HOW I wish my late sister Phathiswa could see me now! Her little sister, Zaa, as she affectionately called me, now a news editor at one of South Africa’s best newspapers, a career choice she was vehemently opposed to.
It was inconceivable that someone who went to a mud school, had to walk 3km up and down rocky hills with a 25-litre bucket full of water on her head every day and fetch firewood from a forest some 8km from home could today be in the position I am.
Growing up in abject poverty was awful. It greatly affects who one becomes. I did not know how, but I vowed I would get out of there, somehow.
I started my Sub A (Grade 1) at Dengwane Junior Secondary School in Mount Fletcher.
I was eight and school introduced me to things that were somewhat foreign. For one, we girls had to fetch fresh cow dung, which we used to wipe the floor (ukusinda) of our classrooms every Friday.
While we slaved away, the boys removed what little furniture we had to outside the classroom, and sometimes this too was done by us girls. They would then go off to play while we continued to clean.
That did not seem right. It was the first time I questioned the “different and better” treatment of boys. The “boys get it easier” theme continued at home. For everyday chores, all my two brothers did was fetch my father’s sheep and goats from the field before sunset, while my sisters joined me to fetch water, gather firewood, cook and clean.
This was all being a girl meant for me for years – hard labour with no reward, except perhaps that some man would notice what a hard worker a woman was and want to marry her. A concept I hated.
This was the norm in most homes in my poverty-ridden village and no one dared question it. I tried, and let’s just say it didn’t end very well for me. Life remained tough for many years – I studied under trees, I shared a classroom with two other grades.
For years I sat on crates, concrete blocks or on the floor, using my lap as a desk. I have gone to school on an empty stomach, with no hope of anything other than pap and cabbage or those tasteless soups with no vegetables on returning home.
During my high school years, I had to walk 10km to get to the nearest high school (and another 10km home) every day. Half that distance was through isolated mealie fields. How I was never attacked, I’ll never know.
I remember getting really angry with the situation on being caught in a hailstormin the middle of the mealie fields. Those small stones hit really hard. I remember the snow in winter, the extreme heat and thunderstorms in summer.
It was common for some of us to sit in class soaking wet the whole day after having been caught in the rain on our hike to school. Going to school barefoot or in worn-out, wrong size shoes was normal.
While my brothers were allowed to leave for the big cities to look for work after matric, we girls could not. And there were no funds for tertiary education. So, what does one do in Mount Fletcher with just matric? Nothing. And that is what I did for three years after matric.
My father Mbuzeli, who had been an ambulance driver, died while I was in high school and we then depended on my mother, MaGamede, to do all sorts of jobs her children – including me – thought were embarrassing, just so we could eat.
She did anything and everything for other villagers – from washing their laundry in the Tina river to working in their fields. She sold firewood fetched from the forest and sold meat and vegetables we produced at home. I remember my sisters and I, not my brothers, going door to door, helping sell her stuff.
My mother is my hero. She taught me that women can stand alone and be strong. She managed to get training from the Centre for Early Childhood Development and opened the first preschool in our village. When she retired, she was a Grade R teacher at a neighbouring school, a great inspiration to me.
On her meagre salary and whatever my sister, Busiswa, who was a teacher, and brother Bonga, a truck driver at the time, could spare, they managed to send me to Border Technikon (now Walter Sisulu University) to study journalism. I can never thank my mother and siblings enough for their sacrifices.
I would never have been able to study further were it not for government’s financial aid scheme NSFAS (known as Tefsa then).
Thank God I have never gone a day without work in a decade now since graduating. After working as a journalist for the Sowetan, Sapa and City Press, it was time to return to my home province, because my husband Bongani was here.
Going home now, I am saddened to see there are still women in the same situation. I always try encourage them to strive for more.
It is not easy but we all have the ability to rise above our circumstances.
- Phumza Sokana-Ntongana is the Daily Dispatch’s digital editor
Rising above poverty and a ‘male-first’ culture
It was inconceivable that someone who went to a mud school, had to walk 3km up and down rocky hills with a 25-litre bucket full of water on her head every day and fetch firewood from a forest some 8km from home could today be in the position I am.
Growing up in abject poverty was awful. It greatly affects who one becomes. I did not know how, but I vowed I would get out of there, somehow.
I started my Sub A (Grade 1) at Dengwane Junior Secondary School in Mount Fletcher.
I was eight and school introduced me to things that were somewhat foreign. For one, we girls had to fetch fresh cow dung, which we used to wipe the floor (ukusinda) of our classrooms every Friday.
While we slaved away, the boys removed what little furniture we had to outside the classroom, and sometimes this too was done by us girls. They would then go off to play while we continued to clean.
That did not seem right. It was the first time I questioned the “different and better” treatment of boys. The “boys get it easier” theme continued at home. For everyday chores, all my two brothers did was fetch my father’s sheep and goats from the field before sunset, while my sisters joined me to fetch water, gather firewood, cook and clean.
This was all being a girl meant for me for years – hard labour with no reward, except perhaps that some man would notice what a hard worker a woman was and want to marry her. A concept I hated.
This was the norm in most homes in my poverty-ridden village and no one dared question it. I tried, and let’s just say it didn’t end very well for me. Life remained tough for many years – I studied under trees, I shared a classroom with two other grades.
For years I sat on crates, concrete blocks or on the floor, using my lap as a desk. I have gone to school on an empty stomach, with no hope of anything other than pap and cabbage or those tasteless soups with no vegetables on returning home.
During my high school years, I had to walk 10km to get to the nearest high school (and another 10km home) every day. Half that distance was through isolated mealie fields. How I was never attacked, I’ll never know.
I remember getting really angry with the situation on being caught in a hailstormin the middle of the mealie fields. Those small stones hit really hard. I remember the snow in winter, the extreme heat and thunderstorms in summer.
It was common for some of us to sit in class soaking wet the whole day after having been caught in the rain on our hike to school. Going to school barefoot or in worn-out, wrong size shoes was normal.
While my brothers were allowed to leave for the big cities to look for work after matric, we girls could not. And there were no funds for tertiary education. So, what does one do in Mount Fletcher with just matric? Nothing. And that is what I did for three years after matric.
My father Mbuzeli, who had been an ambulance driver, died while I was in high school and we then depended on my mother, MaGamede, to do all sorts of jobs her children – including me – thought were embarrassing, just so we could eat.
She did anything and everything for other villagers – from washing their laundry in the Tina river to working in their fields. She sold firewood fetched from the forest and sold meat and vegetables we produced at home. I remember my sisters and I, not my brothers, going door to door, helping sell her stuff.
My mother is my hero. She taught me that women can stand alone and be strong. She managed to get training from the Centre for Early Childhood Development and opened the first preschool in our village. When she retired, she was a Grade R teacher at a neighbouring school, a great inspiration to me.
On her meagre salary and whatever my sister, Busiswa, who was a teacher, and brother Bonga, a truck driver at the time, could spare, they managed to send me to Border Technikon (now Walter Sisulu University) to study journalism. I can never thank my mother and siblings enough for their sacrifices.
I would never have been able to study further were it not for government’s financial aid scheme NSFAS (known as Tefsa then).
Thank God I have never gone a day without work in a decade now since graduating. After working as a journalist for the Sowetan, Sapa and City Press, it was time to return to my home province, because my husband Bongani was here.
Going home now, I am saddened to see there are still women in the same situation. I always try encourage them to strive for more.
It is not easy but we all have the ability to rise above our circumstances.
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