Healing of Memories Part 4

"it's the shy, quiet ones that end up doing the worst things" is what they said about me to my face growing up because I was not a talkative child.  Somehow this made me a bad person. Perhaps it is the quiet, shy ones who need more attention from parents and teachers because they go through things in silence. 
My teachers were also given permission to beat me up. I don't know of anyone else whose parents gave teachers a 'go ahead' to beat them up. At one time in Std 4 (6th grade & yes I am that old), Ms Nkukhu held me by the collar of my shirt and pulled my face so close to hers and said the most despicable things to me in front of the whole class.
She then promised to smack me across the face if the tears welling up in my eyes were to fall. I wasn't to wipe them off either. It was the same teacher who felt compelled to move me from my seat next to Teyeye (one of my childhood friends) to sit at the back, with cigarette-smoking 20 year olds. To this day I hate the smell of dagga and cigarettes.
The year before in the 5th grade (Std 3), Miss Mothlomi (my mom's cousin) had made a spectacle of me and beat me up so bad that my parents had to write her a letter, whilst I was at home recuperating from the incident. She read the letter in class and translated it to my classmates, it was then passed around the school and all the teachers had fun mocking it. {Mkhulu Maqili would prepare herbs for me to use to reduce the swelling and stinging. I had to learn ukuqguma nokuthoba. I always appreciated the role of my grandparents in my formative years}. She's the same teacher who had me take off my bandages and sent me from class to class to show my burn wounds to all the other teachers.

Teacher Manquza was a sociopathic drunk but he never targetted me, never singled me out. He was cruel and mean to everybody, especially the defenseless. He's not likely to get his own post from me.

People get on my nerve defending cruelty to children as discipline. They even quote the Bible doing it.

As an adult, someone spiritual took one look at me and said that I have the spirit of rejection. When he told me what it means to have such a spirit, it matched my life perfectly. It certainly explains why I was treated a particular way by different people through out my life.
It certainly doesn't excuse what was done or make it right but I now know that there is a reason for it. I doesn't make sense I know. 🤷
Nothing could ever reverse or erase my experiences. I write about them as catharsis. A necessary step in my healing.

We need a national phone line to assist survivors of sexual assault!

We need to help each other to deal with the trauma and emotions, without any pressure to report/open cases.

Stop glorifying child abuse!

                 Pic taken at my gran's place. 

On Saturday mom & I were talking about how my grandmother (Khulu Manyova) literally saved my life. I honestly don't know where I'd be without her love and protection. Growing up in a hostile world, I always knew she was in my corner. She's the only person I could talk to about the bullying I was going through at St Nivard's Primary School. My mom always found it funny, something I could never understand. She must have had a really thick skin growing up and expected the same of me. Khulu Manyova would come up with solutions and I remember how she would make crafts for me to submit to my teachers at school and avoid getting a whooping. Khulu was against beating children and I remember how satisfying it was to hear her yelling and screaming at my parents for beating or even attempting to beat us. Maybe that's why they resorted to night beatings🤔 Looking back at my childhood, I don't think I was as naughty as my 3 younger siblings but I swear, not a week went by without me getting a whooping. As a result I am super protective of children (Dave says I spoil kids), but I draw a distinction between instilling discipline and letting kids be abused. When I was deemed too old for beatings, my relationship with my parents blossomed into something beautiful. We could've had a great parent - child relationship throughout my life. Now, we talk like equals. I used to be scared of them especially mommy. Daddy was a different person when he started working from home and he could find some of our mishaps hilarious. He still gave us beatings though until we became teens. I love my parents, don't let this story mislead you into thinking that I don't. https://www.instagram.com/p/CCS9jt2pp8p/?igshid=xy22sowf43th

