Page 28 - The Mending Season

fourOn Monday, 8January 1990,1woke up before dawnjust like the women and men who worked in town. I bathed and was about to take out my curlers and put on my uniform when Mmamane Malebone told me there were still three more hours before the cock crowed. I had woken up Mmamane Malesedi too. In the dark, she said slowly, “There are no taxis or trains at 3 a.m.” So I sat up in bed willing the moon to make room for the sun sooner than it was supposed to, while Mmamane Malebone fell back to sleep in the next bed.I must have fallen back to sleep myself because all three aunts woke me and hurriedly helped me put on my uniform, saying that it was a good thing I had already taken a bath. Now all I had to do was brush my teeth, quickly wash my face, run a face cloth through my armpits and vagina, and get ready for school.The most disappointing part of that morning was that none of the other children from my street were awake to see me in my new uniform. But Tihelo was hurrying off to work and she greeted us, smiling. Mma Motsei’s jaw almost fell to the ground when she saw us. She was probably wondering why a Christian school would take someone like me. I grinned at her and heard her suck her teeth.In the taxi, I asked Mmamane Malesedi if I could use the name Sophia at school, a name that was on my birth certific­ ate, instead ofTshidiso. She told me not to be silly. “No one in our family has ever used an English name, you know that,” she said. Sophia was a name Mmamane Malebone had put on28