The day I discovered I was BLACK !!

I was on FB just now and I saw a really interesting FB update that my friend had up. It got me thinking about the day I found out I was Black. No really, it’s not a joke. It honestly took me a while to discover that I was Black, 18 years of age to be precise.

Her status update read like this.

‘Philile Masango: Can't stop musing over a convo with my BFF's 10yr old kid brother;
HIM: I discovered I was black when I was about 3 or 4 yrs old.
ME: That early? I discovered only when I was 15
HIM: Then clearly u didn't look in the mirror long enough when u were younger.
ME: lol, Anyway, so what did you think u were before you discovered u were black?
HIM: Nothing, I just never thought of myself along color lines....#kids’

It had three ‘likes’, and about 7 comments, including mine. The comments read:

‘Ntombenhle Khathwane: My daughter used to describe people according to colour until she 7 and went to a mostly-white school. She'd use colours like brown, dark-brown, light-brown, or cream white, pink, once even grey. I thought it was so cute. That was until she learn the social constructs

Badelisile Masuku: good skools now classify children according to their home language zulu speaking, afrikaans speaking, etc

Musa Ndlangamandla: Interesting. These guyz are smart. Tsine bes'dlala shumpu sivalekile. Bona are exploring the universe.

Neliswa Andzile Dladla: Ewu, mine bengati UMLUNGU, LIKHALATSI, LISHANGANE ne MANGANGAWANE

Philile Masango: hehehe...Neliswa Andzile Dladla. And you're right Ntombenhle Khathwane. Often when I say "I discovered I was black" people immediately think I was foolish to even ever think that I was white. But the thing is, you NEVER even think you're white or anything for that matter, you just never think that whatever colour you are, black or brown has some deep meaning. I.e. the social constructs, stereotypes etc, that essentially whether you’re a good person or not, the world will treat you differently based on the colour of your skin. I was so emotional and couldn’t control my tears the day ‘I discovered I was black’

Nofundo Manyatsi: I only discovered I was black once I left big bend and went to study in Durban. What a slap in the face. Thing is, in Swaziland, or big bend rather, u are not really exposed to such.

Philile Masango: Ja neh! It's quite a rude awakening isn't it? I was lucky to find out early in my teens. I was actually told by the principal in high school, so he would comfort me and give me his handkerchief between sobs.’

This was not a lie. I only really realised what skin colour I was when I was out of Swaziland.

In high school I was dating a coloured guy. After he finished high school – he was in a different school to me, and a class above me – he went to Durban, and we had a long distance relationship. I was gonna go join him in Durban the following year. And the idea of us being away from home was very exciting.

January 2003 came. I bid farewell to my family and all the friends I was leaving behind. I was FINALLY done with school, what a relief!!! I was finally out of my parent’s house. I could now play my music as LOUD as I wanted to. I could leave my place and come back at any hour I pleased. No more curfews. I could just smell the FREEDOM!!! And I couldn’t wait to wave my parents bye bye after they drop me off in Durban. The first day of the rest of my life was about to begin….

Okay…fast forward to my second month in Durban. I started noticing the weird looks people gave us. Almost as if to say ‘hey, what are you doing with a black chick.’ I saw the ‘Black places’, and the ‘White places’ that people of said colour hung out at. I got comments from Black guys that were hitting on me, about why I wasn’t with a ‘real’ man. Real to them meaning Black. I noticed how he always got drinks faster when he went to the bar, instead of me. I noticed how the really packed club, which was just about to call for last drinks, somewhat eased up on their rules after seeing him. What was going on? It was really hard for me to understand…Okay, I had heard about the whole apartheid saga, was this the fruits of that?

It hit me then, I was not just Nofundo, I was Black Nofundo. I was defined by the colour of my skin. I was Black, before I was Nofundo. It was like life had given me a reality slap right across the face. Ja neh, I was in SA now, no longer in Sdeezys.

The friends I hung out with always spoke isiZulu. ‘Awukwazi ukuhlulwa isiZulu ube uphila khona kwelikaMthaniya. Umuntu onjani ongakwazi ukuthamunda?’ others said.

I was not only defined by my skin colour, but I had to conform to what people of my skin colour did. How they acted. How they spoke. The language they spoke. How hey dressed. They were asking me to lose myself completely, in order to be ‘Black,’ because this ‘Coconut’ thing was not working for them. I said good bye to those ‘friends’ and was outties.

