Man-to-Man with Dr. Musa Manzi (Part 1)

I first met Dr. Musa Manzi back in 2002 when we were both first year BSc. (Quantity Surveying) students at Wits. This is before he decided to pursue a degree in Geology the following year, 2003.

Today, Musa is the first black Geophysicist, PhD, in South Africa. He is also a lecturer at Wits, a university where he first arrived 13 years ago as a teenager from the rural village of Ndwendwe in KwaZulu-Natal. When he first got to Wits, little did he know that in just over a decade, he would be donning that coveted red academic regalia and also regularly forming part of academic processions during official graduation ceremonies at the venerable Wits Great Hall. 

In 2014, Dr. Manzi was named as one of Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans.   

But that’s not all that makes Musa a special man. Behind all this success is a story of pain, rejection, grief and heartache. But it is also a life layered with lots of sacrifice, perseverance and triumph. 

In this 3-Part series, we get up-close and personal with this great South African black man.

On a very cold and misty winter morning in early July, I drove to Wits University and met Dr. Manzi and we sat down in his warm and cozy laboratory at the university's East Campus. (Coincidentally, Musa's lab is in the same building where we used to attend lecturers in our first year. What an amazing turn of events.)

Musa, can you tell us about your age and your upbringing?

I was born and bred in KwaZulu-Natal in a rural village called Ndwendwe, 32 years ago. Then of course I was raised by a single mother – my dad passed away when I was 2. I basically grew up not knowing my dad because he had committed suicide. I didn’t know how he died until I was about 14 when I had a chat with my mom. I asked her how my father died, and for the first time she opened up to me about it. My mom and I were very close because I was the last-born in my family.

At the time of his death, my dad was working for a construction company in Richards Bay. My parents had had a fight - it was on the 14^th of September 1984 (I was two years old). The main reason for the fight was that my dad had always thought I wasn’t his child, for some weird reasons. I think it comes from the fact that most of the times he was away at work whereas my mom would be at home with my two siblings.

I am told that my dad tried to kill me when he got back home. My mom tried to hide me because my dad was convinced that I wasn’t his child. (My mother was very emotional when she told me this story).

So my father disappeared at around 9 or 10 that night after that big fight. The families were now involved. The following day they got a call that he had committed suicide. So he had jumped off from the 14^th floor of the building of the company that he was working for. So that’s how he passed away.

My mother had never before told me this even though everyone else knew. She thought that by telling me this, I would be affected by the fact that I wasn’t wanted in the family. Of course when she told me this I was already a Christian; so the way I handled it was fine because I knew that God had a bigger plan for my life.

But that’s a young age (14) to be able comprehend that sort of information – that your father didn’t necessarily want you. And also that him not wanting you led to his death. Even as a Christian. Wasn’t that a bit too heavy?

Ja it was – I mean it wasn’t just my father who didn’t want me. My father’s side of the family also didn’t want me. They didn’t really like me because they didn’t believe that I was part of the family. This led to a huge disconnection between my dad’s family and my mom’s family. Whenever there was a family gathering, my mom would ask me not to come with because she was trying to protect me. So I would be left behind at home with an aunt. I would keep myself busy with soccer and other things.

I mean even at school, my cousins from my dad’s side, we wouldn’t click that well, after having been erased from the family. So after my dad died, we never (even now) spoke to my dad’s side of the family. We don’t know who is still alive and so forth. There was a complete disconnection. It was a complete disaster after the funeral.

So you’re right. But I had just given my life to Christ and I was so into God, you know. And God just carried me through during that phase.

So would you say that your relationship with God at that time was very timely in that just before you learned about why your dad died, you accepted Christ?

Yes, because if it had happened before I gave my life to Christ, it would have been a different story. It would have probably created a monster in me. I mean, that’s how my brother was. He was a fighter. He was always fighting with them because he believed in revenge. He would fight for me. There were always fights. My giving my life to Christ at that time was very critical. 

I would sometimes calm my mom down saying to her that even if I’m not part of the family, I’m part of God’s kingdom. And that also, later on, led my mom to Christ.

