So, I am is’febe. At least I have been called that. Once, dear reader, when we were much younger, a cousin of mine used that word: is’febe. Part of what it is to be as young as we were is learning to use language. Many times you get the structure right only to stumble over […]

So, I am is’febe. Before being called is’febe by a shadow it never occurred to me that I could be one, let alone so much so that someone else could have reason to name me so. See, dear reader, I was walking from the Hillbrow Shoprite to my cottage in Yeoville. I had a 500ml […]

So, a loved one left us to go join the ancestors. He was murdered, brutally and with unswerving intent. By the time the medics got to him he was brain dead. It happened in an informal settlement, in a township. By the time medical help got to him he had been bleeding through his nose […]

I admit that I am not the best second language speaker I know. I am the only strictly second language speaker I know. Perhaps that says more about the extent of my knowledge than anything else. I suspect that some of my linguistic woes are rooted in this knowledge. There was a time when I […]

Bantu is a language. We disagree about this, it and me. I think Bantu is more than a language. Of course I am not so far gone as to deny its utilitarian value. Here, in the land of the free, the extremely limited use that I can put it to is apparent. And so, against […]

I do not remember much from the time when I landed in Kansas. I think there was much emptiness, and a decent quantity of desolation keeping it company. I saw both from the sky as the aircraft landed, so I guess they could not have come from inside me. Have I memories of the time […]