Pig on a Spit

 

Pig on a Spit – by Natalie Williams

www.natalie-williams.com

 

"Your favourite food must be pig on a spit." I've struggled with comments like this all my life, and always wondered why. I grew up in Zimbabwe, born in a quiet slip road to a mother, and a father called Jacaranda Lane. My mother was born to a coloured mother, and my father to a white father. I remember my early days of childhood filled with missing my mother, with a deep sense of adulthood, but knowing she had to support me and that she was always there if I truly needed her gave me a deep sense of love for her. Perhaps that is why I never turned on my own heritage, perhaps which is why I never joined in on the charades so many people around me acted out.

 

My grandmother was coloured, I know that now, but I had no sense of it when I was young. It never mattered to me until I started losing friends because of who I was. It took me a long time to realise why. Perhaps in order to explain I need to go back to the beginning.

 

I was to go for a test, it was a big deal and I knew it. I had to perform, and somehow Gran and mom believed in me. There would be other people there, and it was best Gran didn't go. I wished she could have come, it was a hot day and when we pulled up at the huge building, red bricked and busy I saw the ice-cream man, with the amazing cart filled with his delicious treasures, and the bicycle that pulled them. There was one called a Zoom, bright red, and orange and green, I stared at the little girl and envied her as she took her first lick of the red part.

 

I sensed my mom's anxiety, and became very serious. I wouldn't let her down, I knew that but I was scared of all the other kids like me. I'd never seen so many kids in one place, they were loud and some were bigger than me. I walked with my mom and we were told by a tall old woman with a white piece of cloth hanging on the back of her head to sit on a bench, my mom told me to behave and commented on the two loud children getting a telling off by the old woman as they ran past in the hallway. The 'big place' smelt very clean, but also like mashed potato, it was called school.

 

A while later; the old woman came back, and she took me into a big room that had a lot of toys. Giant glass cases lined the entrance, filled with purple, black, red, blue, orange, yellow and pink play-dough. I was so excited! At the end of the room, there was a little room covered with all colours of cloth, some soft, and some see-through, with toys, and giant dolls. This would be so cool. She took me to a desk; there were other children in the room, a girl smiled at me on my left and another scowled at me on my right. I sat down, and the seat was cold, and hard. I dropped my pencil on the floor and 'right' girl laughed at me. I swallowed my tears, and grabbed the dirty pencil in my sweaty fingers. Big girls don't cry.

 

The old woman told us to write shapes, and asked us questions. I stopped paying attention, and imagined all the fun I would have with the toys. She gave us huge gold pennies made out of chocolate. Monies that are sweets too are the bestest.

 

The old woman told us we could play with the toys! I ran over to the glass cases, and dipped my hand into the secret pink world inside. It felt soft, and warm, and so satisfying to press my finger-tips into. I tore off pieces and rolled them into little balls, leaving tracks and pathways on the glass display case. A little girl came over; she had pretty hair with pink ribbons, and big eyes. She screamed and the old woman came over. I tried to listen, but I couldn't hear what they were whispering to each other. Next thing I knew, the old woman took my shapes, and gave them to the little girl. My heart sank. I felt so alone; I thought she liked me because she gave me a chocolate-money. I didn't like school, and asked for my mommy. I didn't cry though.

 

The old woman told me to go and play with the toys down at the bottom of the room, there was a small door made out of material, it was soft as I pushed it through to the special world inside. There were so many toys to play with; I didn’t know what to play with first. There were giant dolls, and soft dolls, Barbies, and teddies, and large hats. I put on one of the sun-hats, and the big people clothes in the chest on the floor, and ran out the little room. I was having so much fun; I didn’t want it to end! After a while I felt tired, although I wished I could back there, I liked all the toys, especially the pink play-dough in the big cases. Reaching into it, I felt the thrill almost as if a giant insect or snake loomed inside, and I had to get the golden treasure without getting BITTEN!

 

HOOORAH! I shouted as I came out to my mom as she waited on the bench outside. She must have been there all day! She looked tired; I ran over and reeled off ten-to-the-dozen all my adventures of the day. The old woman was called Sister Hilda, my mom seemed to know her although I didn’t know how, and she liked her. Whoever my mommy liked, I liked!!! And so we left the big place, called School and had a lolly each in the sun in our truck on the way home. I loved my mommy, she made everything great.

 

It turned out I did well that day, we were being watched for our interactive abilities, and some of the children never played with toys or play-dough, or even spoke or observed. Although I treasure that day because I had to earn a place in the school that would be the biggest part of my life from the age of five to eighteen, and to this day. It was one of the best schools in the country. My mother had gone there, and Sister Hilda knew her very well.

 

My life had been very closed off from certain things, but it was in the playground that I realised I was different.

 

“Let’s play on the swings!!” Run, Jump, Go! Swing! Swing! Swing! Jump!

 

“Let’s play in the tunnels!!” Glug, Glug, Glug! Wooooosh! Out the end, GO! GO! GO!

 

“Will you play with me?”

 

“No, we don’t like you. Mommy says you’re black.”

 

“What did I do?” Sit on the swings, slowly, creak, creak, and creak. Cold now. Tired now. Lonely now. Sad now.

 

Crying.

 

Now.

 

Life at school was very much like that, I was never accepted by the white girls, since my family was part black. My great-grandmother was black and Zimbabwean. My great-grandfather was white and Irish. My grandmother was coloured. My grandfather was white, and Irish. My father was white. My mother was white. Although I saw nothing wrong, somehow it seemed a dirty secret. I struggled to make friends, because although I looked white, in their eyes I wasn’t. My father didn’t treat anyone of my mother’s family different, although some of her brothers were dark in colour, she was white.

