Miss Thengeduze Cash and Carry.

I won my first beauty pageant (by mistake) when I was 5 years old. It was Dezember and every young Immaculate, Perseverence and Delicate was entering "Miss Thengeduze Cash and Carry" which meant that I too had to enter if I wanted to secure my playground social status. My mother opposed the idea like Chomee does clothes, she didn't have money to relax my frizzy 'fro and, apparently, only girls with relaxed hair enter beauty pageants but I entered, regardless of my k-word hair.
A few days later the whole village gathered under a two-pole tent while the other contestant's and I got ready inside the shop, Miss Thengeduze Cash and carry was about to begin! My nerves were under control until Magistrate's mom asked me "why are you wearing your Sunday dress? The theme is costume!" and indeed when I looked around all the other girls were clad in swimming costumes of the latest styles and the brightest neon colours. My horror at that moment couldn't even be equated to the world's most premature ejaculation! I was close to pulling out when the Nonhle Thema in me told me to model in my sunday panty. And i did. I shoved the excess full-panty fabric into the crack of my blackgirl ass to make it look like a whitegirl thong. I walked into the tent with Connie Ferguson's confidence, swaying my hips and sticking out my bare chest for the excited crowd! "MODELA MODELA". I spanked my butt cheek, snapped my fingers and turned around, smiling from fake beauty spot to fake beauty spot. I was releived until I found out there was a questions section where Malum' Meshack {owner of Thengeduze Cash and Carry} would ask us random questions. I didn't like speaking in front of lots of people and I certainly didn't like talking to MEN so when Malum Meshack asked me what i wanted to be when i grew up, instead of saying "madam", I said what my favourite soapie actress used to say to men who spoke to her. "who do you think you are? How dare you!", I replied in English and the crowd went MAD! Stokvel ladies were hululating while the church ladies fainted! Taxi drivers started fighting with each other in joy! "Nondindwa can speak English! Nondindwa can speak English!". People were excited by the fact that a 5 year old Blackgirl could utter a few English words, even if they were severely out of context, even if she didn't know what they meant, the fact that she said it in English when all the other girls spoke isiZulu was enough reason to crown her Miss Thengeduze Cash and Carry! I went home with a brand new electrical Iron and a box of Jam Alley chocolate bars. Soon the Gospel of the English-speaking blackgirl reached the neighbouring villages and they invited me to compete in their pageants. I went on to win Miss Asiduri Trading Store, Miss foot-sack tuck shop, Miss Fundanawe Creche and many other pageants by uttering the same English words. I was celebrated for speaking a language whose words I did not understand and whose history I did not know. I was never applauded for my excellent isiZulu, only English matterd. Even today, I struggle to associate my own language with sophistication and intelligence and that beauty pageant is to blame. The seeds of self-hate and inferiority were planted in me and now they have grown into a vicious thornbush that pricks me everytime I try to destroy it. It's the same with South Africa, the seeds of self-hate and inferiority were planted over 300 years ago in the minds of blackgirls and the thornbush is still alive. And growing. Are we brave enough to cut ourselves in the process of trying to uproot it? Are we brave enough?

Anna Wintour has a rival!

Her style is what I live for right now!! like, uyangichaza losisi!!!! Zanele Magwaza Msibi you are the ultimate blackgirl style icon!! My vagia vibrates with inspiration everytime I see you at a political rally with your hurr did and your nails dick long!!! Michelle Obama can go lock herself in the kitchen.

Queen Khabonina

I love Khabonina vele!!! She is my Oprah, my ultimate role Modella!! She is the epitome of vaginal consciousness!!! PONYO!

Summertime Bazala

It is the first of september, ke Summertime Bazala! For a day, forget about Malema and the political dilemma. Forget about the strikes, forget about Gaddafi, forget about Nationalisation and all that crap in the political arena! Forget about your neglected vagina and your quantum desires and wear that t-shirt that says "siyabangena!". It is summertime (spring if you are white, mzala)! It is time replace that heavy polyester trench coat from small street with a lighter polyester sequinned mini-dress from small street. It is time to trade in your 8 layer, 22 inch red weave for something a little shorter and cooler, a red razor-cut with blue highlights perhaps? Or maybe even a Khethiwe-esque afro or a Sharon style s-curl? Whatever fondles your groin, Blackgirl, the summertime is yours! Close that summer magazine with an article on "how to starve yourself for the perfect bikini body" and go out into the summertime madness! Wear your silver, cellulite exposing, bum shorts with your shiny gold bikini top and go to the carwash! Wash those quantums in all your half-naked glory! Let the African sun give your smooth cleavage a "lamza"! Let you testicles dance in the summer breeze, Blackman. Burn your worries and your blackgirl problems in the 'mbaula' that kept your toes warm in the winter. It is a new day, a new weave, today! The taxi rank is in disarray!
So Mzala forget about it all, just for today.

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!