Development of a self-proclaimed writer

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.