Culture shock
The ancestors and the white makoti
It was a historical improbability that my new white girlfriend would be introduced to my family. For three long years I kept my family in the dark and fed them on manure, like mushrooms, until our daughter was born in 2004. Suddenly, the matter of the official introduction became rather a necessity. My younger sister had known about my liaison with my white girlfriend from the beginning and had decided against spilling the beans. I have no clue about her reasons; I had not asked her to draw a veil of secrecy.
In reality, I had had many girlfriends, and none of them were lucky enough to be introduced to my family. As far as my family was concerned, I might have remained a virgin well into my thirties. I always found the girlfriend introduction thingy quite daunting. I had tried to avoid it like the plague. So, to prepare for my maiden girlfriend introduction, I phoned my mom and explained that I was bringing her a potential bride (makoti). For the whole conversation, I was in a state of panic: I was finally going to break new ground. Yet my mom was over the moon. I edited out all the finer details, such as that she was white and that we had already had a child. I was a nervous wreck. I had never been on this journey before.
Apparently, introducing your significant other to your family is a big deal. It sends a message that your relationship is serious. And it may mean that the relationship is due, and ready for, an upgrade.
According to the Gentleman’s Journal, this “meeting” will be more terrifying for you than anything you have ever dealt with in the boardroom: worse than the day you had to make your personal assistant redundant, or when the stock exchange plummeted and you found yourself in a pool of piranhas, asking you to save the entire company. “Quite frankly, gentlemen, this will test you more than anything you have ever done before,” the Journal writes.
It did test my resolve. A million questions raced through my head. What if someone in the family found our dalliance offensive and couldn’t hide it? I even imagined my father going off on a tangent, cursing me all over again.
Confounding the problem was that I hadn’t made up my mind about the future with my girlfriend. I was living in the moment and it felt good. In my mind, she had to spend at least six years as my girlfriend before there could be any talk of an upgrade. Yes, six years, because my only other long-term relationship had died at five. I wasn’t convinced that any of my relationships would last longer than that. If one did, it meant (so I reasoned) that we were meant to be together. But, I digress.
Animal slaughter
The moment of truth arrived sooner than we imagined. I had prepared my girlfriend for the worst. In my briefing, I told her that my family were very conservative Zulus who swore by the ancestors. I told her that they believed in animal slaughter on the slightest provocation to appease the ancestors. I made it clear that if they decided to slaughter an animal to welcome her, I couldn’t stop them. As you know, my girlfriend has always been averse to killing animals.
I disclosed that, politically speaking, we were also at odds, as both my parents belong to the Inkatha Freedom Party. I warned her that my father had threatened to disown us as youngsters if we voted for the ANC.
Now, this titbit about politics was important, as we were both enthusiastic ANC members. I also made it known that I was not quite my father’s favourite son — that we had fallen out in 1993, when I refused to join the police department of the KwaZulu Bantustan government. My father had walked out of his own house after I made it clear that I was headed for Durban to further my tertiary studies.
Besides, we had been further estranged since 2006, when my psychologist asked me to “kill” my father to overcome my depression, the malady of the Mncube family. So, I considered myself fatherless. Again, I digress.
Anyway, as a form of insurance, I asked my younger sister to be present at the official white-girlfriend introduction. At least my girlfriend would see a familiar face and have someone to converse with in English. Not only is my girlfriend white, but she speaks no Zulu. This language barrier was huge in that, as a new daughter-inlaw, one must make a lasting first impression. How on earth do you make an impression if you can’t khuluma (talk)? At least I didn’t have to worry about her speaking out of turn.
I wasn’t sure how my family would react to seeing a white daughter-in-law. I didn’t know how to prepare them for this eventuality, so I sprang a surprise on them.
In the penultimate stages of our preparations, we had to resolve the issue of the dress code. My father forbids women from wearing pants. In any event, my family tradition dictates that a daughter-in-law has to cover up, including wearing a doek. So I bought her a stylish, Xhosainspired dress that covered everything, as my parents preferred, but she refused to wear a doek to cover her hair.
She was known to my family
We arrived, as planned, on a Saturday afternoon. We alighted from the car, a familiar-looking woman emerging, holding a baby. Surprise number one: she was white. Surprise number two: she was known to my family as an academic who had taught my late brother. She had, on two occasions, seen both my parents in the flesh — at my brother’s funeral, and at the awarding of his posthumous honours degree. Surprise number three: there was a baby. My daughter was six weeks old at the time.
