My Roots, my proud identity - Part two of three

Barely three moons had passed when the pale man started coming into my bedroom again, demanding as usual the fever of erotic longing. It did not surprise me at all as I was getting to know the purpose of my stay here in this homestead, sexual intercourse per se to put it kindly to myself. Even that sex per se, just with anyone as long as it's a woman, the consequences of it were not thought through or calculated as a product of it. It just happened that through sex a child had to be born. I was getting used to the normal routine of house work, looking after the baby and forced sex in the evening. We lived separate lives in the sense of the word. I did not know what he did the morning and afternoon. There are times when he would bring with him a lot of game and he skin it with his workers some of which they made to biltong, plenty of it. Was he a hunter too just like my own people? He had workers in the nearby compound of black people, there were quite several of them. Why were they there in the first place disturbing our way of life and inflicting on our land some cultural lifestyle we were not used to? My baby started to walk, he did not crawl much but off he was on his two feet. This pleased the pale man so much and there was a big party in my son's honor, a party I did not attend but was for the pale men community in the neighborhoods. I just went to the place where they assembled, under a big tree, and presented them with my baby. They took turns in holding him, seeing him and digging their eyes at him, tearing, laughing loudly at this bull that made it! I never could recognize any pale woman in their gatherings at any time I had been here. It was a gathering of bearded men and I knew they were all men. I wondered if there were any of their kind, I mean female pale people.
 

In no time, I was feeling as if there was something moving in my stomach again. Because I never managed to get just one sentence correct they spoke, I just told him using signs and lapalapa words that I was expecting another pikinini. It was impertinence on my side to feel good about the coming baby. I had come to accept my captivity somehow to look forward to the coming pikinini. He just chucked a dry laugh and left me standing there when I indicated with signs that there was indeed some pikinini in my stomach. But the erotic visits did not cease because of the ever-growing stomach. Again, when the time came to deliver the baby the black woman next door came to assist me in birth. It was another boy, who I called Ndaba. I had two boys from this man and I did not even know his name, what was his first name or surname. He was called Challis by his friends and I assumed it could be his name. I continued with my duties as usual supported by my hidden strength. I looked after my kids in the compound and watched them grow. I began to like them and love them as time went on. They both spoke my language the time they started talking because this kept the fabric of Khoi-San culture in me or just the vestiges of what is remaining around me. This pleased me in a way as they were mine anyhow as it was the only culture I could pass to them at this compound, but what value options did I have in a place like I was anywhere, everything else was strange to me still. I never could befriend myself with this strange way of life. Speaking my language was going to be a continuation and an extension of myself and my people. I just missed my people, my people's way we lived and worshiped the gods at night under the stars and the bright moon. Each time I looked at the moon, a bright moon and I wondered if during the times of prayer I may have insulted the gods so much that I had to be punished in this manner, captivity. It was the insolence in me that made me think that these gods missed it this time, they were wrong, cruel, and selective in their deliverance of blessings! Through my moral lenses, I viewed the gods were merciless spirits.  That was the life I knew to be better, life of the Khoi-San people. All those things I grew up cherishing were no longer the daily occurrences in this compound. It was the pale man's culture of total solitude and loneliness and translated to be boundaries of my female fate. It is in this respect that the birth of my pikininis was a blessing in disguise as I had at least some people to speak to. I would watch them playing together and admired their physical identities to each other, they were more or less like twins, just several moons apart. I would sing for them to sleep. I became a caged bird that learnt to sing and then bred, but appreciated my offspring that gave me so much joy, the only joy around me.

Sometimes my pikininis would go into the sitting room to see their father with arms looped around their waists to gain some courage to confront him. They would stare at him giggling, charging, enticing him to play with them. He would pick them up and throw them in the air and capture them, one and the other. They would laugh uncontrollably, it was great fun for them. Again, they would ask for the treat to be repeated. It would happen again. They loved this kind of treat from him, but it was a rare treat. He had no time for them. He emotionally disconnected himself from the three of us.  Those were the dizzying period of strict separate development of races in Southern Africa. It was even forbidden to keep a black person in the home; I had to hide only to be seen by those few confidents and the erotic desire that told him he needed a woman every day in the night. What is a man without sexual intercourse in the night, a natural sleeping tablet, an academic night cap? Although he resented this emotional connection with them, it was the genetic pull that forced the man, the father to do those unintelligible acts that forced the man to accept the emotions of his immediate genetics, the social construction of his making. He is made to play complex emotional games but yet simple ones with his own sons and never the loss of meaning. He would run behind them chasing them all over the show until they were tired and he would tell them to go to the compound to play. Because they were sensitive children, they collected and absorbed a lot of impressions in the compound regarding their father and me. My god it's not the children he wanted, but the woman, me who was to be confined to one place for the purpose of erotic desires in the evening, a man's daily night cap. Children were the products he never intended but they came. After all children belonged to the compound anywhere and nobody should ask why they were born.

