If God does not mind where I pray,
Who on Earth are you to say?
A response to the twitter conversations and the commentary on this post.
Roots
This is daddy and I on a novelty photo badge we got at the Rand Show when I was five-years-old.
You can tell from my chewed-on smile that I wasn’t feeling particularly photogenic that day.
Today, I’m grateful my parents made me sit for this photo. It reminds me of all the things that link me to him; beyond personality, phenotypes and the fact that I love to wear hats just as much as he did.
Some Muslims have a tense relationship with photographs, especially those of their dead. I don’t.
My mum used to keep a songbook in High School. She’d listen to Springbok Radio and write down the lyrics of her favourite songs. I used to do something similar, except I had Google and printed out the words to stick into a plastic folder. Her method definitely had more romance to it. Her writing is also almost exactly the same today as it was when she was in Std 8 (She wasn’t sabotaged by keyboards). I didn’t inherit her legible penmanship.
These are my memories manifested; a badge and a notebook weighted with all the imagery and associations I osmositise into them. They’re just things though; easily lost or destroyed because of this tangibility. Short-lived signifiers. But their signified is tatooed straight onto DNA.
Note to self: stop wasting life playing Bubble Shooter.
ror
China Mall, Main Reef Road, Johannesburg.
keeper of the bones
they do not
make for
reading chairs;
these piles of bone.
jarring phalanges
too intimate,
nudge and press the skin
of our seats with that night
etched deep into calcium.
the bones are still
and we can not.
left-bum-right-bum
shift and sway.
piles of bones
do not make for
tea-time ottomans
but do brew
things you could never guess to tell
just by looking at her,
those never-never-agains
and silly-lost selves,
found now to ossify,
and dissolve off of our brains
but leave us sitting
foolishly, uncomfortably
on unoriginal secrets.
No. Those are laugh lines.
So, I have decided that next year, I will be turning 26. I will be 27 in four years time.
I’ve always had one of those ‘mature’ faces, and after seven years, I’m finally grown into it.
Oh all you wonderful people; you are the seatwarmers of my winter days.
I came across this old gtalk chat while looking for something in my mail:
04/05/2006
Mak: so Saaleha.. what are your plans forthe next 5 years ?
me: hmmm
lets see now
five years
well
within that time
i hope to be married to my soulmate
have completed my masters in creative writing
and have done a vast amount of travel
Well, here’s me tooting my own tooter; I’m actually pretty much on track with that timeline. Almighty Willing and Saaleha Doing, I will be shaking hands with the deadline.
Google’s doodle yesterday was a tribute to Russian composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky. It will probably take me a lifetime and beyond to nudge him off of the June 17 spot. Ambition is the salt of life.
Shaira
Making space to write was one of the reasons behind my move to freelance.
So far, it hasn’t been working out too well. I’ve got a great method where I write down all the things I have to do, and then proceed to do none of them. However, today was a little different.
There’s been some talk of names abound and I feel I should share with you that the name Shaira means poetess.
Here follows what may or may not be part of my working draft for “The Daughter of No One Famous“.
The henna cleaved out of the brown cone.
On the trembling palm before her, Shaira worked adroitly to lay down the strokes. In one ambit of steady movement, she marked outlines and filled in the curlicues and flourishes.
Her work was intricate and ornamented but there was something about it that was not beautiful.
The paisleys and flowers were done as well as the virginal red patterns left on the hand of a bride, but these lines were too carefully thought out. The points were too sharp.The brown strokes; thick and assertive, were a puncturing geometry not at ease with the soft roundings of the mango leaves.Shaira’s work was a command, not a beautification. Hers’ was a pen of destiny.
“You will find love in the period of time it takes for the mendhi to fade. He will be someone you already know. You will marry within the year. There will be moments where you find him fussy and somewhat cruel, but with him you will find much joy. You must be patient. This is the Will.”
With her left hand outstretched to keep from smudging the wet henna, the marked one reached into a pocket in her cloak. With a quivering right hand, she pulled out a bundle of crumpled notes and left them in the bronze ashtray at Shaira’s side. A hoarse gratitude emerged from her small mouth, but so silent was she during the marking, that her voice could only find the ‘you’.
A little fold of a person, the marked one bent down awkwardly to scoop up her bags and hang them from her unburdened shoulder. “The henna is dry now. You can use both hands.”
She was startled, and ran her fingers along the raised patterns, expecting her fingertips to be muddied. It was only a few minutes earlier that the pattern glistened with heavy moisture. She cleared her throat, “Jazakallah”, and with the henna crumbling off of her hand, she gathered up her things and left.
Shaira stretched out her arms and made circles from her wrists. She opened and closed her hands. The cracks from her joints snapped low in the warm and dark room. “Open the curtains Sakinah. These notes are so dirty and worn; I can barely make out the amount in this light.”
Sakinah got up from a chair in a corner shrouded by drapings and clutter. “You really need to clean this place up Shaira. Or is it all for atmosphere?” Shaira didn’t respond to Sakinah’s snideness. She counted out the notes as Sakinah drew open the curtains. Without the barrier of the thick fabric, the hooting and shouting from the street below rushed into the room.
