Cheers, DK

Competition it is
a Reading Competition
at the Moses Mabhida Library
out Site C Khayelitsha way

(who remembers
who knows why
the library is so named)

Contest Clash
Battle Fight
Race War
Antagonism

Competition it is
something to be won
perhaps at all odds
regardless of the rest

All the negatives
the opposite of
Co-operation
and Friendship

(like Ngugi’s discourse
around black and white
the mind not yet decolonized)

Competition it is
a Sivuyile Primary youngster
Aphele Kamana is the winner
in the English section

Competition it is
between 3 schools
(are there no more
in this vast expanse
of bustling humanity)

Competition it is
nervousness aplenty
and library-quiet
amongst the spectators
(educators included)

Competition it is

I beam away, at the morn’s Grade 7 Reading Competition, at the Moses Mabhida Library.

I beam away

I beam away
whilst introductions
and explanations
are being made

I beam away
tea-drinkingly English
am I like my mother
English teacher-activist
(her mind now a tad retired)

I beam away
not understanding
what is being said
in a language foreign
to me in my own
country beloved

Country beloved
not yet reclaimed
or remade completely
in the Manifesto’s image

I beam away
at a Reading Competition
in the Moses Mabhida Library
quite ironic is it not

(I am spared the embarrassment
of mispronouncing the names
of the English section winners
and their primary schools)

I beam away
on my walkabout too
(rather tourist-like)
no rooibos yoghurt
at the local store

Contradictions are many
as Africa Day looms
in a continent separated still
by the simplest of things

Or so it seems

I beam away, out Site C-way, Khayelitsha, May 22 2014.