Zille's white girl!

Mamba, my criminal lover!

I was in love with Black Mamba, the notorious village thug. He used to steal calculators and cellphones for me in highschool and he gradually progressed to stealing Velocities and Gusheshes. I used to visit him at his mother's shack while she was out drinking, he would braai amaPieces while I make iColeslaw and we would have a romantic feast and then he would call me "slender sama catalogue" to let me know that his little black mamba was aroused and we would indulge in a romantic slumber! He was, indeed, a committed and passionate lover who sexed me a little rougher than the others however, after spending more time with Black Mamba, I realised there was more to the brother than angry sex. Mamba, like most criminals, had made peace with the fact that he lives in a society where he had no destiny to dicover, no dreams to fulfill, no wealth to devour and that angered him! His anger was exacerbated by the fact that the people in power seem to have forgotten about the dire state of the poor, he felt betrayed and robbed of the opportunities that he diserved as much as much as Sandra from Sandton did. He was tired of watching the lines that devide society go darker, tired of being excluded from the promise of this country and he had to watch the same people who decieved him promise to shoot and kill him. He had to look at the spiteful face of consumerism everyday until he said "voetsek, i'm gonna steal". By stealing, he regained the manhood that had been stolen from him by the "system" and now he could afford to buy me ultramel and braaipacks and maybe send his children to school, it was all a hijack away. Now, I do not support crime but I'm also not quick to judge criminals and i feel that as a Blackgirl it is my responsibity to tell the story from a different set of boobs. We all feel victimised when somebody steals from us or the ones we love and we all want justice to be served but what is "justice"? Will arresting that hijacker really decrease the crime rate? Really? What about the socio-political injustices? It seems to me that criminals are merely the symptom of a darker, much deadlier disease and i wait for the day when the world decides to cure the cause. This is a bad weave and the more we comb it the frizzier it becomes. We have to change it.

Our situation is no different from london, this is a blackworld problem. The dangers of an unequal society are fatal!

Mamba is now a number 26 in Jail. I miss you, sthandwa!

Nondindwa's song-book.

If your adolescence was anything close to black then you definately would have had a croxley 72 page excercise book adorned with pictures of Brandy and Tamia from Bona Magazine as well as song Lyrics precariously gathered from Metro-fm or copied from Refiloe's advanced songbook. You would have played "come a little bit closer" by Brandy while thinking about that boy with the most prominent baritone in the church choir or "the boy is mine" by Brandy and Monica when you catch Charity sitting in your man's gusheshe. If you were in love with the "city boy" who visits your village every Dezember, you would play "still" by Tamia when you miss him and if you were dating a schoolboy the appropriate song to play would have been "bills" by Destiny's Child. Many of us blackgirls learnt how to add colour to the English language through these songbooks hence they came in handy when writing essays. It seems this blackgirl ritual dissappeared into Winnie Khumalo's cleavage and It made me sad to see such an important part of blackgirl heritage go down the drain. I declare this a national crisis and I urge all the blackgirls of the Sharon D generation to pass down the song book tradition to young teenagers. It is your civil duty to teach those girls the art and science of blackgirl songbooking!!

Ps:Ndinithanda nonke emakhaya!

Women.Women.

"it's a girl!". Those are usually the words uttered by new parents who couldn't afford an ultrasound after they see the innocent slit in between the newborn baby's thighs. The newly born future woman will be named Matlakala or after her mom's madam, Meredith or maybe Mbali or even Mlungu if she's a light-skinned blackgirl, it all depends on whatever her parents can pull out of their overjoyed (or frustrated) asses. Matlakala will be dressed in pretty pink and other typical "girly" colours, she will learn how to say Mama or Tata if she's lucky enough to know her father, she will learn how to decapitate Barbie and how to sit without exposing her vagina when she's wearing a skirt. Her parents will send her to school where she will be teased for being fat, being an albino, being darker than dark or for having old school shoes. She will fight to play the Mother role in the game of "house" (we all know what goes down when kids play house). A few years later she will go to highschool where she'll learn about dick and menstruation in life orientation. She will start to notice that boys pay more attention to girls who look like the doll she beheaded when she was three years old and she will stuff her bra with toilet paper until God blesses her with breasts-the beginning of her blackgirl problems. Her mother will pass down her knowledge of domestic skills, female etiquette and all the crap she was taught in this male dominated world. She will get into trouble for sitting in the front seats of taxis and wearing short skirts. She might start dating boys or girls or older men or even her Life Orientation Teacher who will gladly offer her pre-marital sex orientation. Soon that innocent, gender defining slit inbetween her thighs will host the dicks of the unfaithful, the insecure and the abusive or maybe she'll take the dreaded route of celibacy. Who knows? She will matriculate and graduate and the real world will hit her like the sweet scent of armpit atchar, the realities and pressures of womanhood will become vivid to her. She will watch her butch lesbian friend raise the son she concieved behind a shebeen toilet during a correctional gang rape. She will see 15 year old girls being "THWALA'd" by traditionalists with a self-esteem as small their penises. She will buy loreal foundation for her friend with a blue eye. She will bury her friend who died of Aids even though she was faithful throughout her marriage.
I hate sounding like a soul city omnibus but i can't ignore that part of my vagina! Women are too "GOD" to be facing so many blackgirl problems and I applaud them all for rising from the ashes and building loving homes regardless of the darkness they face everyday.

I'd like to thank Somizi, Iko Mash, Odidi, Dj Tira and Lundi for being the tenacious, influencial and powerful women that they are. They have been a big inspiration in my life.
Happy Women's Month.