“With this one’s R150 and the R300 from the two earlier this morning, we can do a round pass the Big House tomorrow hey Sakinah?” Sakinah looked out of the window and down into Church street. She could see the marked one getting into her car and tipping the car guard before driving off.
“Don’t you feel bad doing this Shaira? Fooling these people like that. That woman really thinks she’s going to find love and happiness. All because you scribbled on her hand with that coloured mud you got from Akhalwaya’s and mixed with pareloo paani. It’s wrong man!”
Shaira put the notes into an old saffron tin and packed away her henna-divining supplies. “How am I worse than some moulana who claims he can remove jaadoo by having you stand in a cat-litter box while he hacks around your feet with a butcher knife? It’s all the same Sakinah. People put their faith in a lot of things, they only believe because they want to. I just gave that girl a bit of hope. She probably will find someone now that she’s being active about it. So are we going to the Big House tomorrow or not?”
The anger was large in Sakinah’s eyes. “I don’t like going there. I lost all the rent money the last time. You know there’s no barakat in money won from gambling.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to make my own destiny,” said Shaira as she wiped dry henna flakes from the table into a cupped palm.
mendhi – henna
pareloo paani – water that has had a prayer read over it
jaadoo – black magic/curse
Wits Business School Journal
A selection of stories published in the Wits Business School Journal.
SA skills shortage: Crisis or Urban legend?
‘SKILLS SHORTAGE’ and brain drain’ are phrases that make for ubiquitous headlines.
The 2010 Soccer World Cup, Gautrain and other infrastructure construction projects will demand much of South Africa’s pool of qualified and experienced people and the perception that the pool is nearly empty has raised alarm…
—
Connectivity for development
When the first spate of xenophobic attacks hit last year, Google South Africa found out that 89 percent of South Africans searching online for information, didn’t know how to spell xenophobia…
Features for Heartlines and ForGood
A selection of subbed and unsubbed stories that were meant to be part of a news feature service for Heartlines’ ForGood campaign. The brief for these was to focus on everyday heroes and the value of values.
Soldiers on a special mission: to help kids with special-needs
They ride their motorcycles through roaring flames and once had a recordbreaking 56 people perched on eight motorcycles.
Now they’re tasked with sanding floors, knocking holes in walls for doors and fixing drainage.
Members of the British Army’s Royal Signals White Helmets Motorbike Display team may have expected better weather in Johannesburg. Instead, they were welcomed by the dripping summer rains. However, it’s still warmer than their weather back home, and the team walks through the Forest Town School for children with special needs, sans their white bike helmets, in shorts and t-shirts. Their mission is simple and determined…
Read the rest by clicking here.
—
Township Flowers
Blurb: Elliot Mlalazi has created an oasis in the township he calls home on the West Rand. Situated in Rietvallei the flowers and green foliage are an indication of his dedication to his trade.
Read the rest by clicking here.
—
Bright Young Helping Hands
It’s hard to see your hand in front of your face inside the Motorcyle Spares Centre in the middle of Johannesburg town. Candles stuck in old amstel bottles provide meager illumination and it takes some time for your eyes to adjust. This darkness is not due to loadshedding in practice, it’s like this every night. The abandoned building provides shelter to approximately 30 people who would otherwise be at the mercy of the city streets. Gregory Skinner, a fourth year medical student examines a baby who’s been coughing up blood. His mother, Mamelo, one of the inhabitants, holds a crying Prince up on a rough wooden table while Skinner tries to check what’s causing the two-month-old’s symptoms…
Read the rest by clicking here.
—
Teaching values through storytelling
A wise ant and a frivolous grasshopper taught millions of children the value of saving for days of necessity. This and other lessons learnt from the fables of Aesop, a slave who probably lived over two thousand years ago, still resonate with children and adults the world over. Educational psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of Johannesburg Dr Elzette Fritz agrees that storytelling is an effective way to teach children about values…
some sage and thyme for the sprogs
Our very own Meme Queen Kaye has been knocking the flints together and Shafs wants to know what ten things I would like the watermelons from my loins to know.
- If you have sex before marriage, your hoo-hoo will turn blue and fall off. (Ok, maybe it won’t. I’m hoping our conversations about things of this nature will not get awkward when you’re older and have stopped calling it a hoo-hoo.)
- Not everyone will like you. Sometimes I may not even like you. But I love you and would die for you.
- You won’t be good at everything, but you will be great at a few things.
- Always acknowledge anyone who has done a service to you (from waiters to car guards to that cashier who looks like someone farted in her cereal). Thank with sincerity and a smile in your eyes.
- Give of what you can, and often.
- Your parents aren’t perfect.
- Don’t carry any tales unless they’re meant to be written down and read aloud.
- If you are your mother’s child, your teenage years will be awkward and angsty. It will pass, and when you read your old diaries, you will laugh at what the adult you will see as frivolous intensities.
- While your mother’s desk may still have a ‘there be dragons’ notice pointing to it, being neat and organised really does unclutter your thinking.
- Confidence is an easy trick to pull off. Fake it till you make it.