“Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!”

Now you might wonder why my story starts in a church.

That is just because I was born on a Sunday, and my papa was undoubtedly packaged in a church. Why? You may ask. He was begging God for me to be a girl, probably because he wanted to have his share of lobola after my sisters’ probably goes to my uncles or maybe just because he was tired of seeing two hairless babies consecutively.

There I was, a fat lass bundle with portly cheeks that seemed to have too much knowledge for a baby.

Don’t get me wrong, I was not like Matilda. I had no magic, but I was strangely too smart for my age. I learnt to speak too soon, ate too much but one thing I seemed to have not done sooner, was walk.  Don’t get me wrong again, there was nothing wrong with my legs, I was just enjoying the warm, human-car taking me everywhere far too much. I only began to walk after the human car awoke and a pair of rubbery slippers were attached to my butt in harsh melodies.

 

Enough with that, what I really want to tell you about is my life here in South Africa as a primary-schooler. My family was one of those, Wednesday-Friday-Sunday church goers with no shitty behaviors at home.

We lived in a flat of a really tall building, note that my mama thought it was suicidal and a form of witchcraft the first time we moved in here. We were not poor. No! No! Don’t ever think that. We were also not rich, nor middle class. We were just, how can I say it? Yes, we were surviving. You know, sometimes doing well and sometimes very very bad. But as long as I had full shoes around both feet, all precious body parts covered with clothes, stomach filled with pap and Spinach, a roof that was floor to some stomping drunkards, and even a hunchback TV, I would never call myself poor.

I was the lonely child at home. My sister and a close cousin living with us were stuck together, gossiping about girly stuff. My two brothers were also stuck together, shoving each other like John Cena and kicking innocent things. My parents were stuck together too, as husband and wife. Do you get it? I was the lone wolf, sometimes here, other times there. I was mostly with my brothers, my sisters chased me away because I did not realize just how important their conversations were and never kept my mouth shut. Do not be surprised if I don’t give off a super girly act here, I was influenced really bad.

I did have friends in the building, like these siblings, note that they were boys, and one girl two years younger who was not any better than me. She spoke three languages in one sentence and I really don’t know how I understood her at that time. She is actually my best friend, more like a third sister.

 

Home was a far different story than school.

At school, I was not the lone last born who found friends elsewhere. I was like the Obama of my grade.

When I wanted, I did too well, when I did not want, I still did well. Thus, I was usually chosen as class monitor, also because I never randomly spoke in front of people. I was not shy. No! No! I call it being an observer. You know, observing people first before talking to them, yep, that way I monitored how people treated me and spoke to me. I must admit, it was not a success with everyone, hence there is always that one person that makes your day hell.

 

“Wow, Barbie. You look so beautiful!”

This is not a typo, they really said Barbie.

“It’s called makeup,”

“Makeup? My mom puts that,”

“I know, real ladies put it, and I am one of them now,”

“Wow, you’re so cool!”

“Yah, but we can’t say the same for Violet. She’s stuck in ponytails and pigtails. Is she even a girl or a boy?”

 

Yes, my name is Violet, boring right? Violets don’t shoot lasers out or punch pretty faced blonds.

That girl who said it, her name is Eulalia. Her name was hard to pronounce so she suggested we call her Barbie.

She was blond too, trust me, I am not lying, as blond as barbie. As you might have seen, she had a problem with me specifically. Jake said it was because I was as pretty as her, but nope, I am not pretty, just normal. My other friends mentioned it was because I actually did not care about how I looked. That could be true, I am actually thankful we wore uniforms, no need to try hard or compare. Yet people like Eulalia always knew how to make uniforms look like home clothes, I don’t even understand how the teachers never complained.

In many movies like Everybody hates Chris, there’s always one dark-skinned person in a school full of whites. It was different with our school though, Eulalia was the only white girl in the whole school.

I had turned to her and asked, “Violet? What did I do?”

“Oh nothing,” a flip of blond hair followed, “People like you do not need to do anything to irritate me,”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Yes. You are what my sister in Portugal calls ‘Eu pesco’. You are free to use a dictionary for that.”

 

She spoke Portuguese, so what? I spoke more languages than her. English for starters, French next, Swahili right there, Lingala from church, some ons-ge-asseblief Afrikaans, Zulu that a two-year-old could speak, Turkish pickup words and even Japanese.

I opened my mouth and let out the first words I could say, “Sutikkuhausu,”

 

A surprised look broke out on her face and she gasped, “I’m gonna tell Mrs. Searle,”

 

Sutikkuhausu is a Japanese word, it only means ‘Stick house’. No sense right? But I enjoyed her oblivious reaction, “Sure, go tell her.”

 

I knew Mrs. Searle would tell her she was lying. “Violet never swears at anyone, Violet is an angel, she never makes noise. You should be like her. Oh Violet.” That was what she always said.