ixhanti lam

In preparation for the Maxeke-Mgqwetho Annual Lecture and Masterclass, I spoke at St Mary's School which will be hosting the two events. Below is the message which I shared with the girls in the chapel services. There were two readings in the service: a poem "Mayibuye iAfrika" by Nontsizi Mgqwetho as well as the gospel reading: Matthew 28:1-10.



Today’s gospel reading is about women who made history; which is intricately linked to the two women I’d like to introduce to you. In the gospels we read about women being the first people to go and find Jesus’ body after the crucifixion. Much has been said about this scripture because it opens up the conversation about the role of women in the story of Jesus. In fact, many have written that without the two Mary’s Christianity would not have been established because it is the women who are the first to discover the resurrection. Without the resurrection, the story of Jesus, the promise of the risen Christ would not have been verif…

Growing up umama used to give me valuable information I took for granted. For example, my love for body art came out of a conversation with her about umvambo because she used the phrase "ukunyamezela umvambo" often and I would ask her "yintoni umvambo" and so the conversation would lapse into history and language and pictures (more on that in a post when I write about the tattoo sleeve that's almost complete). Another conversation was about simple words we took for granted: molo/molweni.

Mama told me molo(hello) comes from the Afrikaans word môre (morning). She says when she was growing up she often heard people say bhota/bhotani. In fact, when she moved to Ezibeleni after she married tata she was impressed by the consistency of the people who used bhota/bhotani; she hardly ever heard the use of molo. Much to her delight I'm sure.
So imagine my pride when I read that mama was in fact teaching me something that W. B. Rubusana writes about in his book Zemk…