Fast forward to seven years later….I now live in Pretoria. The home of the Afrikaners. The Boerewors Curtain as others call it. (Boerewors Curtain: any Afrikaans speaking district, usually rural. Usually not the most flattering reference. Benoni & Pretoria - http://www.newfusion.co.za/_mgxroot/page_10791.html )

Coconut me is loving it here. Sometimes I walk into shops and all I hear is Afrikaans, which I know not a word of. Sometimes at the meetings or conferences I attend, someone will do a whole speech in Afrikaans. I just sit there and BBM 

Yes I am Black. It may have taken me a while to figure this out. To figure out how being Black could define your whole life. I love being Black and I will not let my skin colour define who I am, just as I do not define White, Coloured, other Blacks, Purple, and Orange people by their skin colour. I am Nofundo, before I am Black.
I am also Nofundo, before i am a woman.

a journey and life story by Sandile Dlamini !!

Wadup Guys.
Thought I'd share this with y'all. A very good friend of mine sent me it. It got me thinking.

"The cries after the last breath, waking up in an old age home, collect your pension and watch the stars shinning bright in the African Skies, before then you drink alcohol, you party and perhaps become promiscuous and get ready for high school, you go to primary school and then you become a kid, you plan and you have no responsibilities, you become a baby and then you spend 9 months floating peacefully in luxury and then you finish off as an orgasm.

Now read the paragraph above starting from the end. That is the story of human kind. Per the eyes of man every person starts or is a product of an orgasm, goes through the journey of life and ends up dying. Some people always say it is not about how we start but how we end. I want to differ, it is more about what we do inbetween the start and the end. The start is simple, EVERY MAN SHALL BE BORN, the end is simple, EVERY MAN SHALL DIE. Starting is part of it, it's either you start good or bad ( BORN RICH OR POOR), but for you to finish the race as a winner you need to know what to do if you have started badly, you need to keep the momentum going if you started pretty much better.

As I always say, success is more about knowing where you going and getting there first. Once you are the first ,all others will look at you and will want to be like you. You then become the legend upon which mankind bases their stories, folklore and tales. The legendary deeds become a measure on which others basedtheir success. A walk which others would want to walk, a path that brings light to the eyes of men, a mountain upon which all others look up to, a joy that those who partake in - give themselves accolades such as WE HAVE NOW MADE IT. All these are based on the premise that the first have made it, the first shall be followed, the first had made a way, the first is pioneer and the first has become a way of life upon which all of us must thrive to be likewise.

Such is the journey of life, mankind does not have the sky as the limit. For those who still believe so, do so simply because they are ignorant of the fact that mankind lives in the International Space Station as we speak. The ISS has been suspended in the skies for more than 10 years now, with more than 3 people at a time. The human brain itself has not been used fully. Our capabilities go beyond what we see, what we dream of and what we want to become. Our spirits may never today, tomorrow and forever be limited in relation to what we want to achieve. Our ambitions can be achieved pretty much by trying to do all that is beyond what mankind see and what mankind think at present.

Those that came before us paved a way, started a journey whose distance is light eyes to be accomplished. We all have to partake in this journey, we can never finish it, we can never say now we have accomplished that which the Heavens intended us to, non amongst ourselves can proclaim that the journey has been completed or would be in our life time. But if I may say, all peoples of the earth are on this journey, a moment of thinking, a moment of hard work, a moment of laughter, a moment of passion and a moment of sacrifice makes the journey worth it for mankind, one becomes a light unto which others find their path when something different is done on the journey of life. Hence others become our inspiration, our mentors and our heroes.

I write to say, before you layeth the journey of life upon which your life shall be made by non others but yourselves.

I now write to wish you a prosperous journey in your life time.

In trust of the wonders of Life, a journey and a life story by Sandile Dlamini"

When the lights go off…

When the lights go off and I leave the world behind.
When it’s just me and my thoughts, and an incredibly dark room.
The TV off, my BB on bedside mode, and my work phone off, I lay on my bed and think about it all.
I think about my wonderful family.

Make, who shares most of my secrets wit me. She has moulded me into who I am today.
I think about Babe, who put me through school, who clothed me, and made sure that I had 'enough' (in his terms anyways) pocket money to get me the necessities in my varsity days.

My sister, Mumcy. Such a beautiful caring soul. She has given me three beautiful nieces, and I think she should now stop trying for that boy… I remember when I was younger I'd always try to listen in on her conversations. I too remember all the delicious food she used to cook, and the baked goodies too. she’s the one that taught me that people do not sneeze in their sleep. LOL. There I was laying in the dark, listening in on her conversation with my other older sister. I remember they’d always call my name first to make sure that I am asleep. If I do not respond it means that I’m sound asleep…but this one day. After them calling me, and me not responding, and then discussing the juiciest of all gossip…Aaaachoooo!!!! I goes. Hahaha, you should have seen how far off the bed they both jumped. That was the last time they allowed me to sleep with them, no matter how afraid of the Boogyman I was.



