March 2, 2016, 9:14am SA time | 1:14am IA time
“I will never walk past an empty space & see it as empty.” Bonita, our tour guide at the District 6 Museum, stands in the center of the large sanctuary space of this converted Methodist Church in downtown Cape Town. This building is the only structure, other than the Mosque, still standing from what was once a thriving, diverse and vibrant community of District 6, a neighborhood that apartheid literally tore down.
Bonita is a former resident of District 6 (which is now wasteland in the center of the city) and she talks about the re-remembering that she, and the patrons of this museum are engaged in — “People were actively forgetting back then, because they didn’t want to have information that could be discovered through torture,” she tells us. “They were unable to fully grieve the loss of their homes.” I ask her why this happened; this forced and fast gentrification, this quick cleansing of an area that was beautiful: “Those views were not meant for poor people,” Bonita whispers.
On the floor, protected by plastic, is a large canvas painted with the thick lines and hand-painted labels of the old District 6 map. These are the streets that were demolished. Block after block, painted in bright cobalt blue outlines, these neighborhoods exist only in memory. On the map, names of families have been painted according to where they once lived — families that mingled, mixed, socialized, ate together, watched each other’s kids. There is no longer movement on the map. The paint is still.
Leaning down, I suddenly see the name ‘Fortune’, right below my feet: the surname of my own husband, my own daughter. Our family name. Reading the name strikes me with a deep shock — and a tangible, physical vibration of déjà vu. (Later, a friend will explain to me that 'Fortune' was a common name here among black South Africans, a given name — adopted — and later a slave name in the newly forming States. And I wonder out loud with amazement: could we somehow be connected, genetically — but surely psychically, surely spiritually —, to this diverse and incredible history, across racial and locational boundaries, all the way in an entirely different continent and hemisphere?)
As I look down at the hand-painted name, I catch a glimpse of something in my mind: for a second I can almost see our own family packing up, moving out, leaving our house and home forever, under the watchful eye of a mad government, without explanation.