I mean there were a lot of things that happened.

Really?

Yeah. That’s why my mom would say I should never visit (my father’s family) whenever there would be traditional gatherings. My mother would never allow me to go. And she would never allow me to eat whatever they would give me. She didn’t trust anyone when it came to me. My brother and sister were fine. But not me!

As a result of this I didn’t spend a lot of time at home. I was always with other Christian families and that’s where I felt loved and supported. At home, I never felt safe and never felt loved. So some Chrisitian families would ask me to go stay with them for a week, 2 weeks and so on. So that was my life growing up.

My mother didn’t mind me doing that because she had seen a huge change in me when I was staying with the Christians. Because she was a domestic worker, I would see her on weekends as she would come home on Saturdays.

I think growing up that was the most difficult. And of course being raised by a single mother earning about R250 a month and supporting 3 kids. My sister got pregnant and had 2 kids. So that was very difficult because the family grew. So she struggled quite a lot as my sister had left the kids at home.

Not having been accepted by your father, that must have done some damage to your self-esteem, do you think? Or not?

I think if I wasn’t too close to my mom, it would have had a major impact. So the whole pain was substituted by the love of my mother. She loved me a lot, and I was very close to her even though she couldn’t support us financially. She was there for me, emotionally. I was her favourite in the family because she knew I wasn’t wanted. My siblings were loved and supported by my father’s family. They would even be given money. But not me.

So it created that anger against my family, which I can say only got resolved later on in life. After having gotten my degree and when I looked back I thought, it’s probably not worth it. But for years, it had created that anger in me against my father’s family. It came to a point where even when I would get a message that someone from that part of the family had died – I just didn’t care. Because they were not part of my family. So why would I bother?

But growing up, sometimes it would hit you, when you see young guys your age talking about their dads. I remember when I was staying at res, seeing someone being picked up by their dad. You know, I never had that experience.

And also, the fact that your father didn’t want you. And also thinking about the possibility that what if my dad was right that I wasn’t his? Because as a child, you don’t really know the details. So I had to deal with multiple things at the same time: What if my dad was right? And if he wasn’t right, why didn’t he want me yet he wanted the other kids?    

That is why growing up as a child, I was never really close to male figures per se, till probably now. You know, I grew up with that thing that I trust females more than men. The males from my dad’s side, because they knew the situation, they could have at least comforted me. Instead, everyone just backed off.

I can say that this changed my life – my entire perspective about men. I don’t trust them. That is why most of the times when I do things, I don’t invest more in men. I’ve got that thing that I can’t really trust them - like, I don’t know what they’re going to do tomorrow.

And also growing up in an environment where men, even my brother, would just impregnate women and not father the kids, you know, it was just a male thing. I grew up with that. I was erased from the family and these men are also doing the same.

Coincidentally, I have had to raise 2 nieces, and that made it easier because I had a connection with women because of my mother. And also, if you trace back, when I would be taken in by a family – it would be women who would take me into those families, not males. I was never actually helped by a male in my life – ever!  

So even now, you don’t have male figures in your life? This was one of the questions I was going to ask you.

It’s only now through church, and even then, it’s not as easy as it is with women, mentoring me and all kinds of stuff. Like with the white family I stayed with, I’m very tight with the mother, but not with the father. And it’s not because of him, I mean, he loves me so much. It’s simply because growing up as a child, I didn’t know how to relate with men. I feel like maybe they’re just pretending, and they don’t really mean it. So because my mother loved me, and I know the love of a mother, I can trust females, but not males. But it’s changing.

But this has also brought me closer to younger males. People who know me will tell you that I care for male kids because I don’t want them to experience what I experienced.

  

So you find it easier to mentor younger men, but it’s a struggle to relate with older men in terms of a father-son relationship?

I really can’t. If I had to tell you the honest truth – I don’t have close male friends. I don’t have close male friendships like I would with females; as a result, it’s been quite a struggle because people assume I am dating my female friends until they discover that actually Musa is not in a relationship. Of course, this has had some disadvantages because when you’re being nice to a lady, if they don’t know you, they think you’re interested, until they get close to know you and realize that that’s just how you are. It just comes from having been close to my mom and later on been taken in by a white female mother-figure. I have never had that connection with a man.