We started to approach the family homestead, my mother and other family members standing outside one of the huts to welcome us. From my vantage point, I could discern a sense of both disbelief and sheer wonder. But there was still tension in the air — unsurprising, given the magnitude of the occasion. My mother blurted out words of of burning impepho, a plant offering to the spirits of the departed. It opens communication with the ancestors and makes any request, report or sacrifice acceptable. It is normally a precursor to ukuthetha idlozi. I couldn’t have cared less: I was just happy to hear my father say the words, ‘uBhekisisa is now married’. So, dear reader, it has come to pass that my proverbial English wife, Professor D, is now officially united with my Zulu ancestors. By all accounts, the message to the ancestors was accepted. In simple terms, it means my wife has been accepted as a makoti by the Mncube clan after the official reportage to amadlozi. This despite the fact that there was no sacrificial slaughter of a beast and subsequent traditional wedding. As my father has relented and introduced my wife to the amadlozi, it means she is officially regarded as a daughter of the Mncube clan. She can now milk the cows, cook the food and basically be sent on errands by my family as a duly wedded wife. Sadly, in reality, this means that there are zero prospects for any further wedding ceremonies.” — Excerpt from ‘The Love Diary of a Zulu Boy’, by Bhekisisa Mncube joy. She ululated, sang and danced, as she is wont to do when exciting events occur. But she was the only happy chappy in the whole group. She even managed to hold our daughter in her arms; in the picture, though, it looks like she is in a precarious position. To this day, my daughter complains that my mother was holding her like a pocket of potatoes.
My father stood there motionless, looking perplexed. My siblings still had to process the atmosphere, so their faces were expressionless. This was new to all of us. I had brought a white woman into a black Zulu family. I am told my grandparents had had run-ins with white people during colonial times. Possibly, some ancestors had died believing that white people were their enemies. Who could blame them? But, she is here now — holding out the hand of friendship and saying she wants to join this Zulu family.
The whole scene resembled a speed session of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In a split second, my girlfriend had to make an imaginary confession before my family that she had no apartheid skeletons in her closet so that she could receive an instant pardon.
In retrospect, I think she did receive an instant pardon. There were more words spoken in those silent moments than have been uttered since. As the shock of the moment subsided, we were ushered into the family home.
Some funny language
But not before my father caused a drama to unfold. You see, for many years my father boasted that he spoke better English than the rest of us educated children. We all expected my father to make good on his promise and speak his better English to my white girlfriend.
Without any prior discussions, all my siblings were awaiting my father’s bombshell. It came; he didn’t disappoint. He looked my girlfriend in the eye and said, in some funny language later believed to be Fanakalo (a workplace lingua franca in South Africa for over a hundred years): “We na thanda lakhaya”, loosely translated as meaning: “You love somebody in this household”.
In unison, we burst out laughing until we cried tears of joy. My girlfriend was unperturbed by our laughter as my father continued: “Mina cela imali khismuzi”, loosely translated as, “May I have money for Christmas?” Although it was early December, my father had the whole Christmas theme running at full speed. We launched into a second frenzy of laughter, and I am sure someone was rolling on the floor.
Our day was made. Most important, my father had broken the ice. My girlfriend stood there, grinning from ear to ear. She understood nothing and probably wished the whole circus would leave town soon, longing for a moment of silence to reflect on her new journey into the world of the unknown.
Soon thereafter, my mother was on my case. She complained bitterly that I hadn’t let them know that I was bringing someone they already knew. She wanted to know why I had kept it a secret for so long. She went on singing the praises of my white girlfriend as if they had grown up together. She couldn’t stop telling me how lucky I was to be with her.
But she reserved her venom for my sister, who had admitted earlier that she had known about our liaison for three years. She cursed my sister, saying her chest would one day swell with secrets. We all laughed it off. I didn’t quite have answers for my mother’s barrage of questions. I sensed that she just wanted to get it off her chest, rather than wanting answers. So I told her to be happy now that she had another granddaughter. Indeed, she was thrilled.
By the time we arrived, cooking had already started. The funny thing is that I had told my family that their new daughter-in-law ate vegetables only. Not only had they met a white woman, but one who eats cheap food, or so the line of thought went. I think they prepared uphuthu and beans for her; obviously there was chicken for the whole family.
While we had prepared mentally, and my family seemed to have reacted positively, we had forgotten to factor in the rest of the community. News spread like wildfire that there was a white girlfriend in the neighbourhood. We were all ill-prepared for the whispers and gossipmongers.
Neighbours came to see
Suddenly, our house became like a shrine. One after the other, neighbours came to see for themselves that there was, indeed, a white makoti (bride). It didn’t help that my father took me to a group of men who were seated under the big tree drinking umqombothi (maize beer) and told them: “This son of mine has a white girlfriend, a real mlungu (the colloquial Zulu term for a white person), not painted.” There was a sense of pride and joy in his voice. To him, this was, by any measure, an achievement worth celebrating.
However, the language barrier played havoc with the visitors and potential gossipmongers. It worked in our favour, as all conversations were understandably kept short and sweet. They would enter the house where we were seated in high spirits, and then English, dololo (slang for not knowing anything or getting nothing). At the time, my girlfriend, in her heavy Durban North English accent, could utter only three Zulu words: “Sawubona. Mina ngiyaphila”. Loosely translated, this means, “Hi. I am fine”. Luckily, most conversations ended at the greeting stage, with visitors mumbling something along the lines of, “Welcome to our neighbourhood”.
I utterly refused to play interpreter. This suited us just fine, as we were not prepared for long, drawn-out conversations about nothing.
The weekend went by too fast, and without a hitch. When we waved everyone goodbye and drove off, back to Durban, I felt relief.
The nightmare was over.
I made it clear that if they decided to slaughter an animal to welcome her, I couldn’t stop them. As you know, my girlfriend has always been averse to killing animals