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FLARDE-Marilize Hobbs(Eng version)
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The social workerI grew up behind the counter of Mawethu Butchery & General Dealers, where we are
everything and more that sold. This is what I remember first: cockroaches scurrying
across the cement floor, the smell of dust, incense, oil cans and pap & tshotlho cooking
on the gas stove.
MAMA MINOTO IS a terribly fat woman. Then she said at my brother's double doors As
Mawethu Butchery & General Dealers enter, it gets dark inside - as if a thick thunder
cloud move in before the sun. She wobbled from one plump leg to the other and stood
under the ceiling fan with her arms on the hips, allowing her tickles to cool. Then she
considered the butchery with two sharp chicken eyes that flutter and toll in her head.
She greets loudly: "Dumelang Bagaetsho!" and tell Liesbet behind the big saw to bring
her a glass of water out of the fridge. Her voice is slightly hoarse, but it carries vé-é-é-r,
so the customers who hang out outside also greeting with an “A Gea”. She dropped into
one of the white plastic chairs and emptied the glass with one tug, holding it ahead of
her, so Liesbet hurriedly drew near to pour. There are drops of water to her chin. She
scratches her bodice for a fur striped handkerchief and wipes her face. She sweeps
clockwise from left to right; from ear to ear. Then she lifted her head back and wiped the
sweat in the folds under her chin. As if she did seeing me for the first time, she turned
her head to me. “Ah, Mosadiotsile! Who clean? ” I shrug my shoulders, shake my head:
"Quiet Hela, Mma Minoto!" I smile in her direction. “Ok nothing to say, you. Ok always
just quiet whole. " She pulled her skirt down over her knees. Then she turns her body
and with it the chair inside me direction, point to the fridge with the chicken legs: “Ke
batlha runaways. Lots of bags, just right ten. I still get a special price, right? ” I'm in for a
fever search this morning, I know she can handle it. We walk the Ganyesa road for a
long time together. "The runaways took the road," I say, counting the one -cent, two-cent
and five cents in piles on the counter. “Oh my gosh ... I could have been your
grandmother. One does not make games with an adult not! ” She got up and went to
look in the fridge. “Here lay suits full of minoto, Sadi! You shouldn't for me don't lie! ”
"How much are you taking today?" I ask. “I'm looking for them all - all ten suits. And just
add ten chicken spices to me - the fivebob kind; I don't petition seventy cents for it - I'm
a special customer. " I'm going to fetch a box in storage; we count the packs of chicken
legs and I put the chicken spices on top. She gives me a bank bag full of one -edged,
fifty and twenty cents. Also shake it loose and start counting, making piles and giving
her the remaining money. She peeks into the box: "Where's my tambourine leaf wax?"
"But you didn't ask for it," I say. "I don't have to ask for it, it always runs with the minoto.
One can also see you does not work here; stand around here and know nothing about
nothing! Where's your brother, I'd rather business with him. ” “He didn't ask me to come
and help lunch soon. He's back now and again. " I take a roll of foliage behind me off
the shelf and say, "That's three rand fifty," I say, holding out my hand for the money. "Is
not. It's my pasella leaving me to do good business here. ” “Mma, I just can't give you
the goods; it's not my shop. I'm going into the trouble comes that way. ” “Give me a
tweak as I walk. I always take a nap when I walk, but ask the people, ask Liesbet, ask
for Kedibone ... They know how it works. ” I give her the role of twak. “It's two o 'clock,
you better go back to your offices. People are already looking for you by now. And just
give me a lift up there, what. " Yes, my lunch time is over. I take my keys and my bag
and we drive to the clinic's side. By the turn off to Mmagabui I download her: Mama
Minoto with the ten bags of chicken legs.
