extract:
“…His cassocks, for one, were of the finest cotton – imported from Egypt, they said, and tailor-made by Surtee and Sons in Johannesburg, bespoke tailors to Mandela himself.
We could tell his dog-collars were bleached and starched with care every day, the immaculate white glimmering against the brilliant ebony of his shirts. He was never seen outdoors without a pair of Ray-ban aviators sunglasses, which gave him a cool and predatory air.
His grip was firm and meant business. As we stood in line to greet him after his first Sunday morning mass he grasped the proferred hand of each parishioner in both of his own, looked deep into their eyes, and smiled, revealing a set of perfect white tombstone teeth, and boomed:
“Just call me Bra’ P!”
*Read the full story about the flashy man of the cloth who turned the lives of the residents of a tiny Eastern Cape township upside down: especially its septuagenarian matrons
In edition 160 of South Africa’s oldest literary journal, New Contrast http://www.newcontrast.net/
dija magardie 