By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Vernon_RC_Boxall]Vernon RC Boxall
I am a proud 37-year-old Sotho speaking woman; I was raised in the Free State province of South Africa.
From humble beginnings, my love for my nation and its people is unsurpassed and a passion that burns brightly inside of me.
One of five siblings, I have two brothers and two sisters, I am the fourth child born to my parents Johannes and Dinah or correctly spelt Dineo (meaning, Gifts, in my mother language.)
My parents were humble farm laborers close to a hamlet named Reddesburg in the upper regions of the Karoo not far from the metropolis of Bloemfontein.
Their lives were poorly simple and uncomplicated; they never owned a television or any electronic marvel other than a battery operated transistor radio used sparingly for listening to church services and songs of praise.
They worked for a patronizing and fair farmer family who decided what their needs were and how best to cater to these needs.
Home was a ramshackle closet of a home, built with mud and waste building material, on a hectare piece of ground the master provided for propagation of subsistence plants to keep the family alive. Sowing and planting was carried out in our spare time and my siblings and I were required to attend to the garden in our spare time in order to keep the family alive.
The Southern Sotho nation is a proud and peace-loving nation; our common ancestors were from the Highland Kingdom of Lesotho, where a pastoral way of life has been our nation's trademark for centuries.
Living under harsh and terrifying apartheid laws and conditions was cruel, and all free movement was restricted via the "Pass" system. If your 'Pass" was not stamped or approved by a Native Persons Commissioner you were summarily arrested, whipped and beaten and returned to your place of origin or where you were authorized to work and reside, without consideration for family or personal choices.
Our people adapted to this way of life and were cognizant of the dangers and cruelty that these white folk could portray toward our people.
The folk on the farm did not have the strength or courage to be politically active as survival was far more important to our people and feeding and clothing was the core to our survival and existence.
Education was a passion and the four miles to school was covered without thought to our hungry state or our frozen bodies on the wind swept, frost encrusted plains and fields.
All births and registrations took place at the Native Peoples Commissioner, manned by cruel and uneducated white men who were inclined to binges of alcohol abuse and acts of terror and cruelty toward black folk.
It was common knowledge that one did not register any birth on a Monday morning as their heavy heads filled with the toxic effects of a weekend of imbibing made life unbearable for our people. These hung-over brutes had an aversion to working on Mondays.
Consequently, Tuesdays brought an extraordinary workload for these "gentleman", expletives, insults and rude comments were the order of the day.
The day my humble but proud father went to register my birth was a watershed day in my life, My father, illiterate and afraid, duly waited for the Commissioners office to open at nine A.M. Commissioner staff were given an hour to drink their hangover away with cheap coffee and it was prudent to make black folk sit in the hot African sun or the cold of the freezing frosty mornings of winter in neat long rows of South African humanity.
When my fathers turn to approach the secure little window without shelter came, he proudly stepped forward and in his best Afrikaans (The language of the oppressor) kindly requested to register my arrival as a citizen of our country.
The official, a brutish man with a pot-belly as a result of beer drinking, greeted my father with the obligatory "Yes Kaffir".
The official working in the Native Commissioner's office hated black people and hated his job even more serving them, but he was selected for the job as he had the necessary hatred,poor manners and very little patience with black folk.
He picked up a legal form and started barking questions at my flustered and frightened father, 'NAME" he shouted, my father quietly and slowly answered "Mmathapelo" the official requested him to repeat himself, he slowly repeated the word he and my mother had agreed upon and discussed into the early hours of that morning.
The official smiled as he venomously entered his own version of my name, not having much more education than my father had, so his own spelling and literacy were in question, yet, never challenged.
The Official still smilingly asked my father if I was a beautiful child. My father proudly pushed his chest out and answered, she, is The Mother of Prayer!
The records show that my official name is 'Bewty" yet I grew up being called Thapelo by my beloved family.
The day my identity documentation arrived, it cruelly brought home the effect that the apartheid system had on our ordinary lives, from being a "Mother of Prayer" to a "Bewty" at the whim of an official designated and paid to serve the people of his country. My scar is visible for eternity!
Wounds heal, others are never healed.......Life without love and compassion is not life. it is simple cruelty....
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Bewty---The-Mother-Of-Prayer&id=6481966] Bewty - The Mother Of Prayer
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