That black girl magic

meujwaraworld

www.instagram.com/p/CBnVC0bpChE/?igshid=ij8p5w8pvvq8

That black girl magic! Born with odds stacked sky high against her. Subjected to molestation, rape, cat calling, ridicule, assumptions of stupidity/anger/bitterness from birth but still shines bright. Expected to dim her light, to make the man she loves feel adequate and manly. Judged by her ability to reproduce and maintain a marriage, happy or not. Still she shines brighter than ever. Afraid of the power within her, the tactics become more personal. She faces attacks on her body. She is not thin enough, she is not light skinned enough, her skin is not clear enough, she's not shaped like a pear, her hair is not straight and long enough, her nose is not narrow enough.. Yet she continues to shine! She may live in fear of being killed by the one closest to her heart and she risks anyway and loves. She is left to fend for her offsprings when the responsibility gets too much for the sperm donor. She struggles and performs miracles with grace and poise. Even then she stays shining. #thatblackgirlmagic https://www.instagram.com/p/CBnVC0bpChE/?igshid=ij8p5w8pvvq8

#thatblackgirlmagic

Consent

Today I had a flashback. A priest that I love and respect once said (in my presence) that if a woman is over 30 and doesn't have a child, he wonders how many abortions she's had. This hurt and confused me!
Doesn't the Catholic church preach chastity and celibacy?

Why do you preach one thing but expect people to do the opposite?
And why should women be dictated to about their lives and bodies? What's wrong with choosing to not have children? What if the people you're judging have fertility issues? What if there are other factors in their lives, which has led them to childlessness?
It's funny that everyone wants to beat down a black woman and oppress her, but we're trying to fight racism, xenophobia and homophobia together.

This is what triggered the memory:

We need to gather our lost brothers together. Let's fetch them please! Gather 🙏your 🙏brothers🙏!
Women are not play things, at whatever age. Don't inflict pain on a girl or a woman just because she falls outside of a certain age bracket or whatever else you have made up in your minds to justify your trashy behaviour.
If you wouldn't want anybody to do it to your mom, sister or daughter DON'T DO IT TO HER.

If you think I am bashing all men, then you are one of those that need to be collected. Real allies exist and I have shared a few of their posts on my social media with the hope that you will be more receptive to the message if it is from a guy.

I chimed in, saying:

'And for the record, just because you are married or dating doesn't mean that she consents automatically. Even if her excuse is lame in your eyes, i.e. A headache or tiredness... No means No!
Oh and if you decide to go for it whilst she's fast asleep or passed out, regardless of previously granted consent, you are a rapist.
To be safe, ensure that she's of age; awake and sober and she is not hasitant. Don't force yourself on girls and women.
Don't beat them up. Don't kill them.
Don't play games with their lives. If your intentions are not good, leave her alone.
There are so many girls whose future prospects died the minute they fell pregnant and the baby fathers are living their best lives with no care for the lives they have condemned to poverty.

Today, I am calling you out on your bullshit and you know who you are. We have been silent for far too long as sisters, cousins, aunties, daughters, nieces, mothers and grandmothers.
STOP ABUSING WOMEN. WOMEM ARE HUMANS TOO.
DON'T BE TRASH.
#GBV #STOPKILLINGWOMEN'
Another ally whose message I concur with :

It is really scary being a black woman in South Africa in 2020. Let's talk guys. 😢

Village Chronicles - The Land

So a few months back, just before the national lockdown in fact, I attended a meeting with my grandfather, the induna.

After the meeting I asked him about the land of our great ancestors, which is being given away freely to strangers, without our input or consent and his response sounded as if his hands were tied. I reminded him nicely that the chieftancy which Mdambiso rejected (because he didn't want to deal with the English) is ours, a fact which the Dumas (current chiefs) acknowledge.

I decided to leave the conversation there, because: 
1) I am not the child-bearing type (So I can't speak for non-existent offspring)
2) I am a woman and not the marrying type (women cook, clean and care for families around here, they don't discuss land)
3) I have learned the art of picking my battles and staying firmly in my own lane. Not yet mastered it!

