The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena

by Elsa Joubert

  When you are wearing the white dress, they are very strict with you, says Poppie. You may not look around you or laugh. No, you may only look down, you may not talk, you must remain silent. You mustn’t look sullen or cross, you must have a pleasant expression on your face. The man sits with you and if he is a smoker, he may once in a while go outside to smoke. But he too must stay silent. The bridesmaids may talk and you may answer softly if they ask you something.

  The first night after the wedding Stone and his people went back to their home. Poppie slept in buti Plank’s house and mama and kleinma Hessie stayed with her. The second day they dressed her once more in her white clothes, they combed her hair and prepared her as they had done the first day. Through the window she could see the people coming down the street. They were dancing and beating drums. They were bringing Stone to fetch her. The second day the feast was held in the house of the in-laws.

  Buti Witbooi had slaughtered an ox and a sheep and Muriel had made the beer and bread and porridge. The rain had passed and the sun shone brightly. There was so much food at buti Witbooi’s that the neighbours had to store some of it in their houses. Poppie sat on a chair in the strange sitting room. Towards afternoon they took her to the bedroom and dressed her in the blue voile dress. Then she went back to her chair. They brought her a cool drink because she didn’t like beer. Buti Plank had long since left his bestman’s chair and had joined the drinkers outside. She could see Mosie and Hoedjie nowhere.

  At sunset, she heard the children shouting outside. They were telling her little stepsister, Katie: We are tired, come, let’s go home now.

  I’m not going home yet, said Katie, I’m waiting for my sisi, we’ll go home together.

  Only now when she heard Katie speaking did Poppie know that she was never going home again.

  Buti Plank, she started... but he was no longer sitting on the chair next to her. Hoedjie... Mosie... nobody was to be seen.

  Don’t cry like this, sisi, Katie tried to comfort her. She saw the tears running down Poppie’s cheeks and wept with her.

  What have I done now, Katie? asked Poppie.

  Then the in-laws comforted her and said: We are going to dress you in your makoti clothes.

  They took off her blue voile dress and dressed her in a long dress made of German print, put a short little Scotch shawl round her and buttoned it in front and wound a black doek round her head. She was unused to it and it kept on slipping down. Now she was a young married woman, a makoti.

  Come back to the sitting room, they said.

  Now the feast was over and the elders sat waiting; the respected old men and old women of the man’s clan and her clan. The women sat with the hands folded round the breasts or resting on their knees. The men leant on their kieries held between their knees, or sat up straight in the way of old men on chairs that had been carried into the sitting room. Poppie and Stone and the bridesmaids and bestmen were told to sit at the table.

  This was the ukuyalwa, says Poppie, the time of telling-off or admonition, when you are told how you must live together, how you are expected to behave.

  You are different people now, the old men said, new people.

  You must look to the family of your husband, and you must know you have become their child, the old women told Poppie.

  You must know you are the child of your in-laws and you must be ready to help when trouble comes to them, the old men told Stone.

  You who have become a wife, they told Poppie, you must not tear apart the family into which you have married.

  This is the hardest part of the Xhosa wedding, the saddest, because they talk at you till you are weeping in the sitting room. You and your husband sit at the table and the old people sit around the room, they sit in such a way that they can watch you all the time.

  And all the stuff and clothing that you had to bring along as bride is carried into the room. Piece by piece it is held up for everyone to see, you must show every bit of goods you have brought. And if the husband’s people are in a mind to complain, if they see you lack something which should have been there, the trouble starts. Then your people have to put a hand in their pockets to add money to what you have brought. They call every piece by name: Your pa’s coat, your pa-in-law’s coat. The man’s sisters must be given a present each, even if it’s only a doek. They call out what they want. They say: We have paid lobola, we want something in return.

  The many people that feasted have left. After sunset only the elders remain, those that give you the telling-off. It’s an awful thing to have to listen to. You have to weep. You take it so much to heart that you are almost sorry you ever had the thought of getting married. Your husband is upset too, he hangs his head. It is sad for everybody there, because as the elders sit watching you they think: These young people don’t know what they’ve let themselves in for. Then you see them starting to weep along with you.

  It lasts an hour, and then it’s done with.

  Then the sisters-in-law take you outside and lead you to another room. They bring you a plate of food and try to make you eat something. They stay with you till late. When it is quite late, they take you to your room and say: This is your and your husband’s bed, you are going to sleep here with him, and this is your room.

  Buti Witbooi had added a small room made of corrugated iron to the back of his house. There was only place for a bed and a dressing table in the room.

  Then when all the people have gone to bed and his kinsmen have left, the man comes to you, while your heart is still heavy with the words that have rained down on you, because you know you have not married only the man, you have married into his family. From now on you are under their roof.

  A makoti has to rise at five o’clock every morning, says Poppie. They expect you to work for them. You can’t let them get up and you lie abed. The first morning after the wedding they expect you to bring them early coffee and tea and water to wash.

  Sisi Muriel came to tell me who drank coffee and who drank tea. But I wasn’t allowed into the room where her husband slept, she accepted it at the door. Then I made breakfast for the men who went to work and fed the children. I washed and ironed everyone’s clothes and they watched me all the time to see whether I’d been brought up correctly.