Next comes Bongani, the only boy in the family. Spoilt as heck, but he obviously will not admit this. He's my role model and I look up to him for a number of reasons. He always pushes me to 'make that paper' and lets me know how proud he is of me. He gets me. And the other day he actually told me when he grows up, he wants to be like me. Ncoooh

Connie is next in line. She tells it like it is. So wise this woman is. She has the best advice ever, no matter what you are going through. She's my strength. The one I talk to in good times and bad. When I feel like I can't dzeal, or go on another minute, my problems seem to disappear and the world doesn't seem half as bad after talking to her.



Ziyanda, the baby of the family. How she has grown shem. She used to be my drinking buddy. (I won't say when *straight face* ) yes at times we don't see eye to eye - maybe most times even. But heck, I love her all the same, and how proud I am of her, and wish her all the best in securing that 1st job. Hoping her move to Jozi will be a very long and pleasant one.

Ok, I forget where I was going with all of this, oh yes, when I switch off the lights, before I switch off my mind, these are the things I think about. I think about how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family; one which I know will always support me in anything. I think about how blessed I am to have a job I love. I think about how great it is to be uNofundo Manyatsi. And how I would really never swap lives with anybody else, although I do sometimes mumble it through my tears.



I love being ME...MOST of the time

Sometimes it lasts in love, sometimes it hurts instead…..

I am not good in conveying what or how I am feeling at times…most times in fact, and I think this is my biggest downfall.

I will not tell you that I love you first…incase you do not say it back. So when I’m in a relationship, I always wait for him to say it first, no matter how I am feeling inside. Silly I know, but ja.

On the other hand, I too, will also not tell you to fuck off if you are 'shelaring' me, irritating me and wasting both your time and mine. I will not answer your phone calls, emails, and smses though. I will delete you off BBM, and will block your number on my whatsapp….if you still do not get that hint, then you surely need prayer. i dunno, i guess I'm just too polite.

Back to the love issue…..

In December last year, I was driving to the mall, minding my own business when I saw a Palm Readers caravan parked on the side of the road. I decided to stop and get my palm read, just becuase I could. I had always wondered what type of people go to Palm Readers, or how the experience is. So I stopped, and got my Palm Read...

Career wise she told me everything was going really well. I am in a job I love. I get to meet many people, I travel a lot. And I'm loving it. Well, she was spot on. I told her ye i’m always meeting people and talk to all different kinds of people, and that I was journalist.

Family wise: she told me that someone in my family was an alcoholic…Errrrrr…..not that I know of. She said that this person will die, because of the alcoholism. She said it was a male. Either, my brother, father or uncle. Errrrrr that still didn’t ring any bells.

Love life – hhhhmmmm. Apparently about 5 years or so ago, a guy that was madly in love with me, who I had no feelings for, and would not date, put a spell on me. It was in the sense of ‘if I can’t have you, nobody can.’ This she said, explains why my relationships ‘do not last’.

Wow, I thought although as crazy as it sounds, this does actually explain a lot of things right now. I asked her how I could get rid of this so called spell….she told me to pray about it and it would eventually go away, or that she could take it away faster…at a price.

Aha I thought. So that’s the catch, she tells people all this ish, just so that she can make sum cash off them, in the pretense of ‘curing’ them of these spells.

She also told me that I will get married, and have three kids. Adding that my pilot friend that is after me, is actually obsessed with me and that I must be really careful when with him, and also that i should distance myself from him – I knew exactly who she was talking about. Wow.

I told my mum about it, she said she’d help me pray about it. I told my ex about it as well. My ex that is also a ‘prophet.’ He told me that this made sense to him. He had also had a dream about it earlier – when we were still together. He told me about his dream then, but we just could not make any sense of it then. Now, he said, it made perfect sense. This is what it was trying to tell him.

Anyways…I kinda got over it, and forgot about it, until last night when yet another relationship ended, before it even really began.

The sad part about it all is that it ended because of something that happened before we even met….if that’s not a sign of being cursed, then I dunno what is! And yes, i did like him quite a lot...i still do. maybe I'm not sure what love is though, because i only met him about a month ago...love can't develop that fast can it?