It was year in year out, life without ends and all in tandem, it was the raw loneliness and isolation I had to endure. Then suddenly, without realizing much, I was told to move from the house and live in the compound with other servants. A hut had been built for my pikininis and me. Peeping through this house I lived in for years, I realized that in the pale man's home there was a pale woman living with the pale man Challis, the father to my kids. I had been replaced so to speak, by the pale woman hence I was now supposed to stay at the compound with other servants. I had no duties to do either than looking after my pikininis. Then again, it happened very quickly without my realizing that I was told to pack my things as the pale man was taking me to a far off land by scotch-chart. It was in the evening. I set off by cattle chart direction I was not sure of, I did not know where we were going to. It came into my mind that ever since I came to this home, I had never gone away even to fetch firewood. To be told I must pack and go was welcome just to get away from that homestead and compound, strange home. But when we reached the great river Ngulukudela, (Limpopo River) I had a rough idea of my location and bearings.

After crossing the river I was told to go back to where I came from. He left me there alone with two pikininis aged 7 and 8 years. I was free now but in a territory too dangerous to comprehend. You are free now, he said in sign language and sometimes lapalapa language that we used all the time. How I wish I could have seen this coming! I would have prepared for this coming back in my subconscious. I was left in the mud and mire. The food reserves were not sustaining and the walk to wherever with small children was an adventure I was forced to do. I did not think much I just walked and walked direction nowhere but it was northwards. On the way I met people, my people who spoke my language. The hunters, the Khoi-San, my people assisted me in connecting to the main group that I belonged to. I traveled for days with them until we arrived at the settlement I was staying at initially before I was abducted. To my surprise the people who were living there were not my people although they spoke the same language as mine. Had they been replaced? I told them about my fate and how I landed in the hands of a pale man who took me as his slave and gave me children. Almost everybody took a dig at my two boys who were of mixed race. My story was laughed at, my boys were laughed at and mocked about these "qho imnyankomo keke." My story did not make sense to them. Our dress code was different too.  In their eyes I was a whore for the pale devils who had killed and plundered populations across the whole of southern Africa looking for gold, black women and diamonds. I was told to leave immediately. I was no good to them because of the evil spell I carried with me, the Colored children and the strange clothes we wore. I was told to leave and was not to be killed but the wild animals would do it for them. Before I left, I went to see the water well where the abduction took place and see if the traces of the broken calabash was still visible. I identified two pieces I thought could reassemble the calabash I lost in the fight to free myself from the pale man.

I held those two pieces and wept, really cried. They were the memorabilia of the magnitude of my loss, where are my people? Here was the place that determined my life forever, a place related to the function of time and existence, it took place here about 10 years ago and I had existed then. The transformation of one life to the other took place here at this well for better or worse. My future and the future generations to come were defined in this place and that time. Suddenly I realized I had children, my boys were looking at me and I could not afford to break down that long. They wanted me to move as we felt we were not safe at my own place of birth. Escorted by some young men I left with a substantial amount of biltong as provision given to me by benevolent-minded people in the village. They advised that if I walked eastwards, I would meet the population where my people could be. Using travelling passages, I travelled with them for a moon and many days until we could get in contact with the population I thought were my people. On arrival I hardly could identify any one of them as mine but they indeed spoke about my disappearance as a tale that remained spoken in the population I belonged to now by name. I was partially accepted, I had to stay there anyhow. My children had to adapt in the new environment and grew up in very hard conditions. Firstly they were wary of the long distance travelling they were not used to. Secondly it was the culture shock they were subjected to. It was no longer the compound they were used to playing around as they wished. It was a different life style full of uncertainties. Khoi-San huts were strange to them. We lived the three of us in one hut but they soon relocated to live with other men of their age as time went on. The language was the only identity my children had in common with these people. The first thing that was done to them was circumcision! It was so rudely done and I wept at the thought of it. A ritual I cherished when I grew up, this time round I feared it for my children, but they survived it.  I rid them of the strange clothes they wore and forcefully subjected them to the normal dress code accepted in the village; leather cloth and lo mncwado (Genital underpants made of leather) for men.  Food was mostly eaten in its raw form and sometimes roasted meat. It did not matter to them much, they were men in no time they learnt hunting very quickly, they were fearless young men and were all about to prove their worth it in the community. I taught them how to gather food in the swampy areas.  Later they went hunting and brought home meat that I turned into biltong so that it could last for some time without going bad. In our own way, we were complete. We did not need much assistance to look after ourselves in terms of daily needs. I was born and had grown into this culture to know how it is done.

