|
PRINT MEDIA ARTICLES
TEA BAGS, KISSING KNEES, AMA-REVERSE AND MAIZE STALKS - CELEBRATING THE BODY BEAUTIFUL KWAMZOLI Tessa Dowling
The Sunday Independent Most of us here kwaMzoli have i-shoes (issues) with our bodies. Sis' Aseza, for example, has a perfect size 10 figure but hates her boobs. She clutches them as if she were Trinny and Susannah and sighs, "Ndine-tea bags, sana-zi-empty!" (Xhosa: I have tea bags, babe - they're empty!) Ta'Andile, who has such long eyelashes they sometimes get tangled up when he blinks, wishes his calves were plumper "Eish, ndinemicondo!" (Xhosa: I have legs that are thin from the hip to the ankle.) Sis' Dudu is the owner of wonderful, cheeky little breasts that Bra V says "akhomb' utitshala" (Xhosa: point enticingly at the teacher), but she can't stand her knock knees: "Ndinekhis-madolo." (Xhosa slang: I have kissing knees.) "When I was young," she would say, stretching out her sweet, plump, slightly inward turned knees, "I lacked vitamin D. So I got rickets - now my nickname is Magwegwe!" (Xhosa: izigweqe = bow legs). She regularly has conversations about the benefits of oily fish with anyone who wants to hear, but shame, no one really does. "Whu, uDudu, uyasibora nge-oily fish what what whatever" (Xhosa: Dudu bores us with her oily fish what-what-whatever), hisses Sis' Lulu, who prefers a diet rich in fermented grape and conversations mainly about her own wonderousness. Gorgeous Liyanda, with the sparkly smile, deep, throaty laugh and undulating isipika (township slang: [loud]speakers = hips), describes her stomach as inteshe (Xhosa: bulging stomach), but young Asekho would rather have iziphejeje (township lang: love-handles) than constantly be referred to as iCD (township slang: thin person). One day she confided in me that she had heard a group of young men refer to her as isiphorho esihambayo (Xhosa: a walking ghost). "I was so damn cross I asked my late grandfather, who had been a very nqinile (Xhosa: emaciated) somebody, to haunt those rubbish tsotsis!" "And did he?" we all asked. "Of course!" she winked, "Now those same tsotsis call me intombi enhle (Zulu: beautiful girl). The only person entirely satisfied with his physical form is Bra X. Most people have a photograph of a toddler or loved one on their key rings, but Bra X keeps a photo of himself in full tribal regalia. "Look at that!" he likes to say after a couple of drinks and just after being rejected by a woman, "Jus' look at that! Ndim lo! Yindoda ndo!" (Xhosa: That's me! He is a real man!) The fact that he has imiphurhu (Xhosa: maize stalks) for legs doesn't bother him. All he sees are his absolutely amazing abs (when he sucks in) - "Ndine-six pack!" (Xhosa: I have a six pack!) - and his arms as strong as Popeye's - "Ndinezigalo!" (Xhosa: I have muscles!). So of course it was Bra X who called for a Miss and Mr Mzoli's beauty pageant. "Disgusting!" declared Dikeledi, our Sotho cynic, "Beauty competitions are just cattle markets!" "Cattle in our African culture are very much important." Bra X's retort was sharp and well rehearsed. "Whereby ... (whereby = a favourite Black South African conjunction used to open a sentence whereby you have no idea why) ... my father, he used to praise his cattle, he knew each cattle's name and he would cry when one of them died." He sniffed sadly and seemed about to launch into the praises of one of his favourite (late) oxen, when Madira, the Pedi podiatrist, stopped him in his tracks. "Ema rra! (Northern Sotho: Wait, father!) It is fine, let us have this competition, so long as it is not a totally Western notion of beauty we are using as our goalpost." "Exactl'!" agreed his beloved, Sis' Pinkie, who was already drafting an advertisement for the event. It went something like this:
O botse? Umhle? O motle? (Northern Sotho, Xhosa and Sotho: Are you beautiful?) Then come and
We want to see you dressed your best. Pliz (township spelling: please) don't wear fongkong (= from Hong Kong = poor quality clothes) but Eish, you won't believe, you won't BE-lieve how many batho (Sotho: people) pitched up on the day of that beauty competition. You could hardly move for the oo-queen namabhujwa (township slang: smartly dressed women and men). The amahum-hum (Xhosa: excited buzz of an animated crowd) got louder and louder as the contestants waited behind a curtain made out of an old tablecloth. Mamthembu, the cleaner, always concerned about practicalities, muttered under her breath as she mopped the tables with a ragged pair of underpants (quite possibly Bra X's). "What about iilevi (township slang: toilets)?" There were only two and she knew that after all the drinking that would go on everyone would be rushing for the indlu yangasese (Xhosa: house of secret = toilet), boithomelo, ntlwana (Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho: toilet). Her grumblings were drowned out by Bra X announcing, on a crackly microphone, "We are having this show to celibate, I mean celebrate, African beauty, in all its colours, shapes and sizes." And I can tell you we saw them all that day - oolangwana (township slang: tall people) ooshuta (short people), oofets (fat people) neeCD (thin people). Bra X wrote furiously in his little notebook for each contestant. Just when we thought we had seen the last person, there was a high pitched ululation and Bra X himself entered, wearing a few animal skins and a very happy expression on his face. After praising himself loudly, he declared himself the winner and asked a German tourist to take a photo of him clutching the prettiest contestant around the waist. "Hayi, voetsek!"(township slang: No, get lost!) was the general feeling, and there was a call for a rerun, which Bra X reluctantly agreed to. (But it might only be in a year's time.) In the meantime, Bra X is the most beautiful man at Mzoli's. Ask him. He'll tell you. Tessa Dowling is a director of African Voices, a multimedia development company that produces materials for the learning of South Africa's African languages. She has never won a beauty competition but is constantly assured that she has a wonderful personality.
|