My Roots, my identity! - Pt1

I had just become one girl and two children old (16 years old) when we heard about the presence of pale people in our lands. My name is Lomamqhaka a Khoi name that means nearer to the "Goddess of the sun". I was the only child of my mother. When she passed on, I remained looked after by the community. My uncle was the nearest to me where I spent most of the time with his wife who taught me the wisdom of womanhood. I would be with other girls of my age sometimes dreaming about young men and subsequent marriage that was given to us as we were marriageable age already. I took over the hut responsibilities of fetching firewood, bringing water from the well, cooking, collecting fruits and vegetables from the swampy area near our community area. I slept with other girls in a hut know as girls' hut. (Ixhiba) But during the day I went to bring the day with my aunt. I felt protected and felt very safe to be part of this community that had all it needed to survive. We occupied the Zambezi Escarpment until the end of the land joining the sea. (Ulwandle) We observed with great curiosity how peoples from the north entered into our lands physically and consciously driving us into arid lands. Our numbers were just too small to fight any intruder but we thought we could share the land without fighting for it. These are the tales we heard being spoken at the evening sessions and ceremonies. Truly speaking I belong to Abatwa populations of Southern Africa. The pale people called us Bush people because they thought we were physically short. We were warned about the brutality of the pale people towards the local populations but at the same time we were wary about the fightings among the local populations, we did not want to be part of the fightings. Every member of the Khoi-San populations was advised never be part of the fights, be it local population against another local population or local population against pale settlers. We remained neutral in all disputes that took place in Southern African regarding land ownership and gold digging. The complexity and simplicity of our life style was defined and measured in men hunting for game and women collected fruits and vegetables in the country side and we were content with it and we did not demand more than just to be left alone in our habitat, a lifestyle we have enjoyed for hundreds and hundreds of centuries.