The boys started asking me about their father and why he had to let us leave the compound. Those were questions I never was prepared to answer them adequately, I never thought my sons would come up with such questions. The questions were too painful to construct an acceptable and decent answer for them. They asked about his name, I told them I thought he was Challis. I could tell almost certainly that it was not only calling but it was imbedded in them, the eagerness to go back to their father as they could not stay with this population longer than was necessary. It was the ridicule they endured on daily basis, it was racism they had to bear, to be told they were bastards, fathered by traitors of the lands, they were mixed raced whose fathers are causing havoc the entire lands of Abatwa, "imnyankomo, izizalo ezinga sokango yise." (Bastards, products of uncircumcised fathers) (Could it be the Huguenot blood that repels any kind of acceptance in any society? France most persecuted tribe) that was the bitter pill fed on them in daily doses. They wondered what would happen to them if I died accidentally. My feet were swelling, showing signs that I would not live longer. I saw how the two young men agonized over my poor health. I too agonized at the thought that if I stopped crying, these two young men would leave and look for their father south of where we had settled. While I was still able to speak I constantly told them to look after one other in all life challenges and difficulties in their lives. Now, my God! I never, even in my maddest senses did I think these two boys would give me such pride in my life given the nature of their existence. The nature in which I got them, how did it all turn to value and love, I love them truly and dearly, these children I got through forced sexual intercourse. They are the loving nucleus of my life.  It could be that in the heart of humanity is a concern for life in general and it does not matter however way it came to our midst. My boys are a special creation of my body and deserve recognition, value and respect from me first and foremost. Whoever is going to disrespect them for whatever reasons best known to them, it does not matter to me anyway, I do not care. Is it necessary to think beyond my passing what would happen to my two boys, the most beautiful people on this earth, the men that came from my stomach, the best part of me, no, not at all, oh my God, no. It is the play of pain that make me scream and I do not seem to identify where the pain is located in me. It is this pain that would take me away from here and would stop crying. How are they going to manage without me and what have I done to empower them about the racism around them other than tell them to love each other and help each other in all odds when I am no longer there physically? But these boys had grown beyond me, still they harbored impossible stories of survival and endurance.  I prayed to gods that all would be well, there is nothing else I can do or can move to make it better. My effort to trace my people was to leave my boys with my people when I pass on.

It is turning out into a nightmare to be with them. I realized the curse of acceptance to belong to them. My boys are given the worst tasks to do to prove their manhood. They are called by nasty names that indicate that my boys do not belong to them. they have to prove to the older men that they are better in hunting kudus, impalas, elephants, zebras and all animals eaten in this village. When I was told about how they got vetted to do these nerve-wrecking tasks to gain acceptance from my people, my heart sank, my stomach turned and was left in a fit of pique.  My children are not accepted here and it was obvious.  They have to perform impossible tasks ten times better than an average Khoi-San man in the hunting field of profession. They are set to fight with lions, set to kill the most deadly snakes, thrown into swollen rivers and are told to swim yonder. They have done that with distinctions and got their social recognition. Unintelligible acts, scorpions would be thrown at them to scare them and see them crying, they did not cry but were convivial because they were men, survived circumcision of the worst kind. In a very short space of time the boys were bush smart! They expressed absolute acts of bravery congruent with masculinity of the Khoi-San peoples at their chrysalis stage to impress the elder men. They brought back home impossible stories of survival and endurance. They even coveted to all aspects of the traditional life in the community to gain acceptance. In evening sessions where the families would be gathered to enjoy the African night skies, my children were not even allowed to share jokes or even utter occurrences that transpired during the day in the hunting fields. Because sometimes they would be talking about the war they may have witnessed, watching it at the periphery between the pale people and the local population whereby the pale people would have been butchered to death by the Mathebele impis. There would be great laughter and tacit approval of victory but no single Khoi-San population would have taken part in those wars, there would be reference to my children that their pale fathers are being slaughtered like animals. What do they want from our lands, hunting gold and black women just to use as sex objects and no less?  They must go back to where ever they came from. My boys writhed over this and were wholly intended and implicitly obvious to them it was meant to hurt, resulting in hidden and accumulated pain that had an unreasoning desolation only peculiar to them. This insensitivity would go on and on the whole evening for the purpose of reducing my boys, the mixed race boys, a fault that is wholly not their own but wholly mine. In the final weighing it was this fierce envy of this effortless beauty, this aquiline facial features of the two young men, not black and not pale but themselves, the nature's alchemy how it produced a skin so pleasant looking to comprehend it and yet in that time and space eloquently youthful and outstandingly pleasant. To rub the fact in with raw courage and physical characteristics earned them envy and loathing. Principles of our culture had been invoked and common sense flew away into the vast universe and what it as would never be the same again.  I wish just one thing, to stop crying because I have cried too long and am not enduring the pain of crying! Everything else now is beyond my power of influence. Yes my feet are swollen and I would not live longer. I have passed on life and I would for some time continue to live on in the generations to come. My two sons would get daughters and sons forming the generation chains who primarily came from a Huguenot man and a Khoi-San woman and they would never know how it started. The truth and the bitter emotions that followed and went with it would be concealed forever. No literature would ever capture it, how it was. It is alright and good like that. Not all truth should be told because the truth is folly, it was not going to be respectful to give a riposte even in a polite way. Only a fool tells the truth. God would take over the rest! But questions would continue to insist in me until my last breath, why my gods, why me, leaving my boys exposed to the darkest recesses of the human heart.

The lord is my Sheppard
I shall not be in want
He makes me to lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside the quite waters
He restores my soul
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name sake
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I would fear no evil, for you are with me
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies
You anoint me with oil, my cup overflows
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow all the days of my life
And I would dwell in the house of the Lord forever
Amen