SIS' PINKIE PUTS HER FOOT DOWN, AND THE PEDI PODIATRIST IS ALL EARS
Tessa Dowling

The Sunday Independent
February 10 2008

Sis' Pinkie's toes were the toast of Mzoli's. Grown men with paunches and polygamous marriages (Xhosa, Zulu: isithembu) were known to forsake all others just for a glimpse of those desirable digits. A lesbian from Liechtenstein had once lost her heart to Pinkie's handsome hallux (from Latin allus, thumb, and hallex, big toe). Before going home to that little principality, Pinkie's admirer had taken photographs of each one of those titillating toes and earned herself a PhD in photography because of it. The title of her exhibition was, "Unyawo lomfazi luhle, olwendoda aluhlanga," which, in Xhosa, literally means, "The foot of a woman is beautiful, that of a man is not beautiful." And it's also a figure of speech meaning that men sleep around a lot and women don't.

Ah yes, we can argue lekker about the truth of that claim, but let's rather get back to the seductive powers of Sis' Pinkie's maoto (Sotho, Pedi: feet/legs). Even mean Bra Mali once bought her a drink because she had let him slip a toe-ring off her elegantly arched middle toe. As Bra X said, "We are not under her thumb, but under her toe."

So you can imagine her (and our) huge distress when, one night, sitting outside with gas lights because there was fokol (Xhosa and Afrikaans slang: no) electricity, an umbrella stand was toppled over by the raging, undisciplined south-easter, and landed on Sis' Pinkie's famous foot. She was wearing zichops (Xhosa: elegant, high-heeled shoes) which showed off her erogenous extremities to their best effect.

Large Luyanda, whose toes seemed to have been thrown onto her feet by a passer-by and just left there to take root, leapt up and removed the concrete slab with a hand that had once slapped her cheating boyfriend so hard he had landed up in the outpatients eJosta (G F Jooste Hospital, Manenberg).

"Yhu, yhu, yhu, yhu, iinzwane zam! Iinzwane zam! (Xhosa: Oh, oh, oh, oh, my toes! My toes!)" yelped Sis' Pinkie, hobbling around like an old woman in a pension queue.

Her desperate cries reached the ears of Madira, a young and passionate Pedi podiatrist. "Shame, what is wrong with that woman's foot?" he asked. And then he listed a series of possible foot complaints, all in perfect Pedi:

"Is it sefolane (foot problems associated with stepping on "[deliberately] placed" medicines [ie, muti]), tshehlomonwana (athlete's foot) or dikhonse (bunions on feet)? Or could it possibly be, generically, bolwetsi bja maoto (any disease affecting the feet)?" He rushed up to her, knelt down and gently cupped her now swollen, bruised foot in his hands. Even in their mangled, buhlungu (Xhosa: sore) state, Sis' Pinkie's pinkies were still outstandingly pretty.

Sis' Pinkie squinted, and through her pain, her eyes honed in on Madira's perfectly formed iindlebe (Xhosa, Zulu: ears) or ditsebe (Pedi, Sotho, Tswana: ears). For the truth was, that while everyone was seduced by her phenomenal phalanges, the body part that could make Sis' Pinkie xhungu (Xhosa: frightened by love) was an ear. Not any old ear. But a perfectly formed, exquisitely crafted, male ear. She hadn't told anyone this secret because, let's face it, she didn't want men to start looking at women's ears instead of their toes. It might make getting a free drink a little less easy. But Madira's ears, beautifully soft, yet at the same time firm, made her gasp with admiration. "Yhu, iindlebe zakho ziyandibulala! (Xhosa: Wow! Your ears are killing me!)"

"What?" Madira's Xhosa was not that good and he looked a little confused, "Who is killing this beautiful woman? Huh? Just let me know, and I will kill THEM!" After gently placing Sis' Pinkie's foot back on the ground, he rolled up his sleeves manfully and wrinkled his nose as if ready for a fight.

"No, no, no, no, bhuti." Bra X came to his rescue. "What she means is that she loves your ears. She is besozzled by them."

"Besotted," corrected Sis' Luyanda, bored by the proceedings and wondering whether anything really exciting would happen while she went to the loo to have a pee.

"Owuukeeyi." Madira drew the word out slowly, to indicate that now he realized the happy truth. He smiled, sat down next to Pinkie and again held her foot in his hands. "You know, I work with feet every day, and seldom have I seen such beautiful specimens."

There was a hush, as everyone gathered round to watch the romance unfold, Madira stroking Sis' Pinkie's toes, and Sis' Pinkie gently caressing Madira's lobes. "Kungcono kunokujonga iBold. (Xhosa: This is better than watching The Bold and the Beautiful.)" This was young Asekho, to whom romance was everything. She folded her arms comfortably and stared at the two lovers. "Eish, Asekho, take that soapy look off your face!" laughed Bra X. "Soppy, soppy - the word is 'soppy'!" hissed large Luyanda, coming back from the toilets. To her, romance meant absolutely fokol and her stock phrase was, "Kungabakho ingxaki, kukho indoda. (Xhosa: if there's a problem, there's bound to be a man.)"

As a fellow in touch with his emotions, Madira sighed blissfully, "Ke itumetse. Ke tlhagafetse. (Pedi: I am happy. I am excited.)" Then, he whispered to Sis' Pinkie, showing off the one Xhosa word he knew, "Let's have a little udliwano-ndlebe (Xhosa: literally: an eating-together-of-ears; figuratively: a chat/interview between two people).

And as a woman who had met a man with perfect ears, irresistible charm AND a job - she wasn't quite sure what, but something to do with iinyawo (Xhosa, Zulu: feet) - Sis' Pinkie was as happy as a woman with a man's ear. A rare thing indeed.

Tessa Dowling is a director of African Voices, a company that produces multimedia materials for the teaching and learning of African languages. She is saving up for a bunion op. She got the information on Pedi foot ailments from the article "Lay prototypes of illness among a Northern Sotho Community in South Africa" by Karl Peltzer, Sheila Mmusi, Motlatso Phaswana and Titus Misi, in Social Behaviour and Personality, 2006, 34(6), 701-710.