 

There were two camps in school, the white camp and the black camp. I belonged really to neither. I was made to feel inferior, and unaccepted. After a long time of seeking friendship and acceptance, I decided to make my own camp. A camp with my own rules; and that is how I made it through. I made best friends, who were on the whole black. It was always strange, perhaps because the school was well respected, the white families considered it theirs, amongst the black schools, and I was behind enemy lines. Since then, I have never really cared what colour people were, just how they behaved. I didn’t dislike the white girls who treated me badly for being white, but for treating me badly.

 

I left Zimbabwe when I was eighteen years old for England. I had forgotten what it was like to be treated sub-human until then. I talked different, looked different, and most of all I was different. Comments like “Did you have clothes where you come from?”, “Did you live in a hut?”, “Did you have your tits showing like they do on national geographic?”, and “Did you have a lion in your garden?” Surely not. For a 1^st world country, a lot of the people I met were ignorant. I felt again that feeling I’d mulled over on the swings in the playground at the age of five.

 

Tested again, but it was harder now. I didn’t find it hard to make friends, I just didn’t have any. “Hide the fact you are part black.” I heard my aunt say in my head, and warring with my own desire to be true to myself, and my mother’s emblem of take me as I am, not as you want me to be, I caved in. I tried to talk like them, walk like them, and sometimes I even seemed like them.

 

Being alone and unlike a lot of people is a heavy burden, and I am ashamed to say I didn’t do the heroes journey very well. I lost all sense of who I was, just to avoid those hurtful looks and comments, to fit in, to be loved. For many years I stayed like that, I was adaptable, I was flexible. I could be whatever I wanted, except myself.

 

I stayed like that until it all became too much.

 

I still remember that phone call on reception at work. He wanted to place an order, but with his accent I couldn’t understand him, I had never heard an accent like it before, so it was like he wasn’t even speaking English.

 

It seemed a small incident, “what is wrong with you? Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you? Don’t they have brains where you come from?”, but it was more than I could handle. I felt sick, to the core of me. So much of my life I had been attacked because of who I was, and spent so much time trying to understand others when so many had wrote me off because I was different.

 

Years onward, I have come to an understanding of why I felt the way I did. Although I can see things from the point of view of those who shunned me, I will never see it positively or view it with sympathy. I embrace my differences, as my mother did, and rejoice in my drawled accent, Irish features with curly hair and my childhood. Africa will always be my home, and part of my spirit, and I take it with me like fairy dust sprinkling its way through my daily life. Some choose to be touched by it, others not. I still get confused with different English accents, but I adore the culture and the void that stands between us I view as a safari of adventure waiting to be explored. Africa will always be a part of me, and what I viewed for so long to be a hindrance, a pitfall I now see as the light that shines in me, the spirit that makes me fly true to the winds that blow me about in my life. Some choose not to accept this from me, and others see is as I once saw that magical first room in school, so vivid in my mind, like a treasure trove of delights they want to dive into and explore in me.

 

I think for many years, I was in search of that pink play-dough, the prize that had been taken from me, my dignity, and my positive view of myself, the acceptance of love of my own differences, belonging, and so many things. I guess I just needed to take the time to realise the play-dough never left.

 

Reviews

[JC Fox]

This was an excellent write and I enjoyed reading and learning more about you as a person because of this.

[R J Askew]

Hi Gyps, sorry to take so long, but here we are. Well firstly, this is different from anything of yours I've seen so I was fascintated to read it though, I was a bit tired when I started after this week of melt down and lost work. It took me a while to get into it, perhaps because it is not a masculine subject, but that is my deficiency and not the story's. I also wondered up top...what kind of test? And it took me a while to realise how old you were. But once I realised we were in school I settled into it. The zoom I could see clearly as I remember them myself. And the descriptions of the hard seat and the play dough were sharp. I could feel and smell the classroom. I got more interested as I read. Though I wasn't that taken with the line 'I loved my mommy, she made everything great.' All kids do that right? But maybe I was not reading into the child's mind deep enough. BUT when I got to the line, 'MOMMY SAYS YOU'RE BLACK' everything changed. That one line was such a loaded line in that it injected instant conflict and a sinister tone to the story and sort of fractured the previous sense of calm..........funnily enough the normality of all that had gone before then made sense as a comparison to how things were to be. In fact the middle part of the story is I think the strongest, the way you capture that horrible dawning of how things were to be for you. For a child to get this from the world is very bad. Yet what you describe here, the humiliation, must have been the common lot of millions of children over time...........the implied inferiority simply because they look different. I don't think much about racism because I've never been on the receiving end of it, so maybe I can never understand it like a black person, but it is horrible. Again, the middle part of the story is the best for me ... 'It seemed a dirty secret' and especially this part 'There were two camps in school. I belonged really to neither.' And from what follows it seems that this state of mind has followed you out of Africa. At first I thought this might be a piece of fiction for your course, but as it sunk in that it is not fiction i thought good for you to set this down. Perhaps the writing of it will make you feel the better somehow as you sort things out in your mind. The memories and the hurt as fresh to this reader at least. Can someone ever be free from such early slights? That I don't know. Anyway you are part of the great camp of writers now where such you are valued for your words not skin tone. And your words have a quiet moral authority and dignity. Ron.