...And The Writer Was Found

…And the writer was found
Rantoloko Molokoane

It was January 2001, the first school day of my grade eleven year. It started of normally: I woke up at half past four in the silent morning that wore the cold whispers of the Vaal River that peacefully glided passed Parys, my hometown. I had been waking up so for the past five years when I started attending at multi-racial schools in the then racially divided van der Bijl Park, so I had long forgotten how to complain about waking up at such a time. I took my ritual bath and prepared myself for school while waiting for the ever slow transport to pick me up. My eyes glowed with excitements that pierced the darkness that embraced the outside surfaces of the house, exposing the elusiveness of the dark and I felt as infinite as the sky, my eyes the sun that illuminates the earth.

It all seemed to be proceeding normally as we arrived at school, me and Azariel the guy I had been schooling with since we black people started to flood the multi-racial schools in 1995(the year after the first democratic elections in South Africa). Everything seemed to be as it should be: the lost new recruits wearing long skirts that hid their shy knee caps, searching for refuge from the unknown that plagued their young faces with a once forgotten nervousness. Some of them wearing proud smiles that nostalgia had drew on their faces, nostalgic of when they were gods and everyone else their servants. New recruits harassed by the distinct smell of starch from their uniforms that announced to them the unpredictable nature of that day. I passed familiar faces, bright from the rains of memories that descended from the peaceful clouds of joy discovered during the holidays. Their mouths, wide open as if competing to swallow the sun, narrating new chapters from their books of life to any willing to listen, forcing birds of silence to migrate again. As usual some seemed distant from the present, hoping that wearing distance as a mask would scare the present from exhuming the buried secrets of their holidays.

At last I found my crew, we used to call ourselves DFN(I think) an acronym that was supposed to stand for ‘Different Kinds of Style’. We even had our own traditional manner of greeting. About a meter apart we stood and praised each other with a litany of friendly words before shaking hands in our own customary manner. After the greetings were concluded we joined the cacophony of voices and sang about our holidays to each other, but before we could hit the high notes the school bell rang reminding us of the school tradition that we had to uphold as senior students so as to set an example for the juniors. Subconsciously we proceeded towards the hall with our tongues still thrashing the air with our explorations, we were sculptors chipping at the present so it would exhibit our pasts. As usual Michael would exhibit his that would be the most admired, one that spoke of broken hearts and new bodies explored, narratives about tertiary women who mistook him for their peer.

As the tradition dictated, we assembled in the school hall every first day of a term. We intruded the aged school hall with our feet sweeping its floor with the rough soles of our shoes; with our different smell and emotions. A school hall that had had married silence in our absence and conceived peace. A hall that had had grown old with only dust to convey its secret age. The silence and peace that we had had chased away with our voices. The age that we had had wiped off the seats with our tissues and moisturized palms. We sat and sang from the hymn books as we were commanded, singing in foreign tongues to praise a foreign God led by the piano through unknown passages. Our hearts ached with desires of singing about our holiday escapades. In the midst of this feast of monotony a surprise was added as a new ingredient in the great pot of monotony.

There was an NGO called the Rotary Club with an award to give to a prestigious student in English. I was the student much to my dismay. Rantoloko Zacharia Molokoane, the nerd who had been collecting academic awards all his schooling years. At least the black primary school, Botjhabatsatsi, that I had attended before 1995 couldn’t afford such luxuries and all they ever did was pat me on the back and go praise my father, their colleague, for bringing up such a brilliant child. But in the multi-racial schools it had been award ceremony after award ceremony, picture after picture and speech after speech. By the time I was in grade eleven it had all become invasive and my greatest burden, a sadness celebrated by those that yearned to be in my tight-fitting shoes. That day when the principal called my name as the recipient of the Rotary Club’s award, I hesitated to stand and proceed towards the elevated stage to receive the award. I felt more invaded than ever before. For on this day when we were meant to retell our new narratives, I would have to receive an award in front of the whole school reminding them entirely of my burden that they praised. The new recruits’ diaries’ pages would be filled with ‘A black nerd received an academic award on my first day in high school’. Maybe an inspiring tale for them, but for me it felt like swimming from the sea of monotony into the ocean of monotony.

With my friends nudging me to stand and the eyes of that knew the award-winning nerd scorching me with their warmth, I stood and walked towards the stage. Like the Pantsulas of the dusty streets of Tumahole, my township, walk so I walked. Through body language I invaded their ceremony, as I had been invaded, treading over their rigid etiquette. As I walked all I heard was the sound of my well-polished Bucaneer shoes abusing the floor, and screams from within trying to tell them I had grown tired of the monotony.

I took the award, a dictionary, and went back to my proud friends and whished I could erase the whole ordeal from their memories, yet my eyes’ glow was too dim to evaporate the residues of this event from their memory banks. That day the tin man discovered his heart. I decided it was time I learnt more about society and less about textbooks.

That day I Wrote My First Poem… And the writer was found!