Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
A choir at the Regina Mundi church in Soweto, South Africa, where parishioners prayed on Sunday for Nelson Mandela, who remained hospitalized.
QUNU, South Africa — At the Methodist church here in Nelson Mandela’s home village — a scatter of brightly painted houses amid rolling hills — the ladies’ choir held its weekly practice, sending strains of gospel melodies into the surrounding fields. An out-of-town couple were married at the heritage center that bears Mr. Mandela’s name, in a joyous ceremony that featured swinging hips, sharp suits and sparkling high heels.
And on a slope overlooking the village, a clutch of teenage boys jogged up a grassy path, swinging sticks and chanting songs, in preparation for their circumcision ceremony — a traditional rite of passage that Mr. Mandela underwent near 80 years ago.
“By nine o’clock tomorrow, I will be a man,” announced 18-year-old Inga Mayipheli, before running off to catch up with the group.
In contrast with the intense news media focus on Mr. Mandela’s health in South Africa’s cities over the past week, the residents of this southeastern village where Mr. Mandela grew up seemed determined to press ahead with life as normal.
“We don’t want to accept it,” said Nozipo Tyumure, acting principal at the Qunu junior school, speaking of Mr. Mandela’s illness and possible death. “We know the day will come, but we always pray it will be next year, not now.”
The concern over Mr. Mandela’s lung infection — he spent a ninth day in the hospital on Sunday — is certainly no less profound among the people here. It is quietly present, much like Mr. Mandela’s large, tightly protected house that has come to represent their understated anxiety over its absent occupant. Some residents have politely brushed aside questions that anticipate his death, reflecting a strongly held cultural taboo against discussing the fate of a sick person.
“To us, it suggests that we want this person to die,” said Nokuzola Tetani, a manager at the Nelson Mandela Youth and Heritage Center. “We are rural people. The manner in which we deal with pain may not be visible.”
But under the surface stoicism, she said, there is plenty of anguish. Every night, villagers quietly offer prayers at home for Mr. Mandela’s recovery. Children miss the sight of Mr. Mandela’s helicopter hovering overhead, she said, while the absence of a South African flag flying outside his house was a reminder of his hospitalization.
“Our people are greatly saddened by his absence,” she said.
On Saturday, villagers gathered in a large white tent for the funeral of Florence Mandela, a 96-year-old relative of Mr. Mandela. At the service, Mr. Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, told mourners that the former president’s condition was improving, and he urged people to continue praying for him.
“He’s getting better,” said Mandla, who is the traditional chief of nearby Mvezo village.
Qunu is one of the emotional centers of Mr. Mandela’s life. He spent his early childhood here, living with his mother in a cluster of mud-walled huts, roaming the pasture lands while tending to his father’s cattle or stick fighting with other boys. “I loved it in the unconditional way that a child loves his first home,” he wrote in his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom.”
There are still reminders of that time in Qunu, some of them unusual. Tourists visit a giant rock embedded in a hillside where, Mr. Mandela has said, he slid down the surface so often he hurt his backside.
Mr. Mandela returned to Qunu after his release from prison in 1990, at the end of a 27-year jail term under the apartheid regime, before his election as president in 1994. For years, he visited Qunu at Christmas and on other holidays, staying at his newly built house and donating generously to schools and needy causes. He moved into that house permanently in 2012, but was forced to return to the capital, Pretoria, months later for emergency medical treatment.
In the 1990s, Mr. Mandela used to stroll through the village at dawn, trailed by his bodyguards, chatting with villagers and delighting young children. More recently, he has stayed at home — sometimes coming out to the gate to greet people, villagers said, or receiving guests inside.
But even as his health has declined, his well-known good humor has remained undiminished, several people said. Ayafika Gaxela, a 14-year-old schoolgirl who visited him last year, said they shared a joke together. “He poked fun at my brother,” she recalled with a smile.
The end of apartheid, a system that Mr. Mandela played a central role in dismantling, has brought profound improvements in Qunu, as it has across South Africa. Thanks to government grants and improved pension payments, most houses now have electricity, a decent water supply, outside toilets — and, of course, the right to choose their own government.
But also like elsewhere, Qunu contains reminders of the disappointments of democracy — corruption, crime, poor government services and crippling unemployment.
Visit Source: NYT > Global Home http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/world/africa/mandelas-absence-is-felt-if-not-addressed.html?partner=rss&emc=rss