  If my mother-in-law had been there, she would have taken me in hand, but it fell to sisi Muriel to show me their ways. The Xhosa clans have different ways and beliefs, and I had to learn the ways of my in-law clan. My father-in-law’s name was Ntozimbi which means ugly, because he was very ugly as a baby. But now I was not allowed to use his name word if I saw something ugly. And my mother-in-law’s name was Nomaqabaka, which means somebody born in cold weather, so I wasn’t allowed to use that word any more either, I must use another for cold weather. So there were many things you were taught.

  After a week the in-laws gave Poppie her new name, Nonkosinathi, which means The Lord is with us.

  This is the end of your girlhood, says Poppie. The new name leads you into your woman’s life. The new life. It makes you feel like a woman. If the in-laws were to call you by your girl-name you would feel rejected. It would seem to you that your marriage had failed.

  And another thing, a woman may not walk bareheaded in the yard of her in-laws without risking her marriage. We don’t wear the kopdoeks for pleasure, we are forced to wear them. They are uncomfortably cumbersome if you are not used to them. When I go to mama’s house, or the house of my brothers, I take off the doek. But outside in the street I have to wear it. My own people may see me bare-headed, but not my in-laws. If a woman walks bare-headed at her in-law’s place, she is naked before the izinyanya, which means the old people lying under the soil, the forefathers who must be respected.

  After the marriage I no longer called my husband buti Stone, but buti-ka-nombi, which means buti of his brother’s daughter. And later mama called him mkhwenyane which means son-in-law, and Plank and Hoedjie and Mosie said swaer which is the Afrikaans for brother-in-law. An in-law is never addressed b
y his true name, that is our custom.

  After my marriage I was too shy to see my mother. I was shy because of the long dresses I had to wear. I wouldn’t see her for a long time, about two months, and we were living so close to one another. The first time I went to the shops after my marriage my husband’s sister walked along with me and when we passed our house, my mother did not recognise me. The previous time she had seen me was in the white wedding dress and she did not know me in the new get-up.

  The in-laws were satisfied with Poppie’s work, and Stone was satisfied. If you have children one day, he would say, you must bring up your children in just the same way as your ouma brought you up.

  She didn’t go back to work in the factory, but stayed at home and took her husband his dinner every day, bread and fried fish, or samp and beans and meat, or umphokoqo with sour milk in a pail. He sat waiting for her to bring the food, great dishes of it, because he would not eat alone. His friends shared his food and they said: Your wife cooks better than the girls on the land. He was proud of her, and of the way she fitted in well with them. If you are a good cook, it makes the man’s heart soft for you. If he eats well, he thinks of you as the best wife.

  A month after their marriage Stone told his buti he would like to have his own house as their room was too small.

  Nonkosinathi, I have spoken to buti about our house, and he says it is well so, he told Poppie.

  He received a plot from the municipality and his buti helped him to build a one-roomed house from corrugated iron and wooden boards. He laid out a small garden and planted mealies and pumpkins and carrots. Her ma could give them the kitchen dresser and table and some chairs.

  Only after two months, when she had fallen pregnant, did Poppie go to visit her ma.

  I fell pregnant at once. I was stupid, I can’t tell whether I was glad or not, says Poppie, it just came to be that I was pregnant.

  Can I come and stay with you to have the baby? she asked mama.

  She was shy of her brothers, too. They were still living alone, and mama cooked their meals. But after she had moved into her own house, Mosie and Hoedjie started coming to see her. And Meisie still remained her best friend.

  19

  At the end of the year when he got his leave, Stone wished to go to Herschel where his father and mother lived.

  Poppie is going to Kaffirland for Christmas, mama said to Plank.

  Plank was drunk. Sisi, it’s your fault, he said. You were in such a hurry to get her married to a fucking raw Kaffir.

  Shut your mouth, mama answered. Did you want her with child, like the girls you go around with?

  My little sister is a good girl, said Plank. You pushed her too much.

  They paid lobola and she’s churched, mama replied. It’s right that she goes to visit her in-laws.

  Poppie was content. Stone was good to her. He borrowed a provision basket from buti Witbooi for the journey. Mama baked her a loaf of bread, and cooked a leg of mutton. Buti Plank gave her money to buy the things she liked to eat: Sunrise toffees, cream caramels, ginger nuts, Marie biscuits and Assorted and a bottle of Oros.

  It was a long journey. From Lamberts Bay by bus to Graafwater, by train to Cape Town. They stayed over the day in Cape Town and caught the evening train. The next night at one o’clock they changed trains at Stormberg for Burgersdorp, and at Burgersdorp they walked over the high bridge to catch the train to Aliwal North and at Aliwal North they changed trains for Lady Grey.

  Such a slow train, Poppie told mama later, I never saw before in my life. And such a strange country, I have never seen such a strange place, and all those mountains.

  At sunset of the fourth day, they arrived at Sterkspruit and took the bus to Herschel.

