If seven year old South
African children in 1999 cared much for labelling, I would have been dubbed a
nerd. I have never been into playing with Barbie dolls and everything else of
the sort. I knew they could neither walk nor speak and, quite frankly, got annoyed
rather quickly when I figured out that their heads were only half covered in
hair. To me, it was an unforgivable scam.
For a while, I deserted
my dolls for the radio. In the deep Transkei, television was a myth that only
people who had come from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban had seen. For the
rest of us, entertainment was sitting with your ear so close to the radio that
your grandmother would start fearing that you would go deaf sooner than later.
I am not ashamed to say that I was such a child. The radio was my life. I kept
in touch with civilization through those beautiful voices between the white
noise. I learnt of R&B, Kwaito, Hip-Hop, Gospel, and what I would later
understand to be Rock ‘n Roll (my grandmother had decided a long time ago that
it was the devil chanting through sound waves). It was through the radio that I
got introduced to the news –I was not impressed. Here was a man, a monotonous
man, telling me about things that I had absolutely no interest in. Sport,
politics, local news, events, obituaries; I just could not understand how
knowing about any of this was even slightly significant to my existence. My
grandmother, however, lived for that 30 minutes of what I considered to be
torture. In that time the roles were reversed and she was the one with her ear
glued to the radio speakers while I did nothing to stop her (hoping that she
would get deaf, sooner than later, so that my imminent burst of rage could be
avoided). She did not, however, go deaf and I was forced to listen to the news
everyday for the next two years, after which I was rescued by the angel that is
my mother. This would be the time when, unbeknownst to me, my life took a spin
for the better.
I discovered the beauty
of television when my mother took me from the dusty rural plains of the Eastern
Cape and into Durban. While my sister practically lived at the harbour and
breathed sea shells, I claimed the sofa as my own and immersed myself in the
world of the SABC channels. YoTv soon became one of my ultimate favourites. I
would watch as Mandisa, Carly, Sade and Byron showed me how to make a photo
frame using nothing but glue and cardboard. As far as I knew, I never had to
leave the house for anything. I was learning about life as it was lived in
America. My little bit of fun filled heaven was right in front of me –in one
little box displaying a variety of cartoons that could teach me far more than
the little monkey children climbing trees outside my window ever could. Being a
child, however, I soon got bored by the Mandisa’s and Carly’s of “So?Tv” (so
named because I had started to wonder why I was still watching the same shows
over and over again when there were little to no improvements). The deceit of
the Barbie dolls came to mind and I got as annoyed with the concept of
television as I had with that of a lifeless body of plastic posing as my best
friend.
To this day, I have a
certain degree of dislike for children’s shows on television. Be that as it
may, however, I cannot deny the fact that television raised me. My mom would
leave home at 08:00 and return at 16:00. Between 13:30 and 16:00, television
would take on the responsibilities of parenthood. It did not cook for me,
however, and my subsequent rebellion against it was to be expected. Noticing
that I had lost a substantial amount of interest in television, my wonderful
mother introduced me to the world of literature. She found me a quiet cave (in
the disguise of a second hand book shop) in the city where I could escape into Nancy Drew’s Adventures and the oh-so
interesting life of Sweet Valley High
School. Imagine an eleven year old girl fighting her way through the high
profile -and often high heeled- droves of people in the central business
district, trying to make her way to a little corner shop between 320 West
Street and a string of retail stores. It was in this haven of literature that I
stumbled onto newspapers and magazines. For a person who had been dedicated to
works of fiction, consuming fact orientated media was quite a leap –one that I was
not ready to take. The newspapers were too large for me to manoeuvre the pages
with my mouse sized hands and the magazines had more pictures than they had
words in them. I was unimpressed then, and I continue to be unimpressed now.
I am as dedicated to
writing as I was to my hate of the Barbie doll, but I cannot bring myself to
accept contemporary magazines as any form of media. I continue to believe that
my love for literature is what has framed me as a writer. My consumption of a variety of novels, music
and -much, much later in my life- newspapers in excess amounts has shaped my
being. Although these three types of media have not pushed me towards any
distinct direction in my life, they have been much appreciated points of
reference and consolation when I have needed to make vital decisions.
