Dancing to the beat of her own drum
READING is a key that unlocks a myriad doors of experiences, fantasy, imagination, knowledge and inspiration that we often take completely for granted, until confronted by the harsh reality of someone who has been shut out, excluded, denied access to the power and pleasure that reading and writing offers.
Actress and motivational speaker Regina Mary Ndlovu spent 12 years at school – at a private primary school, Sun base, in Zambia and at a public high school, Elethu Themba, in Eikenhof in South Africa – but ended up not being able to read a word.
Regina was born with albinism, which is a defect in the gene responsible for producing melanin, the pigment that gives human skin, hair, and eyes its colour.
The absence of melanin production results in impaired and weak eyesight, as well as very pale skin and hair.
At the time of Regina’s birth in 1989, there was great ignorance from medical staff and the community about albinism. After her birth, the nurse asked her mother “if the father was a white man”.
Her parents loved her and treated her like a normal child, but she was bullied and teased about her pale skin colour when she went to school.
Children would spit into their shirts when she walked past, a superstitious practice falsely believed to prevent themselves having a child born with albinism
Teachers failed to pick up that her shortsightedness meant she could not see the blackboard.
She recalls: “When I said, ‘Mam, I cannot see’, the teacher told me to stop disturbing the class”.
Teachers told her mother she was slow and should be put in a school for special needs, but her mother believed that as long as she worked hard to pay for her daughter to be in a private school, the teachers would take care of her.
This was not the case as the teachers were ignorant and intolerant. Regina says parents need to be more vigilant as they entrust too much in the hands of teachers who often diminish and damage children’s spirits, as opposed to nurturing them.
Regina was also traumatised by prejudice and stigmatisation towards her because of the way she looked.
She was sexually abused by adults twice by the time she turned 12. A pall of shame and frustration shadowed her because she was silenced and not able to voice her anger at this abuse, as well as not being able to read and write like the other children at school.
This abuse and negativity took its toll and Regina attempted suicide several times. At the age of 17, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for two weeks as she was seen as a danger to society.
Determined to become an actress and have a voice, Regina Mary developed a keen ear and memorised information she heard and taught herself to recognise words from watching English subtitles on music videos.
She joined the Duma Ndlovu Academy at the Joburg Theatre and created and acted in her autobiographical play, titled Mary, Mary, Mary, My Voice.
She met seasoned actress Pamela Nomvete through the theatre and plucked up the courage to admit she could not read. Nomvete encouraged her to take up literacy classes. Serendipitously, a member of the audience at her play introduced her to engineering company Jones and Wagner, who were offering bursaries at the time.
Regina convinced the bursary panel to sponsor her to learn how to read and write after opening up and telling her story.
At the age of 26, Regina was booked into a lodge in Rustenburg for four days a week with a personal tutor who continued teaching Regina even after the bursary was used up.
Finally holding that precious key of reading changed Regina’s life. “It gave me a purpose in life.”
That purpose led Regina to assist children in her group Dyamite Dynamic Explosion which she runs from her garage in Ennerdale, south of Johannesburg.
Her aim is to assist children who like her are not heard, teaching them to find their self-worth, voice and identity.
Now that she has the precious key to access the wider world that books offer, the one book that Regina is dying to read is the autobiography of her mentor Nomvete – Dancing to the Beat of the Drum.
Regina can be contacted at 071-465-3732 for motivational talks at schools.
For more information about the Nal’ibali, as well as reading tips and stories in a range of South African languages, visit www.nalibali.org, www.nalibali.mobi or find them on Facebook and Twitter: nalibaliSA.