Joshua International Online: Ange, early Prolit days

Ange in around 96.

Ange waiting at the stop-go on a road in the Northern Cape. Ange's dad lent us his truck and we drove to Kleinzee, where her aunt and uncle lived. It was fantastic to be out of the city and in the big empty Northern Cape spaces; towns like Kuruman and Pofadder.

Ange in Knysna, 1998

This photo I took at the school, inside the prison perimiter at Leeukop. The authorities were not hugely keen on photos, but in the context, a graduation party towards the end of the two year project, they turned a blind eye. It's a poignant photo for me because the woman standing in the middle is Rosemary Lindner, who I worked with at Prolit over a period of seven years. She was old-school lefty, had had a difficult and jarring life, and could also be a handful at times. She was however seriously committed and caring. Tragically she would be murdered some years later.

With Sam Moleko in one of the spotless prison classrooms. If I remember correctly Sam was a Big 5, and I saw him next some years later, on the cover of the Mail and Guardian newspaper, where he was photographed as an armed guard at a taxi rank, during a period of taxi violence and conflict.

I was at the prison during the mornings, and taught literacy at Ikageng night centre during some of the evenings. This ended up being a professional pivot for me. From this point on I only worked in adult education (though later on that was in the context of teacher training and supporting schools).

In 1997 I was promoted in Prolit, the job being to move (back, in my case) to Cape Town, to set up and open an office there. It was a big ask of Ange because it meant walking away from a successful restaurant business, and looking for a job cold. In the end that journey was tough, initially she worked as a maid for a wealthy woman in Bishopscourt, then through rough edged commercial opportunities in food factories out near Muizenberg, and in the kitchens of Lentegeur Psychiatric Hospital in Mitchell's Plain. Thereafter she worked at Eziko Cooking and Catering Training Center in Langa. She gave a lot, learned a lot, met some riveting people. For example Godfrey, old-school revolutionary, educated in Russia, had been on the Island. In so many ways this was new learning for us - these were just not people you were ever exposed to in the Apartheid world we grew up in. Eziko is still there. This photo is on the road to Riebeek Kasteel, it was great to be close to space, though we lived in close, mildly insane and at times underworldly neighborhoods.

Part of my job in Cape Town was to work with Koort Trahms and Wim Slabbert, of Kagiso Publishers. They were hard-core traditionalists: you need to go to Namibia to sell books, so you load up the Venter trailer with books and then you drive to Namibia, very very fast (where the road allows). The camera couldn't handle the glare out front, but the road looked exactly like ...

...it did out the back of the car.

At night they braaied, were well organised in an uncomplicated and effective way. We stayed in rooms along our route that had braai's. Inside was usually one big room with three or more single beds (intergalactic snoring), a kitchenette, and then a bathroom with a toilet (thunderous farting and shitting). They had a massive joi de vivre, roared with laughter at jokes, and told outrageously colorful stories. They were great company.

Packing up, quick cup of coffee before hitting the road again.

On the beach with Roy and Ruth, Ange and Geordie - who has always been eccentric, some times quietly so, very groovy and divine person.

Two and a half years into Cape Town, I got another promotion that entailed moving back to Pretoria. This pic taken somewhere near Franshoek on the way down.

We moved back into the same garden cottage we had been living in when we left Pretoria. Ange called the person who owned it on a whim and asked whether it was occupied - and they said not. It was a small but divine space, tucked away at the back of a long driveway.