A YEAR AFTER WE STARTED attending Melpark Primary School, it was decided that Tshepiso and I would begin to take public transport to school. This was done primarily to economise. A Putco bus cost nearly half of what we were paying to be picked up from home.
There were many disadvantages to this new development. Firstly, it meant that we’d have to wake up earlier than before as we had to walk a few kilometres to the bus stop, which was located in Zone 7. The twenty-minute walk was gruelling on winter mornings as it was often very cold and misty when we left home. One of my uncles always accompanied us for protection. In summer, it was equally a nightmare as it would rain. Even with raincoats on, we’d still get a little bit wet. Secondly, Putco buses had a strict schedule. If it happened that we were late, we’d have to wait longer for another bus to arrive and inevitably arrive late for school. The lateness would earn us detention for the day. The detention took place during lunch breaks and so we’d have nothing to eat until second break, by which time we would be ill from hunger. Thirdly, because Putco buses were used mainly by working men and women, they were often full to capacity and we’d have to stand on our feet for the entire hour-long trip from Meadowlands to Melville. At times we’d have seats but would have to give them up for the elderly halfway into the journey. And, for me, the most frustrating thing about using Putco buses was the sermons we were subjected to. For some reason, some pastors felt it necessary to preach in buses and so on some days, mostly Mondays, an old man would conduct a sermon for passengers, complete with prayer and loud preaching. Most passengers enjoyed these sermons, so it would have been futile to lodge a complaint with Putco’s management even if we’d wanted to. The only option was to bear the torture quietly.
At school, I continued to work diligently. I joined the netball and softball teams. I wasn’t particularly good at netball but I enjoyed playing goalkeeper for the under-13 team. I made the first team for softball, a sport I’d never heard of until I went to Melpark Primary. One of the most unfortunate things about township schools is how few sports and extramural activities are available to students. Most schools in Soweto to this day continue to offer only netball and soccer as sports and choir as a cultural extramural activity. Little else is offered; it’s as if the poor black students there are destined to only ever play soccer and netball while those in Model-C schools have a variety of options to choose from, from swimming to piano lessons and chess.
One afternoon while waiting for our netball coach to arrive at the practice site, we were informed that the practice session had been cancelled. Annoyed because I’d missed the bus and would have to wait for over two hours for the next one to arrive, I decided I’d walk around Melville to pass time. I noticed a shop perched at the top of a pharmacy on the main road. It had a big sign that read ‘Bounty Hunters Charity Shop’. I immediately crossed the busy street and ascended a flight of stairs to the shop. It was small, made even smaller by huge boxes piled atop each other in every corner and tonnes of books stacked against the walls. There were strange artefacts on the floor and everywhere about the place. It was a complete mess.
I walked slowly around the shop, making sure not to step on anything, hard though that was. A stale odour permeated the atmosphere in the room like a coiling miasma, making me feel claustrophobic. But I was drawn to this shop, to its strange treasures. The only time I’d seen that number of books was at the school’s media centre and library, where I only usually went when I was sent to deliver a message to Mrs B, the teacher responsible for its upkeep. Although I had once sat in the media centre during lunch break when I was avoiding other students after an embarrassing incident that had occurred in my first year at Melpark Primary School. My English teacher, Mrs M, who was also my registration teacher, had come to class in tears one morning. All the students were worried and soon gathered around her to comfort her. Being detached from my peers and not necessarily being close to Mrs M, I sat in my chair watching the scene before me with relative interest. After she’d received hugs and kisses from everyone, she eventually gained her composure. She stood at the front of the class and announced to us that she was in a bad emotional state because the previous night her dog had died after being run over by a speeding car in her neighbourhood of Brixton. Everyone looked very sad on her behalf; some even had tears in their eyes. Without thinking, I burst out laughing. It seemed absurd to me that an adult would literally cry because a dog had died. Someone asked me angrily why I was laughing and I replied, ‘Who cries over dogs? A dog is not a human being so why would anyone cry when it dies? It’s stupid!’
At this, Mrs M stormed out of the class in a fit of rage. Everyone else remained seated, all of them throwing me daggers. I couldn’t understand why everyone was looking at me with such anger and resentment in their eyes. It sounded very comical to me that someone who was usually as composed as Mrs M was would be reduced to tears by the death of a mere animal. In Soweto, dogs died all the time but no one ever cried for them. It was unheard of for anyone to have an attachment to a dog so strong that its death would induce sadness in them. Stray dogs littered the neighbourhood, walking through its dusty streets in search of leftover food from bulging trash cans. This was our reality and I had trouble comprehending how other people could have such a strong emotional attachment to dogs.
When she returned to class a few minutes later, Mrs M walked straight to my desk and started barking at me. She claimed I was selfish and heartless, that I was insensitive and undeserving of a place in Melpark Primary School. According to her, the school was a haven for goodhearted people, not mean and disrespectful people like me. Feeling embarrassed by her scolding me in front of my peers, I decided to retaliate. I yelled back at her, telling that she was in no position to tell me I didn’t belong there because she was not paying my fees. The exchange went back and forth until I screamed, ‘You white people are not normal! Imagine a normal person crying for a useless dog!’
I was kicked out of class on that day. My classmates were angry with me. By the time the bell rang for lunch break, the whole school knew about the incident. Everyone thought I was a bad person and gave me unwelcome stares. Feeling ashamed of myself and terrified of the stares, I opted to spend break alone in the media centre, which was open to students. I didn’t read anything. I just sat there looking out into space, replaying the incident over and over again in my head. Needless to say, I couldn’t return to class until I apologised publically and privately to Mrs M who, by that time, had recovered from her mourning phase. It was to be the first of many apologies that I would later be forced to make at Melpark Primary School.
Now, as I walked around Bounty Hunters Charity Shop, I began to read the titles of the many second-hand books that lined the walls and shelves. I was fascinated by them and drawn to the stories they promised to tell as I read through the blurbs. I didn’t understand some of the words used but I nonetheless continued to pick up book after book, flipping it right over to read the blurb before putting it back in its place and picking up yet another. This went on for over an hour until I came across a book authored by one David Morrell. The title of the book, Blood Oath, didn’t sound intriguing but the storyline certainly did. I was overcome by a strong desire to read the entire book. I walked up to the tired-looking cashier and inquired about the price. When she flipped through to the first page of the book to where a price had been scribbled and informed me that the book cost two rand, I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement. I’d been in the shop for well over an hour reading the blurbs of many books but hadn’t bothered to check their prices, which I now discovered were penned at the top of the first page of each book. I returned to the shelf from which I’d picked up Blood Oath and begun looking at the prices of the books. The most expensive book there was from an encyclopaedia set and it cost about ten rand!
I had a little money on me saved up from my week’s allowance. My mother gave us two rand a day, which she needn’t have because we took a balanced packed lunch, including a meal, a bottle of juice, yoghurt, Simba chips and fruit, to school. Because of this I was able to save some money. The books I bought that day would be the first four books I ever read, and they would change my life dramatically. They were Blood Oath by David Morrell, Shall We Tell the President? by Jeffrey Archer, Summer’s End by Danielle Steel and A Darkness More than Night by Michael Connelly. They were not revolutionary books. Nothing about them was ideological. They were fiction books about summer romances and psychotic assassins. But they opened me up to a whole new world and introduced me to the power of words. I had entered into a space I immediately knew there was no walking out of, a space that brought me more happiness than I’d ever known. A walk taken out of frustration had led me to my destiny. Books became a part of my life on that day, and today they define a great part of me.