A sole goat grazing on a piece of veld outside Nelson Mandela's Qunu home in the Eastern Cape shouldn't have caught my attention. But by day 5 of covering all things Madiba related in this rural outcrop of the republic, even such banalities clearly threatened to amuse me. I watched this goat (by no means a unique sighting in a province known for its errant livestock) as it languidly ambled from the veld to the heavily guarded main gate to the Mandela's property. It appeared to have cocked its head to one side, much like a dog would in response to a human's beckoning. For a few seconds it seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Amid my boredom I personified the goat, giving it a bleating-type accent as I provided a running commentary of this animal. 'Good moooorning Mr. Security maaaan. Please could I cooommee in?' My colleague and I chuckled as the goat continued to wait, staring longingly at the gate. By this stage I noticed a few photographers clicking away at this animal, which had by then started bleating. It seemed to stubbornly refuse to leave the main entrance, much like the contingent of reporters, parked across the road, waiting for anything to happen.
After a few moments the goat eventually moved on. As mundane as this observation may seem, to me it adequately summed up how my sense of humour and logic had been warped by the intense coverage of Mandela, his ailing health, the never-ending outpouring of support for him and the bitter dramas that have gripped his kin.
By the time the lonely goat's 'homage' to Madiba caught my wavering attention, my brain felt like pulp. I'd only been covering the court drama plaguing the the Mandela family of grave sites and exhumations for just a few days by that stage, but my sanity was already being challenged. I was number 3 in a rotation of reporters dispatched to Mthatha and its surrounds to expand EWN's coverage of Mandela, such was it's intensity. The Mandela family feud became ugly, largely distracting the rightful focus on Madiba's health, taking it away from the Pretoria hospital where he's being treated, into a courtroom far away. As meretricious as it had become, we couldn't ignore this development in an ongoing news story of one of the world's most beloved people.
And so we reported on every aspect of a story which at times was frenetic and tough to keep track of in the Eastern Cape - a province which was never prepared for this media onslaught. It was a black void for technology (at least in my exeprience) where even the most basic form of communication (making a call from a mobile phone to a land line) proved to be near impossible. But the story wouldn't tolerate technical glitches or technophobia, as oscillated along a continuum of frenzy. In it's wake: a ubiquitous troupe of journalists.
By my fifth day of covering the Eastern Cape league of 'Mandela watch' I couldn't help notice the whites of eyes had taken on a red hue. Bones started aching from sitting in cars for too long. My stomach rumbled for a home cooked meal in lieu of fast food and dodgy room service. My colleagues from other media houses too struggled to get the white back into their eyes. Rubbing them never helped. The gesture only served to further remind us just how fatigued we'd become. Sleep had become a luxury to many of us. Hacking coughs, elongated yawns and muffled curses had become a backdrop to the soundtrack of this maniacal rolling coverage. 'My blue jeans are no longer blue,' remarked one reporter to anyone who could summon up the energy to listen as we camped outside Mandla Mandela's Mvezo property, 'they're now brown jeans, that's how long I've been here.' To which a colleague added, 'I'm down to my last pair of underwear.' In any other context, this would be considered over-sharing, but, you see, most reporters had been in the region for as long as a month, and by that stage, it was a free-for-all in info sharing as no one cared enough to filter themselves. Airs and graces had long fallen away, substituted with fatigue, irritation and a distinct lack of the ability to reason. When an EWN videographer suddenly burst into a peels of laughter, which took on a tone best described as unhinged and evil, on one occasion, I realised, maybe she'd been doing this story for too long. It had been her 19th day in the Eastern Cape and her outburst of laughter was for me a sympton of a sense of humour easily tickled; much like mine was at the lonely goat.
At night, once stories had been filed and deadlines met, reporters, camera people and photographers would congregate in Mthatha's limited offering of restaurants. Drinks would be ordered, food would be played with. But lap tops, iPads, and all manner of other devices would never be too far away. The work continued, the madness persisted and the fatigue grew. There was no such thing as 'knocking off' for the day. When the sun set, my phone would never be too far out of sight or grasp. My exhaustion had grown into paranoia.
Amid my stifling fatigue, I could only feel from my fellow-reporters who've had to virtually live outside the Heart Hospital where Mandela has been receiving for treatment for weeks. The bending of brains to circumvent the boredom and ennui so as to keep news stories fresh has been herculean. But as veteran radioman once told me, you learn to live tired in this job. And so the fatigue gets pushed down deep into our beings, the rolling coverage will carry on and us journalists have long come to accept given the immensity of the story at hand, there's plenty of time to sleep when we are dead.
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