And for some weird reason, most of the kids I connect with, they don’t have fathers. Even when I come back from overseas, I bring back gifts for these young kids - most of them don’t have fathers. And again, it raises this question in me that “where are the fathers because they’re probably still alive”. Same thing with having to stay with my nieces, knowing that the father of one of them is still around somewhere on this planet. I think out to myself that would I even go to bed not knowing where my kids are?

So that helps me, and leads me to playing that father role even though I never had that experience myself.

One thing that came up to me as you were talking about your father’s rejection of you, and how your mother loved you – I asked myself, who named you “Musa”?

Actually that’s a very interesting question. Remember I’ve got 3 names: Musa, Siphiwe and Doctor. Actually, there was a time where I wanted to take Siphiwe out of my ID book. I was named Siphiwe by my dad. I can tell you now, when someone calls me by that name, Siphiwe, something happens in me – I’m like, please don’t call me by that name. To this day!

I really don’t like it. And it’s really not like I haven’t forgiven my dad. I just don’t like the name you know. Sometimes one of my students would call me by that name, and sometimes I don’t respond because it’s not my name. (giggles)

That‘s when I realized that this thing has had so much impact on my life to a point where I wanted to remove that name from my ID. I wanted to only keep “Musa” and “Doctor” because these 2 names were given by my mother.

I don’t use that name (Siphiwe). Even in my (academic) publications, I normally just put “Musa” and “Doctor”. So I try to eliminate that name (Siphiwe) as much as possible. That’s how much it destroyed me, that I wanted nothing to do with my dad and his family.

Do you feel you want to erase that aspect of your life?

Ja – for me it is something that never existed. It’s not a part of me, when it comes to male figures in my life.

As a result, I find it very hard, say for example, you, you seem to be close to your dad – to me it’s very hard imagining that. I remember when we were at CAF (Christian Action Fellowship at Wits) I would find it hard hearing about males being close to their fathers. I could understand “a man and a mother” but I don’t understand this thing of being close to your dad. I’m like how do you relate, how do you talk? As a result, I really admire men like that – I’m like wow! But still, my mind cannot comprehend how it is possible for men to just relate because I never had that, you know.

And my white dad knows that when it comes to issues, he would say “your mom will talk to you” because his experience of me is that I don’t open up to him as much as I open up to the white mother. I talk to him about business and when I have to make financial decisions because he’s a chartered accountant, so that’s when I’d talk to him. But when it comes to other things…… - like he would never ask “what happened to your girlfriend” and things like that, he would never ask because he knows he’s not going to get an answer. But the mother would ask – “what happened to so and so, are you fine?”. So we talk about life. As for my (white) dad, he would have to hear about these from my mom.

But he knows I love him so much, and I know he loves me but there’s no relationship where we talk about life. The same thing happens with my pastor. Lovely guy, but I don’t talk to him about things. I talk to his wife. I had a counselling session with him at some point when I had just gone through something. The following day he came back to me and said “I think my wife would be a better person for you to talk to". And now she’s more of a mentor to me. She calls me, we have meetings and I can open up, something I couldn’t do with her husband. I mean, he’s a lovely man, and he mentors almost every man at church but he struggled with me. He felt I wasn’t opening up. And he was right. But when he brought his wife, she was just flowing because I could see the love in her eyes. You know, women have got that thing of showing how much they love you. I think it comes from me spending a lot of time with my mom, so I could see the love in her eyes and I could relate with her. And I could also relate with my white mom this side.

Does the name Musa have a deep meaning to you? Or is it just a name that you have an emotional attachment to because it was a name that your mom gave you?

