Today I wore what I wore on the first day. I think I'll have to chop and change like that. I woke up feeling unmotivated to get dressed and head to the outside world. This got me thinking as to how greatful we as the children of another time, to have been born into a different mindset. Remember, the society in which you occupy determines the way in which your mind thinks and processes what it belives to be normal and abnormal. I'm so greatful to have been born and brought up with that different mindset and being given the opportunity to express myself in which ever way I wish. Whether it be through clothing, music, writing, whichever. I'm just feeling really greatful today.
It's funny how everyday is so different. Everyday I feel different. Every day I make a new realisation and conclusion. Today I feel better. My skirt and head wrap seem to be working well together. I leave res with much more confidence in me. I'm starting to look at myself as someone's wife. What if I was? What if I married into a family that took the practice of ukuhlonipha( giving respect to your in-laws and husband) very seriously? Would I not marry him because of that? These are very difficult questions to answer and predict, but they are realistic questions that I might have to answer one day.
As I navigate throught the city through Greenpoint, I keep noticing more and more women dressed in this manner. I see an older woman dressed in a black skirt, jersey, head wrap and stockings. Her case is different. When a woman is dressed in all black like that, she is indicating that she is a widow and she is in her mourning period (which lasts about 6 months to a year, imagine!). In the past, older woman were usually seen dressed in this particular manner simiply because in the past, people didnt die as young as they do now. So I guess things have changed.
I arrive at school feeling the way I have been feeling when I've been at school during this intervention, comfortable, and fogeting that I'm not looking the way I normally do. Today is really a much better day. At the end of the day, I go back home and just before supper I bump into a friend of mine and she shouts "X! what's up with you looking like a nanny lately?!". Knowing her,I know she does'nt mean it in any disrespectful way, but I act like I'm hurt by her remark on my new way of dress. She then realises that this is a bit more serious than she thought. She asks me why I've been dressing the way I am, then I hestitantly tell her, after she begged me to tell her, that I am getting married off. She was hysterical! She didn't believe me at first but started to believe me because I looked her straight in the eyes and told her that I'm getting married off!
As the evening progressed, she kept asking me if I'm joking, I kept telling her I was'nt. Then she asked me why my parents were doing this to me, why would they invest in my education, send me to varsity, provide me with a comfortable life and then just one day decide to marry me off? It was soo much fun watching her get so worked up! I told her that my parents had to do it because it was a good tie of families. His family and my family would be lucrative for one another. Hahahahaha! You should have seen her face! She then asked me when I'm getting married, and I told her Easter weekend and then she asked how I'm going to study in Cape Town and still be married to some man? Then I could'nt watch her loose her cool so much, so I started laughing, then she realised I was lying! I told I was dressed the way I was cause my aunt was getting married in April, not me. Hahahaha, that was fun though. And to think she believed me. Shame! She kept saying, are'nt your parents modernised? I thought that only happened to people who lived in the townships? Hahahaah..
(After supper today, I saw the kitchen safe at our res, she shouted to me, "wow! you look like a Makoti! " which means you look like someone's daughter in-law) hahahah.. what a day. Turned out to be very interesting!
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