August 2000 The wind blows her into the social office door. Papers flutter in all
directions, so I have to stretch my arms across the desk to turn that it blows away. Only
then do I look up. Her look is in my eyes: through my glasses. "The old man is dead,"
she says. "Last night." I remain silent. The silence fills the room. Even the tap in the
back of my office stops dripping. The sounds from the outside become dull. The silence
,hangs over us like a layer of dust. As if we were working on a to keep a secret, as if the
wind had brought in and left the secret here so we could have to deal with it. Mama
Minoto and I and the child standing next to her. “I come to ask for a box. We need to
give him a decent burial knife. He must rest. I will let him not bother us any further. ”
Only then does she sit. But the child remains standing. “Hoseame. That's right, ”I say,
searching the papers for a Paupers' Funeral Form. "I'll make the report, then the family
can get the coffin from Phatsima on Friday. It will be at the be mo rtuary, okay? "
Family name: Tlhale / Dipeko
Address: House no. A23, Mmagabui Village
Circumstances around death: Mr. Dipeko had been ill for some time and was at home
died.
I ask her, “How is he dead? What happened?" "The bad burned him out ..." "How did he
die?" I repeat. “I have to write it; look, here on the paper ... ”and I lift it so she can see. "He
had to die, everyone died. It was time. I say - the bad has his heart burned out. " I'll leave it
there. It's not going to help caress. She's not going to tell me anything. He was sick; he is
dead. Everyone dies, eventually. I fill in further:
Socio-economic circumstances: The applicant for assistance is a foster mother and received
a monthly allowance for one child. She also sells chicken legs as extra income. The guy
husband was a pensioner. Family members uninvolved in the matter. Will have no financial
help from them don't get it.
Recommendation: In the light of the above, the social worker makes the recommendation
that the state provides a coffin to Me. Tlhale, so that a community member / neighbor (Mr.
Dipeko) can be buried.
“Emmapele just a little bit, Mma. I'm going to have someone sign here so we can have the
coffin for you get, okay? " I say, take the form and go find someone who can give a
signature. Back at my office, I reassure her that everything is all right; she can get the coffin
Friday. She stands heavy and holding her stick firmly in one hand, pressing on the desk with
the other hand. When did she suddenly grow old? But I don't ask her any further.
"Keaoleboga," she said, pressing her hand against her chest. “Hoseame, Mma. That's my
job, after all. ” She rested her hand on the child's shoulder and motioned for him to walk. He
took her other hand and they walked out together. I notice that she hands connected,
roughly, with old bandages. "Emmapele, Mma," I stop before walking. She turned around.
"The child's hands?" "He didn't play by the fire," she says. "Children, of course." “You have
to take him to the clinic. Wait, let me make a letter so you can see the doctor. " I write
quickly. A short message for Ivan, the Cuban doctor, to get to the child's hands look - then I
move the letter across the table and she takes it. “I want you to come back when you have
already been to the doctor. A little later when the office is quiet; we need to talk, Mma. "
When I return from lunch, they are already waiting under the trees in front of my office. I
close open and invite them. She walks on the stick beforehand, but straight. And strong. She
sits down and I move my chair around the desk so nothing stands between us. I sit right
opposite her with the child leaning against her. He looks at me, but he doesn't look at me
either. Maybe he sees something about me looking shoulder? “Mama Minoto, we need to
talk about this stuff. Please. Boang. ” She rubbed the sweat off her face, playing with the
handkerchief in her lap. I am waiting. She does throat clean, rub over the child's head. Take
his chin in her hands so he turns his face towards her turn "How long have you known me?"
she asked.
“Last year somewhere,” I reply. "Longer than a year."
"And you sat at my house and we had coffee."
I nod.
“And you didn't help me take care of the child. You didn't come to my yard and you didn't
report
made. We were with the magistrate together. ”
I nod again.
,“You were stupid when you came here. You didn't know anything either. Nothing about our
people. But
you didn't help me ... The first time I came here you didn't understand anything. You don't
words read from pampiers. I helped you with seTswana and I got you a name
gave. A new name. "
“Ebay, Mma. I know."
“Now you have to listen. I'm going to tell you. You have to listen. You need to know. I want
you to
know, of the child, Kabelo, and of me. If I die too, then you have to take care of the child
taken care of. Do you hear me? "
I try to check her eyes. But I look in muddy waters.
“Boang, Mma. I want to hear you. "
I listen as she talks, with the child first curled up at her side, later at her feet, in a
deep sleep. Her voice is a frog that cackles: a huge frog in a leathery skin. A frog that
seemingly sitting quietly and then jumping off to annoy thoughts that flutter past like flies
catch. To stop. So that a whole is also formed in my mind. So I look away.