For me, both the names my mom gave me were prophetic, somehow. She was prophesying over my life. I didn’t understand why I was named the Musa, grace or mercy, until I gave my life to Christ, you know and all the dots connected, that everything I have is through His mercy and grace, which I don’t deserve. And she also named me Doctor because she wanted me to become a doctor, which I have also become. Everything somehow connected although she wasn’t very spiritual at the time, she sort of envisioned it and later on it came to pass. And that’s why I’m attached to these names, but not Siphiwe. I mean, Siphiwe is a beautiful name – gift – but why would you reject a gift? A gift is a special thing which you should take care of, yet you reject it. Even if I wasn’t his child, a gift is a gift which you take care of.

Let’s just go back to this issue of fatherlessness. You spoke earlier about how the fathers of your nieces are not present, although they are alive somewhere. You’ve spoken about how your brother fathered children but he was not present in his children’s lives, and that is sort of a repetition of whatever your father did to you. How do we break this cycle, particularly in the South African context where we see this happening over and over again?

The father of one of my nieces passed away 2 years ago. The older niece met her father for the first time last year when she was in Durban. It wasn’t even arranged, it was by coincidence. My brother passed away just weeks after my mom and sister passed away.

I only know of your mom and sister. I didn’t know that your brother also passed on.

Yeah, my brother also passed on. He was shot. That was roughly a month after my mother and sister passed on. Of course, then he already had children.

It was painful because I only heard of my brother’s children on the day of his funeral. So if you think about that, he had known about his two children but we never knew about them until his funeral when the mothers presented the kids to me at his funeral.  It was a very tough thing because she didn’t have money and on the other hand I had two nieces to look after. I mean I didn’t reject the boys but when I think about it I probably would have had 4 kids to look after had she decided to leave them at home. But she took them away and said she would see how to take care of them. But I still support them financially every month. They’re grown up now and they call when they need things. Like my niece went down to Durban and she took gifts for them. That’s how it is.

Now getting back to your question. I think it’s all about what we are doing, what your dad is doing, what I am doing. It’s very interesting. Yesterday was a very emotional day for me. I was passing by a postgraduate pub called “The PIG” here on campus. Then this guy, he’s wearing a suit, he comes to me and says “I saw your story while I was in Zimbabwe on eNCA on Against All Odds and when I was watching the story I was with my mother and my 4 nephews”. He had just graduated yesterday so he was celebrating, holding a bottle of beer in his hand.

He said that what touched me the most was after all I had gone through and all that had happened, I took it upon myself to raise my sister children. “I never thought a man could do that because my father left me when I was young. I’m left with my mother and 4 nephews because my sister passed as well. After your story was shown, my mother turned to me and asked me what the lesson was about your story – at that time I was in tears. I said to my mother that now that I’m getting my degree, I want to start taking care of my nephews because you’ve been working so hard”.

Because he had just graduated, he wanted to take pictures with me, so we walked to the Great Hall and he introduced me to his nephews, 4 of them, and said he had brought these boys to Johannesburg so that he could look after them. He said he realized that he knew me before the story was shown on tv. "I had met you randomly at the Library Lawns and you’d invited us for drinks and food at the Geosciences building after a function. You were very nice to us and when I watched the story I remembered that I knew you from then, and I connected the dots that this guy is generally just nice", he said to. And that had so much impact on me.

So I also met the mother and we took pictures. So when I got home, I thought, you just never know. I never thought outside of South Africa, my story would reach someone. In Zimbabwe, someone just decided to take a decision to take in his nephews simply because he saw one person doing it.

I think that sort of answers your question on how do we change the nation. I mean if it’s never been done before, and one person does it, the second person would also do it, third person and so on. There are so many people who have done it but the story is not told. For example, your father, no-one knows the story about him. But we should share these stories through different platforms. That is why I would post something on Facebook even though it is not Christian-based because you want to connect with everyone. You want to talk about everything, the characteristics a man should have, the values of life, not only what Christ did for you.

That guy I met yesterday, holding his beer, he told his friends that “I don’t only respect this man – I adore him”.

So to me I was like, just do the right thing and someone will get to know or read about it. So the only way to break the cycle is to do the right thing and to tell the story.

It starts with one person doesn’t it?

It starts with one person!!! 

(On the next post, we continue with the interview, going into the trauma of death in the family, and fatherhood).