Post Square 12.08.13 ~ Nomalizo Xhoma’s house
Nomalizo Xhoma lives with her two children in a home where
Nelson Mandela once lived when he was in his early twenties. The family of three
is pictured in their yard of dirt on the cover of today’s Post. I found an
interesting square to use for my drawing in the drying laundry that surrounds
them.
The drawing is 4” square and colored with randomly chosen
pencils.
What is now the Xhoma house is in Alexandra, the poorest
part of Johannesburg.
It had been the first place Mandela lived after leaving his ancestral village of Qunu to escape an arranged marriage. He
lived there for two years before moving on to Soweto to study law.
Compared to the other areas where Mandela lived and worked, Alexandra
does not get much attention. There is no monument to him there. A small museum
dedicated to the area’s apartheid-rich history has never been finished. Xhoma’s
one-room house with no running water, has had little done to it to preserve it.
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