When my people found out that moving from one place to the other was becoming a very difficult because of the presence of many populations that were hostile to us we decided to just stay in the Kalahari deserts and were nurtured by swamps in the area. Like all other young girls, I had duties in the settlement such as collecting water and firewood. Once a month when the moon is renewed, a new birth (ukuthwasa kwen'anga entsha), we daughters of the village were expected to make fire that was supposed to be maintained until the moon dies. I was very good at making fire so almost all girls trusted my ability. I had a potential suitor too, Kladi, who would go with other men hunting for a number of days without coming to the settlement. He gave concrete assurance that he was going to marry me. I was happy and contented about this arrangement.  Usually when I went alone to collect water from the well I went with other girls of my age. But it was this one afternoon I took my calabash to collect water in a well that belonged to my village. I tried to raise myself from the well when suddenly I saw a pale person behind me. I could not even scream as I was dumbfounded with fear. I tried to resist his holding me by the hand, he held my hands tight and my calabash fell and broke. Then I was tied both hands and pushed to follow him. I had never seen his coming and I have never seen a pale person and so near my skin like this time. It was not easy to know what was coming as I had no idea what this pale person was going to do to me, a woman. I never went hunting even one day, if he thought I was a threat to him anyhow while competing for wild animals to catch. Why had he caught me and made me to walk miles and miles without end? Each time I indicated that I wanted to wee he would tell me to do it there and then for fear I would run away. After a long distance journey on foot now there were many of them gathered in one place, I do not know how many of the pale people, all bearded and all speaking very funny. I was put on a scotch-cart driven by cattle and the serious journey started. I continued to protest my capture but to no avail. To protest my capture further, I resented eating the food they gave me. But, suddenly, I thought of defecating in the cart so that they let me go out and that would give me a chance to escape. It worked.  I did and they took me out, pushed me out of the cart with utter disgust. I was told to go and clean myself by the sub river. I took to my feet and very hard. He chased me and after a hard distance, I was tired. I was caught and my hands were tied again and was sent back to the scotch-cart. I thought if I did not eat, I would faint and die and this is how I would rid myself of them once more. All of a sudden, just before us was a great river I knew well. (Ngulukudela, now called Limpopo) We crossed over as it was not swollen as usual. I got tired of this unending journey and I got a sleep somehow. I was awoken in the night to come to a house. The pale person untied my hands and I was sent to a place where I was told to wash myself. I was given a cloth to put on me to sleep. Early in the morning I woke up and was hungry. I was given biltong to eat. Later in the morning it was another bath again I had to endure and was taken to a place- bed like place and I was stripped naked. My hands were tied on each side. One leg was tied again leaving the other loose that was moved by the side. My vaginal parts were thoroughly examined, opened with metal pieces. I tried to resist and this was the first time I was beaten by this pale person.  To tame me, I had five strokes with a shambok a day every day forty two moons.
                                                                                                                                                                                                    I realized I did not have much chance but to see it to the end. I did not know if I was going to be slaughtered for food. It did not matter to them how much I cried. It was futile to do so, I was caught and there was no way out of this. It was the humiliation that killed some parts of me than the struggle to escape. Again I wished to die during that examination. I saw him smile, I could tell the reason of his smile he found out that I was a virgin. He was happy about this find. He sent me to a place where I remained tied to a tree just in case I ran away again. It was when I saw people of my color in the compound moving around doing their respective duties did I realize that perhaps I would not be killed. I was then convinced there was some other purpose to my capture. I never managed to speak to the black people I saw in the compound and I was not allowed to speak to them. I fed on biltong and water and bread and many other foodstuffs just given to me. It felt as if I was fed like an animals, like the goats we had in our home compound were fed in the same manner. There was one black man who was authorized to look after me, send me to the lavatory, tell me to bath, and tell me to eat. He would tie me to the tree again when he was finished with the duties he was to show me. Later in the day, I saw a number of these pale people gathered under the tree talking loudly and laughing. I had been sent to sleep one night when the same pale man came to my room naked, his phallus uncircumcised. He just forced my crossed legs open and it was sex. I cried at the pain. He did not hear my cry and only when he thought my virginity had broken did he leave me and he went to where he slept. It was pain all over my body the whole night. I never thought I would have sex with a stranger in my life. I wondered what wrong I did to the gods to be reduced so low as to have sexual intercourse with an uncircumcised man. The thought was humiliating and was just disgusted. I thought I could not endure any humiliation than the one I had already experienced, exposing my genital and looking at them using pieces of metals! He wanted to find out if I was sick, if my genitals had any disease. It appeared as if it was one humiliation after the other. How would my genitals be sick if I had never had sex in my life before? In the morning it was the same routine, the bath and food and I was tied on the tree never to run away. The black man would come to show me what to do in the home and compound. We spoke in sign language most of the time as I did not understand his language, the lapalapa  language use was not logic to me either. It is these pale people who think that all Africans speak the same language.  I was supposed to work but was put on surveillance all the time. The black man did not speak my language but seemed to be a trusted person as he did most of the work in the house. He started to teach me the work I was supposed to do in the house. I would wash clothes, make fire, collect firewood from the compound and fetch water from the bore hall. I did not know where I was so it made it very difficult to plan an escape. I discovered later that in the neighborhoods there were "normal" women as myself in the same fate as mine but we were not allowed to meet and talk to each other. It was every night this pale man would come to my room for the purpose of sex only and he left after that. It was a complete different life I had thought I was going to have and share with my boyfriend. I never thought of sex as sex but making love to my suitor, Kladi, but here I was subjected to sex in a manner that was against my upbringing.  I wondered what he thought about my absence. It must have broken his heart. I was getting used to this strange life. For once I said to myself if I have to endure this I must construct a plan in my mind. During sexual intercourse I would just imagine that it was Kladi, my boyfriend I had left behind who was making love to me. This trick worked well as I did not feel the pain as time went on. Many, many moons passed, suddenly I thought something was moving inside my stomach but would stop again. I was also getting big in the stomach but the pale man did not stop coming into my room to have sex again on top of the growing stomach. After sex, he left to his room again. It was the pale man, the black man and I who lived in house or, rather, homestead. There was a compound where most servants lived further from the homestead. They looked after cattle and tended the fields.  In the afternoon the pale men would assemble under a tree in the homestead. They would have their diner and braai and alcohol and talk until very late. It took me a long time to know that I could be expecting a pikinini, a baby was in my stomach.  I seldom had contact with the pale man at all and it was not easy to tell him that I was pregnant. I ate alone all the time. He too ate alone and if he had visitors, they sat in the living room where I was not allowed to be but just passed by doing my duties of the day. Suddenly I felt some contractions around my stomach and did not realize that I was about to give birth. Water just burst out of my wee opening and I began to cry aloud. Some woman from the neighborhood came to assist me in childbirth and in a short space, a baby was born. Again I told myself that this child is from Kladi to cope and accept the child subconsciously. She washed the baby and there were clothes for it. The pale man had prepared for the baby pikinini and it was put in a place near where I was sleeping. I was looked after very well during the time of the birth of the child by this black woman from the compound. The pale man came to look at the pikinini and he chuckled a good laugh at the sight of the baby, a boy. I just looked at him in bewilderment. I just wondered what was in his mind when he saw the baby. Was he happy or was it just another event happening in his compound, not intended, but a product of it? It was the black man who lived with us in this home who gave my baby boy a name, Thabo. I could not think of any in my own language or the getting of a child with a pale man blocked me from looking forward to this baby and eventually giving it a name. The Black man's ritual of greeting the pale man changed when my son was born:

Gudu moningi Basi (good morning Bass)
Lawewena mapikinini (Good morning son to the Bass)
Lawena muntu (Muntu was me)
Alitugeza  (Altogether good morning)

 I was able to recover the birth ordeal in a short space of time. It was again this constant affirmation I kept on telling myself that this child is from Kladi.  The pale man stopped coming to my room for some time. I was adjusting to this life with a baby and the house chores that were no longer a burden but a way to kill time as I did not know what to do with so much time. Pikinini slept and ate well. I would wash his clothes and pieces of cloths made as nappies. The father to my pikinini would come and collect my baby to showcase it to other visitors who came for a sun down that were very regular in this homestead but shared only among their own and not with natives of the land. I just heard lots of laughs, they may have been laughing at my baby who knows, who cares. But he loved his baby boy somehow as he would time and again come and collect him to sleep at his room, play with him give him something to eat.