I was clearly not the only person observing this trend of giving our land away willy-nilly, because at Babomncane's funeral the issue resurfaced (and no, I wasn't part of that discussion).
Most of the men in our family/clan have passed on, so we are vulnerable and easy to intimidate and dismiss.
Yesterday the young men of the clan showed bravery when they summoned the powers that be and asked them to reserve land for them and their children to build homes. A move that I support wholeheartedly. It is this altruism, that I inherited from my dad that made us the rime targets for 'political killings' in the 90s. A story for another day.

At this point we must just forget about having gardens in the future. We are slowly becoming a township and I find this sad, because we don't have a lot of economic activity in the area. We need agricultural land, even if it's just to sustain our households.

Ilali is losing its laliness (I have just invented a word!!!)
😒

Virginity and the measure of a young maiden's value

You might call this Horsetail reed, in isiZulu we call it umhlanga. In some villages, it is the pinnacle of a young maiden's virtue.
Legend has it that if a non-virgin attends the reed dance their reed will break during the parade. If you have never heard of this reed dance tradition, please hurry up and Google it. Please keep an open mind!
Well, I was raised differently. You see for over ten years my dad was a father of only girl children and at some point it looked as though I was gonna be a last born forever but then the special 3 burst that bubble for me.
So my dad didn't treat us like typical girls in the village. We could wear shorts and track pants, he involved us in fixing things around the house. I particularly enjoyed climbing up the ladder, the view from the roof was quite nice.
So when a local school teacher one Saturday morning came to ask Daddy if she could take us for virginity testing, my dad turned red and asked her in agitation 'where exactly do you conduct this virginity school? How many classes have my daughters attended and with whose permission?' She tried to explain that there was no school, and that they were simply collecting girls to be tested so that the qualifying maiden's would be bused to the reed dance. My dad refused. My dad envisioned a life of dignity and academic excellence for his daughters.
Parents released their girls and many scandals were uncovered. There was plenty of gossip and unfortunately not enough accountability, no procecutions followed. The testing only uncovered the rampant abuse of girls and reinforced the notion that these girls were responsible for their incestuous molestations, rapes & other abuses. They were the talk of the village.

Can you imagine how damaging this whole thing was to these girls! Their faces were painted red. #scarlet| They were yelled at by these women who had fetched them from their homes. Ostracized by their peers & the general public.

Fast forward to 2006 when during a workshop of Education For Life workshop, the first ever EFL I attended. The facilitators made us sit in 2 groups (virgins vs non-virgins). Oh the harsh, judgmental exchanges were so unchristian! I wondered if EFL was really something I wanted to implement. Turns out that they had made up the awful exercise. It is unheard of in E4L.

In my chuch, we have a sodality called 'the children of Mary', virgins who wear white dresses, blue capes and white veils to church because black people are obsessed with uniforms. A few years back, a group of these children of Mary coming from church were given a lift by a group of men in a minibus taxi. They ended up raping these kids. I know they lost their membership in the sodality, but I am yet to hear anything regarding the arrest of the perpetrators or counseling for these girls.
Christians are very quick to judge women and girls, not so effective and efficient in supporting them. So before you bash the reed dance, please understand that it's not the only oppressive structure that girls are subjected to ezilalini.

In recent years it has become fashionable for men in their thirties and above to drive their fancy German cars to the Reed Dance Festivals (either the Zulu or Swazi one) simply to gawk at semi-nude girls or in search of young naive girls to use and abuse.

 Let's be real for a second, if we are to address gender based violence in an effective way we need to start at the root of the problem.
The way women are perceived shows in how they are treated in society. The fact that rapists are going after women of all ages, even little babies speaks volumes. Just last year, we were on the receiving end of their sickness or perhaps a demonstration of their power over the weaker gender.

When these crimes are reported, they're not even investigated. Even if you go out of your way to investigate and track down perpetrators, the police (especially at Sawoti Police Station) will just let the suspects go without so much as an interrogation. The frustrations of being a woman in rural South Africa.

We go to bed engulfed in fear because we live in a society where a woman being raped is the norm and police inaction certainly reinforces it.