  It was such a funny bus, it looked like an old lorry. I was very uncomfortable, because I had to sit with people who had red blankets wrapped around them. It was the first time I had seen such people and now I had to sit next to them. The bus shook terribly, everything was covered in dust, I was not used to such roads.

  When we got down from the bus I thought we had come to a location like ours. But there was nothing, only a few round huts, two or three built together and another two or three a little way off.

  The sun was setting behind the mountains, shadows lengthened. Far away up in the mountains Poppie saw a light.

  Now what is that over there? she asked Stone.

  It’s a house, he said.

  What’s a house doing up there on the mountain?

  There are people living there.

  They walked along the road and on both sides were the mealie lands, and on the road the small herds of cattle. And the strangest thing to Poppie were the young boys wrapped in blankets.

  It was the first time I had seen naked children wearing blankets, herding the cattle with kieries in the hand, and I was terribly scared of the cattle because I wasn’t used to them.

  The hut was full of people when we got there, because they had heard we were on the bus. My father-in-law, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law’s sisters sat one side of the hut. They sat in the dark in long dresses with heavy doeks on their heads. They had spread a small mat on the floor for me to sit on, on the side opposite to where they were sitting. It was very unpleasant because a huge cat came to sit in front of me and I could do nothing because my ma had told me when you’re makoti you’re not allowed to hit the cat or the dog or the children of your in-laws. And the cat was sitting right in front of me and I wondered why had he chosen that place to sit.

  They asked me how it went with my parents. I kept quiet, my husband spoke to his people. He sat on a chair, because he’s a man. He didn’t sit on the side of the hut where I was sitting, he sat with the men. Where I was sitting was the side of the women. My father-in-law’s sisters and sister-in-law and wife who had been taken up into the family’s beliefs could sit with the men. But newly-married women aren’t allowed there and they may not greet the father-in-law by hand, though the aunties came over to greet me by hand.

  I was scared of the strange people and didn’t look around too much, for the hut looked so dark and frightening, lit only by a tin lamp standing near the dishes. It was a horrible place, I’m not used to such houses.

  But I kept quiet because my ma had taught me how to behave myself with my in-laws. There wasn’t any furniture, only clay seats against the walls and a clay built-in cupboard where the dishes were kept. The roof was pitch black from the smoke of the open fireplace in the middle of the hut. The fire wasn’t lit, being summertime when they cook outside. But when it rains they cook inside the hut. There was a small round hole for a window; when they went to bed they pushed papers or a cushion into the hole to close it, and when they got up in the morning they pulled out the cushion to open it.

  They brought me food, a kind of sour mealie porridge which they called inqodi, but I had never eaten it before and I couldn’t swallow it. I tasted it and left it and my sister-in-law took it away.

  Our child is tired, they said, and so we went to sleep.

  Buti-ka-nombi and I and my little sister-in-law and other people slept in the one hut. I had brought my own sheets in my suitcase, ja, and I made up my bed on the small reed mat which they unrolled for me. We slept on the floor, but a week later the bed my husband had sent by rail arrived. He knew that his parents did not sleep on a bed, that’s why he had sent the bed from Lamberts Bay long before we left.

  The next morning I went outside and looked around expecting to see a location such as I was used to, but I saw nothing at all. Only huts and mealie lands and peach trees, and the houses not even close together, but in groups of three or four, at a distance from each other.

  In the other hut behind us another old auntie lived, my father-in-law’s second wife. And then there was oupa Melani, my father-in-law’s father’s youngest brother – I liked him very much, he was a great one for jokes – and my father-in-law’s stepmother, an old ouma whom they called gogo Nomthinjana. My husband’s eldest brother’s chi
ld, Xolile, whom I knew from Lamberts Bay, also lived with them. But the one I liked best was my little sister-in-law, Lindiwe.

  Lindiwe took me to the donga, which is a kind of gully they use as a toilet. On the way back she showed me the fireplace and the kraal, built of stone with clay used as mortar, different from the kraals at Upington which are built of dry thorn branches. Behind the rondawel I saw an orchard of peach trees and prickly pears and chickens and a pigsty.

  Now we have to fetch water, Lindiwe said.

  And that to me was very strange too, because we had to walk downhill through the long grass, and I didn’t like that at all, I am scared of snakes and spiders and I was wearing the long dress and couldn’t see where I was treading. But I had to go. I carried a pail and she carried a pail and a round dish.

  For what are you taking the dish? I asked.

  To scoop the water with, she said.

  I thought one tapped water from a tap and now here there was no tap at all.

  We walked downhill, to the donga where the soil had been washed away. It was difficult to climb down. Lindiwe went first and I followed her. Then I saw why she took a round dish along. The water oozed up from the bottom of the donga, we had to scoop up the water with the dish and throw it into the pail.

  Lindiwe told me: We are the first to come, now we put down the dish and leave the pail and we go home. If someone comes after us, she may not take the water that has filtered up, because our dish is first in line. She must fill our pail and put it on one side and then she can help herself.

  This fetching of the water and climbing up the donga with the pail on your head was a very uncomfortable affair. Ouk! When it rained, we had to take off our shoes.