Marinus Emmanuel van Zyl
A #thread of appreciation ...

Marinus is a great guy. Chilled out. Super intelligent. Like super duper intelligent.
One thing I appreciate the most is that he "gets" me. He understands the things that upset me and he supports me. When I'm wrong, he shows me where I'm wrong ...

This is an excuse for me to post his pics online. He's VERY reserved by the way. The exact opposite of Miss-Live-Your-Life-On-The-Timeline. At least if he asks, I'll explain that I was telling a story and pics are essential for any story ...

The MBChB Graduation photos and balls evoke painful memories of the MBChB Class of 2005.
We had started out in 2000. The classes were about 120 students. We all came from different walks of life but we all wanted to become doctors or dentists ...

I had graduated with a BSc Human Physiology and Psychology in December 1999. But I was not done. The dream was medicine but because I had failed my 'A' Levels, I didn't qualify to do medicine at the University of Zimbabwe. My mom relocated to South Africa in 1995 ...

I stayed in #Harare , repeated the subjects I had failed and followed her to #Pretoria . Got into UP for a BSc but applied for medicine every single year until I finally got a place. In my final year BSc. Decisions ... decisions ...

Back to first year I went for MBChB

I had arrived at #Tukkies in 1996. Just two years after the "new South Africa" was "born".
Universiteit van Pretoria was trying to transform and struggling. I was struggling to fit in with the Afrikaners' idea of first year university and being Black in Pretoria

Whatever "freedom" you enjoy as a Black person on Main Campus just know that I was part of the crop of Black students that fought for that "freedom". I'm not going to go into it but we had a Broad Transformation Committee. We had Language Committees ...

We fought against racial segregation in the koshuise. We fought against Afrikaans-only lectures. We fought against the Afrikaans classes getting different class notes from the English class. We fought against our textbooks being in Afrikaans. We were always fighting

The Black girls in engineering had it tough. There was racism and then there was the Faculty of Engineering. Honey, Thato, Khumisho, Makhosi - the list is long. These women fought that faculty tooth and nail. To the bitter end.

By the time I got my degree in December 1999, I was exhausted. I had done extremely well in Psychology. I had a spot in the Honours class and could have become a clinical psychologist if I wanted. But I was not done. 2000 I'm in first year MBChB ...

The "senior citizens" in the class found each other quickly. We were the ones that already had degrees. We weren't fresh out of Matric like the rest of the class. One of the "senior citizens" I befriended was Thapelo. Great guy.

End of first year 2000. I've passed my subjects and I've promoted to 2nd year. I needed a break. I was still in #HeartBreakHotel . My mom moved mountains and I went to visit my BFF in the UK. This thread was prompted by the Christmas lights in the pics she sent

Worked as a professional maid for a month. My love for #Swarovski crystals and #Faberge eggs started then. The company I worked for cleaned the houses of the richest of the rich. I know this in hindsight. Think Coutts Private Banking rich. Those houses ...

Got back and second year started. Anatomy is difficult. It is stressful. You're bonding with this cadaver. And slicing said cadaver up into pieces. You have a bag of bones that you keep. It's just macabre but it has to be done

Now that we were based at medical campus and interacting with the Black students from the senior classes, the issues of racism surfaced. Faculty of Engineering racism now seemed like a frolic in the park. The Faculty of Medicine was the creator of racism ...

In a nutshell the government had imposed quotas on the tertiary institutions. Tukkies was on some "it's fine. Take the Blacks. Take them. But we'll see if they make it to graduation day."

It was like a funnel.

I hate using pics with watermarks but this is the BEST pic of what the Faculty of Medicine was doing.
The top layer is 1st year medicine. Lots of Black students in the class.
As each year progresses, people either drop out or stay behind.
Until 6th year and a handful graduate

As fate would have it, I met Marinus in 2nd year Medicine. June 2001. We had no idea we would end up in courtship and eventually marriage. We officially started courting in November 2001.

I'm deep within the politics of this very racist Faculty of Medicine. I'm carrying the baggage of my experience at Main Campus. I am now a born-again Christian and God is like "wait wait I'm not done. Here's your Afrikaner future husbae"

But God was not done! He was like "let's make future husbae THE son that is named after his father Marinus Emmanuel van Zyl. Let's have future husbae's uncles staunch members of the Broederbond. Let's have husbae's estranged cousin a farmer in Marikana"

Messy right?
Messy. Proper messy.
Not quite the fairytale ending I was looking for in life.
Marinus came into my life and hit the road running.
I give credit to God. I'm not sure that a non-born-again Marinus would have worked for me

Marinus can summarise my politics in one sentence.
"Sindi wants everyone to be treated the same all the time"
That is it. I have an extraordinary sensitivity to injustice and inequality. It is in my DNA.
The Faculty of Medicine had that sensitivity in overdrive.

Black medical students were failing exams, failing orals, failing practicals, repeating blocks, writing supplementary exams, and worst of all dropping out of medicine

Our class was changing. We were losing the original group of Black comrades and picking up others along the way from other classes. These students would have failed a block or two and stayed behind. We also got a batch of the Cuban medical students. They were militant

Marinus was so supportive. He understood what we were doing and why it had to happen. He also gave a much-needed insider's perspective about the Afrikaans professors and their irrational fear of change. That helped me "understand" them a bit but never condone their actions

The carnage at medical school continued. Always the Black students. The White students were living in a parallel universe of leaked exam papers, special favours from registrars, Afrikaner camaraderie on steroids. They even had time for side-hustles

The White students would assist in private hospital theatres. They had jobs at the leading pathology laboratories taking bloods on patients in the private hospitals. They bonded with the profs and registrars. Bekumnandi shem.

We had a black class rep.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

The one thing that REALLY started getting to us was the final year dinner. I got married in 5th year. Rumours were flying that I had married an Afrikaner farmer from Brits. Have you ever?!?!

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I wasn't going to sit at the final year dinner with professors that I didn't particularly like. I wasn't the only one with this feeling. Thapelo felt the same way too!

We started planning The Black Dinner!!!!!

We were going to have our very own dinner on the same night as the Faculty dinner.

Free country.

Our class all but fell apart

I was never ready

You have no idea of the drama that ensued.

NO IDEA

N.O. I.D.E.A.

The few Blacks that had survived the carnage were divided.

Some felt that we were being extreme by hosting The Black Dinner. The Blacks that were part of the carnage were happy about it

Thapelo and I were the Chief Organisers of The Black Dinner

We were taking a HUGE gamble because we hadn't written finals. The system could still fail us. We did not care. We went ahead with our plans. We looked for sponsors. We found a venue. We forged ahead!

And guess who was egging me on from the side-lines?

Yep! You guessed right!

Marinus Emmanuel van Zyl

When we needed money for something, Marinus helped us out.

He understood why The Black Dinner had to happen.

He supported us 100%

They sent people to speak to me.

They found me in the cafeteria at HW Snyman.

"Sindi why are you doing this?"

Me: because it is necessary

Them: is it because of the music that gets played at the dinner? We can change the music

Me: *I said a mouthful*

We had The Black Dinner

It was a resounding success

Oathtaking Day - out of an original group of about 30 Black medical students in 2000, only a handful made it.

If my memory serves me well, only 11 of us took our oath that day.

Universiteit van *French* Pretoria

Bye

UniversiteitvanfuckinPretoria

That's how @OwaFlopo would have written it. He doesn't mince his words that one.

I'll see how long this tweet stays up.