DINEO

Kwasukasukela
Once upon a time

My grandmother pulled me out of bed. My eyes were still

half shut as I sleepily scrambled on the floor in search of my
slippers.
‘Come.’
Before I could reach them, she yanked me from the floor
and pulled me outside.
I shivered, my toes numbing as my feet sank into the cold
soil.
‘Lift up your nightdress,’ my grandmother ordered, clutch­
ing a broom in her hand.
I tucked my fingers under my knee-high nightdress and
pulled it all the way up to my chin. She took the broom and
swept it over my flat chest. She brushed over each nipple with
precision. I stood quietly, feeling the rough bristles on the ten-
derness of my chest. The full moon was still sitting pretty in
the sky. Soon, its radiance would be dimmed by the rising sun.
‘It’s early – you can go back to bed. But clean your feet first.’
I headed for the bathroom and poured water into the basin.

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I took the greyish stone that my grandmother used to soften
her calluses and scrubbed off the dirt before returning to bed.

* * *

I sank my body into the water, my head stroking the surface.

Eyes shut, I drifted into nothingness. When I dried myself,
my chest felt unfamiliar to my touch. I touched again. My nip-
ples had grown larger and thicker. They were darker in colour,
protruding more than they had before. When I pressed and
poked them, they felt like two large nuts.
She had swept over them during the last full moon. What-
ever my grandmother’s intentions – to make my breasts grow
or, more likely, to stop them from growing – my breasts began
growing at a pace which was noticeably faster than that of the
rest of the girls in my class.
That morning, I was anxious to get to school. I needed to
tell someone. My only friend at school was Sindiswa – Sindi,
for short. I pulled her into the toilet cubicle during break-time
and lifted my tunic.
‘Sheba,’ I whispered, showing her my little secret.
Sindi prodded and gently squeezed my small cone-shaped
nipples. ‘Ngempela ayakhula. Yoh, you actually have real
breasts now, Naledi.’
She started thinking of ways to ask her mother to sweep
over her flat chest.
‘It wasn’t my mother, Sindi. It was my grandmother,’ I ex-
plained.
‘Oh, so it has to be uGogo who sweeps over them?’

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 ‘Ya, otherwise I don’t think they will grow.’
‘Yoh mara uGogo uhlala eMlazi. How and when will I get
to Umlazi to my grandmother?’
‘You’ll have to wait, I guess.’
‘Until June holidays, Naledi? Yoh haa, I can’t wait; phela
I’m getting older every day. I’m older than you – nearly
thirteen,’ she protested.
Sindi and I pondered for a moment before Sindi jumped up
into the air in excitement, remembering what having breasts
meant for a girl.
‘Hawu we ma, so you are going to start wearing bras, Na­
ledi?’
I beamed, imagining the snug cupped material holding
together my womanly assets. We ran out of the girls’ toilets
giggling, to gorge on our packed lunches.
In class I didn’t focus much. I was too busy dreaming about
the day I would go bra shopping for the first time. What sort
of panties would I get to go along with my bras? Would I buy
those three-in-a-pack panties like I had always done, or would
I finally get the single panties that sit pretty on a hanger?
Would I start matching my bras with my panties and when
was the decent age for a girl to start wearing G-strings?
‘Naledi!’ my teacher shouted. My body jolted.
‘Keng nkare o robetse! Are you listening?’
Everyone was staring at me. I was being reprimanded. I
never got reprimanded. I always listened, kept quiet in class
and worked diligently.
When the school bell rang, I couldn’t get out of class fast

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enough. Sindi found me waiting for her at the gate. We would
usually walk home together and part ways halfway between
my house and her house. That afternoon we had an in-depth
discussion about Minenhle’s hair. Minenhle was the pastor’s
daughter who had the prestigious task of reading out the an-
nouncements before the close of service. Sindi and I were in
awe of Minenhle’s beauty and eloquence. Even more impressive
was how long her ponytail was. My little bantu knots and
Sindi’s short afro were no match for Minenhle’s straight long
pushback that could be tied into a phondo. Her ponytail
would move in the opposite direction when she turned her
head. And on those occasional Sundays when Minenhle would
let her hair loose, her raven hair would flow elegantly down
her nape, kissing her shoulders.
‘Ngithi, even when she walks, iphondo lakhe, it swings from
side to side. And uyazi ke, a girl like that will never tell anyone
what she relaxes her hair with,’ Sindi went on. She paused,
then in a burst of passion said, ‘Dark and Lovely! It must be it.
But the one that has uNonhle Thema on the box, not the one
with the little girl.’
‘Haa, no, Sindi, it can’t be. Her head would burn if she used
that. That one is for grown-ups.’
‘Oho ke wena, have you tried it?’
‘No, I still use Beautiful Beginnings, the one for kids.’
‘Uyabona ke, Naledi, that’s why your hair is growing so
slow. And worse njalo, you are always plaiting and twisting
your hair into these funny popcorn knots. And these things
eat away your hair if you didn’t know.’

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 Sindi was a fine one to talk, considering that my hair was
much longer than hers. I was well on my way to getting my
hair to where Minenhle’s hair was – my mother was making
sure of that. How could Sindi have all these facts and ideas
about growing hair when her mother refused for her to put
any chemical in her hair to begin with? She told me herself
that chemicals made her hair fall out.
When we reached our halfway point, we said goodbye and
I walked down to the Somalian man’s shop to buy myself a
kota. I had waited on purpose for Sindi to leave because I
didn’t want to have to share it. I deserved a really good one –
I had saved up for two weeks for this kota.
Instead of studying, I sat at the kitchen table at home with
my books open in front of me, guzzling my russian, polony,
cheese, chips and atchar-filled bread. My grandmother’s arri­
val at six woke me up – I had fallen asleep with my head on
my books. There was no greeting, just the usual question about
my mother’s whereabouts.
I told her that I had no idea, and as usual she sucked her
teeth. ‘Mxm.’
My grandmother and I both knew very well that my mother
was either out with her best friend looking for a man or she was
with a man. With the air turned sour from the question, Mama,
the name I called my grandmother, went on to prepare dinner.
I saw more of my grandmother than I did my mother, so I
called her ‘Mama’ and my mother by name. Mama and I sat
quietly at the kitchen table to partake of our meal: morogo,
wors and pap.

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