society has an interesting consequence of its own:

Because of our much increased exposure to each other after the elections in 1994, all the different cultures are slowly but surely merging. We are picking up sayings, mannerisms and cultural habits from our compatriots and are forming a unique, South African culture not found in any other part of the world. And that is what makes us South African ‚ and proudly so. In a few years apartheid will be a distant unpleasant memory and we will be a true democracy ‚ the South Africa our great ex-president Nelson Mandela has fought so long and hard for ‚ and if South Africa can be personified it would be as Nelson Mandela, who is so wise, so experienced, and so alive in his attitude to life.

The truth is that the future is in our hands and the hands of the children ‚ my four year old son has come home from crΛche on many occasions and said words that he has heard from people of other cultures, words from other languages (polite ones, I hope!). His friends are multicultural, and there is much we as adults can learn from this.

Another increasingly common trait in South Africa is how early Christmas seems to be upon us. In this horribly commercial world we South Africans have already seen the first Christmas decorations in shops (and the artificial snow, although Christmas in our country is in the hottest of summers), and my oldest son has already started telling us what Father Christmas is going to "buy" him ‚ yes, "buy", no less, no matter how many times we explain to him that Father Christmas lives at the North Pole with Rudolph, Donner, Blitzen, and all the other reindeers making toys for all the good boys and girls in the world (thank goodness, my son has not asked us how Santa does the whole world in one night on a sleigh without a motor!).

With this early Christmas phenomenon in mind the crΛche has announced that the end of year concert will be taking place on the 31st of October ‚ as a sign of the times, the first act of the play will be of a non-religious nature, and the second act will be of a Christmassy nature ‚ in their newsletter to the parents, in addition to attaching a Christmas carol song sheet, the creche asked us to please inform them now if we have any objections to our children being in a Christian play. I am Anglican and have no such objection, and, if the truth be told, I am immensely looking forward to seeing my little boy performing in the play. I missed the play last year and it was his first Christmas play. I vowed to myself that I would never allow that to happen again. The thought of all our little South African children acting in a Christmas play and singing Christmas carols in this month of October cheers me ‚ it's a parenting reward, and in the words of Edward Jordan, a popular South African singer, "Give me an African Christmas, peace and love is all I want".

In ending I have the following I would like to say to you: Yes, South Africa has crime ‚ what country doesn't? Yes, South Africa sometimes suffers from poor governance ‚ what country doesn't'? And I am sure that there are other negative points ‚ what country is all positive? We need our citizens to stay at home and make an even better future for us all, and we need tourists to come and truly appreciate this country.

Good bye and God bless you all..