Imagine something with me. There is a country which, much like many in the world, has many speakers of many languages. This country is a part of one of the many places in Africa colonised by Europeans since the 15th century. Over the 500 years since colonies of Europeans first touched its shores, only a […]
Category: izinkumbulo / memories
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MGB 1928 – 2023
MGB I woke up, scrolled through Facebook (because I have now deleted Twitter, mostly because I spent years at institutions run by man-children with god-complexes and have no desire to willingly submit myself to the whims of yet another one), and there it was: “Gatsha is gone”. I haven’t yet messaged my father. I presume […]
On my way to a lesson on Wednesday evening there it was, described in relation to the issue of the Langlaagte mine, by a representative of the Zimbabwean nationals working on the site. He stated very clearly that, even though it was the amaBhunu who had taken the land from local people in the Transvaal, […]
As part of our organisation’s ‘Home Week’, my dear friend John led us in a reflection on the intersectionality of all forms of exclusion and prejudice, and did so by guiding us in a pantoum exercise. He asked us to reflect on a moment, and more specifically an interaction with another person, in which we […]
When I get to this word, in that first explanation of the complex beauty of the izigaba zamabizo, I can barely contain my excitement. I’m sure that people I’ve taught can attest to this. I try my hardest to keep to the Socratic method, and to rely on the learner’s knowledge. This is important. It’s […]
I was 10. I remember that, because so many things happened that year. I remember you, in your first version – the A4 Interim Constitution of 1994. I still have it, sitting in my bookshelf – a pale blue cover, printed on the same paper as the last Apartheid laws. I wonder who was commissioned […]
Not much has changed. The air is still dense, though a little drier than it should be in December. The drivers still haven’t discovered the need for fourth gear. The roads still leave their signature on your car, every palsied scrawl from a pothole is an autograph from the red-brick city. I had an idea, […]
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Heritage
23 years ago, give or take a year, my father and brother and I are standing in the dust of KwaDukuza, watching the masses of humanity stream in to the inkundla. We merit some curious looks, and some interested comments, but for the most part everyone else is too busy sorting out their own imvunulo […]
1994. Three things happened that year, in my life. I’ve been thinking of those three things a lot today, remembering that day 21 years ago when we watched the news at school and saw the snaking multicoloured lines of people casting the first free ballot ever. I knew what that meant, then. I was only […]
The first language I connected with you was English. I walked over to you, picking you out from among all the others there, and interrupted your reading. Knowing you now, I realise that I was running a real risk. At least my first observation was one grounded in literature – a comment on Ian McEwan […]