La Grange Zelda - Good morning, Mr. Mandela: a memoir

In June 2013 the son of the ANC stalwart Oliver Tambo, Dali Tambo, conducted an interview with President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Mugabe said: Nelson Mandela is too much of a saint. He has been too good to white people at the expense of blacks in his own country. Some agreed while others protested. To some extent I think the man had a point. It could well have been perceived that way. And yet, in a conversation with Richard Stengel, quoted in Conversations With Myself, Madiba himself said a long time ago, People will feel I see too much good in people. So its a criticism I have to put up with and Ive tried to adjust to, because whether it is so or not, it is something which I think is profitable. Its a good thing to assume, to act on the basis that... others are men of integrity and honour... because you tend to attract integrity and honour if that is how you regard those with whom you work.

Somehow in the Mugabe interview I felt responsible for this perception that he has been too good to white people. Indeed he has been too good to me, but I want to believe that he felt proud of how he changed this insignificant life. He often said that if you change one person for the better, you have done your duty. He has not only changed my life but millions of others. He has done way beyond what is expected of a single human being and perhaps for that he deserves to be hailed as a saint after all.

In another conversation with Richard Stengel, Madiba said, Your duty is to work with human beings as human beings, not because you think they are angels. And, therefore, once you know that this man has got this virtue and he has got this weakness you work with them and you accommodate that weakness and you try and help him to overcome that weakness. I dont want to be frightened by the fact that a person has made certain mistakes and he has got human frailties. I cant allow myself to be influenced by that. And that is why many people criticize me.

I try not to think Why me?, to understand why Nelson Mandela chose me. If I do, I think of these quotes above. In the nineteen years we spent together he learned my weaknesses, he learned my strengths, and he invested in my strengths to make me the person I am today.

I served him for almost twenty years and was his PA until he left us on 5 December 2013. In 2009 I decided to start writing this book to pay tribute to him. I mostly wanted to record my experiences in the hope that others would be changed and influenced by my story too. My book is therefore a tribute to Khulu, as I knew him.

This is not his story. This is my story, and I am content with it. But the reader may be disappointed if they expect me to wash too much dirty laundry in public. I would not disrespect the trust Nelson Mandela had invested in me. That is the biggest honour he could have bestowed on me to trust me and I intend to cherish that for the rest of my life. What I decided to write about and what I decided to omit as far as he is concerned is based on that trust. It is therefore not a tell-all book.

It is also not a book of great political insights or a thematic dissection of his life. Its a simple story of my experiences with him. One of the most important lessons I have learned from this great man over the years, reaffirmed by his wife Graa Machel to me later in life, is that you only have one person to account to and that is yourself. You have to go to bed at night with your own thoughts and conscience, and after writing this book I need to feel the comfort of a pillow of a clear conscience. I need to make him proud because as much as it feels that our lives were overshadowed by negativity and turmoil over the last couple of years, there is a beautiful story to be told, and I need to admit that I am part of that story and that it is my duty to tell that story. Above all, I need to know in my heart that if he had to read this book he would be happy with what I told and he would agree with the detail, and spending sixteen of the last nineteen years with him, day in, day out, I know what he would be comfortable with in the public domain and what he would not, and that is what is mine to protect.

The book is therefore a collection of anecdotes, sometimes at my own expense, of a road well travelled. No regrets and only lessons to be learned. I am an emotional billionaire, and if nothing extraordinary happens to me for the rest of my life I will still be content with my memories until the day I die. I have had a rich life. Most people will not experience what I have been witness to, and my story is therefore one of change, of slow metamorphoses of the mind and a belief system to where I am today. The reader has to decide if there is any part he or she can identify with or lessons they can learn from my story. It is not for me to decide.

It would also be incorrect to assume that I was the only one, or a special one, around Madiba. I played a particular role in his life, mostly concerned with his public life. But there are many others, household staff, office staff, security and medical personnel, who played equally important roles in his life and who he was totally dependent upon. Some of them are included in my story but I simply couldnt pay tribute to each and every one of them.

I have tried my best without exception and that is the best I have to give. I hope to contribute to Nelson Mandelas legacy in a small way by sharing the privileges and experiences I have had to anyone open to receiving them. If I change one life by touching another with my story, I have done my duty.