Past Mama Minoto, past the Silence-is-Violence poster on the wall in my office, past
the outbuildings, past the scrapyard outside Ganyesa, up the dust path, past the
camel thorn tree at the exit to Mmagabui.
When Mama Minoto left my office, sometime after jail time, I took off my glasses and rubbed
my eyes
who is suddenly so tired of looking deeper into man. I get up from my desk, call
the mortuary at the hospital to make sure a coffin will be available. Then I close
the office.
I'm walking.
I walk past the Social Security offices, where there are still a few pension applicants
hanging around, where women with babies lay on their breasts under the trees. I walk
around the clinic
at the gates, across the road in the direction of the Frylincks shop.
I walk with my heart knocking everything out of my heart. I walk with my mind like
which I went on a walk with Nero in his childhood when he went crazy with joy and
barking at my heels, running forward and turning to see if I was still following his trail.
So I walk with my mind barking in my head.
, Mama Minoto - the chicken leg woman
This morning I knew with the first sunlight over the yard that I would be the one who did
must tell. That it would be me who would ask for the box to be able to have Oneboy Dipeko
put away - as deep and far as possible. I knew this about the way the family lived
little ones with coffee sent to my place. The coffee was sweet, with plenty of milk - not even
goat's milk, but fresh cow's milk. I saw it in their dog eyes and the zeal
with which they asked if the coffee is sweet and strong enough. I knew it, though
no one asked me.
Then I walked over and I told them, “We'll have to put him to the ground. We'll call him a
should give proper burial knives. I'll go. And I take the child with me. ”
They were just sitting there in the kitchen; black Ace coffee in their mugs; certainly without
sugar. I could see how my words went bitter in their heads, but I also knew how
sweet it falls into their pens. How sweet to know that it doesn't have to be one of them.
It was Mmaserame who took the edge out of her bodice and gave it to me. "Go
buy for you and the child tshotlho at Mmawethu Butchery. Go talk to the man there; ask
book him for meat on Saturday, tell him I, Mmaserame, will come and settle with him after
retirement day ... ”
"Hoseame," I said, as if we were talking to each other like that every day.
I went to wake Kabelo so I could wash him for the road. I have one of those
sent other children with the bucket to fetch us water and told another to
to get the fire going.
One by one, I did my morning things like every day. When the water boils, I have Kabelo
washed. I rubbed the green Sunlight in his head and body and the excess water over him
thrown out.
Then I removed the bandages and gently cleaned his hands and Fryer's again
Balsam applied. He didn't stop me. I sent one of the others to the Vaseline
and then I rubbed him brightly: Let no one ever say I don't take care of the child.
Kabelo waited quietly while I was myself, preparing for the road. Old Oneboy has
always said the child has the silence of a thief to him. He treads softly like a thief, he leaves
no traces
no. He was going to be another majero, this one, then he shook his head and pointed to
Kabelo. Bonna: look
his eyes, he's already a tsotsi. Then I also stay quiet. Who could ever argue with Oneboy?
One can
don't talk to a box of Kalahari beer. Beer hears nothing.
I do my morning good as always and I always think: What am I going to say to the woman?
And
all the time I gently sing in my head: "Didi Mala, Bana ..." Sleep softly, child. Sleep softly.
The guy
man is dead.
We took the old footpath, trampled by the feet of many goats, cattle and sheep.
We walked slowly as the sun burnt our souls; me, and the child who breaks away from us
walking together and running far ahead, turning around and standing still, waiting for me to
come with my lame legs.
Along the way we met people on a donkey cart, also on the way to Ganyesa. They salute
me: "Dumelang, Mma" and we greet them back. And they ask me if the old man is still there
and I say
no, he is no more. He left last night. And the tears of good manners, the question what
everyone always asks when someone dies: "What happened?" I answered, because one
has to
"He became ashes. He's back to his people. " And they shake their heads, they sigh;
promise that they will come Saturday for the funeral knife and the food.
As we walked, a great whirlwind caught fire and I had to eat ground. All death
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