I don’t want to be an angry black woman. Trust me. No-one wants to carry around this bile, bubbling just under the surface of every interaction one has. I also don’t care to fulfill whatever stereotypical view people hold about black women. There are so many of those, aren’t there? About our sexuality, our bodies,… Read More Angry Black Woman
In the midst of an exhausting week, news broke of a paper published by University of Cape Town Professor Nicoli Nattrass in which she posits a few reasons for the low numbers of black South African students who choose to study environmental and natural sciences. She writes: [Such subjects] struggled to attract black South African… Read More The Unbearable Whiteness of the Environment
You are not an accident where no one thought it through The world has stood against us, made us mean to fight for you And when we chose your name we knew you’d fight the power too Brandi Carlile, ‘The Mother’ In late 2014, I was six months pregnant and watching in horror as a… Read More There is no answer, but my children are the answer
A few weeks into the ‘new normal’, disaster struck: my husband and I had conference calls scheduled at the same time, and no child care. I found myself in our garden, playing as quietly as possible with my kids, and listening in to my meeting on my earphones. I wasn’t alone. Many of my colleagues… Read More Work/Life
They are so big. They forgive me all of it, cuddling up to me and squishing their little faces right up against mine.… Read More Bigger than my body
My husband almost died last year. It is exactly as dramatic as it sounds. For all of my attempts to reduce it, reshape it, banish it from our minds and hearts, it is what happened. At some point during the terrifying 48 hours in which his condition was worsening, there were two battles raging. The… Read More Weathering
My husband and I are parents to two small, rambunctious children, aged four and ten months. They fill our days with joy and laughter, and we are consumed by their care. This means our opportunities to exchange the banter and chatter and in-jokes that interlock with the backbone of our marriage are often trumped… Read More Wheelchair Humour, love and other impossible pursuits
My son started at a new school a week or so ago. Other than his father, he is the bravest person I know, and I know he is going to be just fine. In time, he will be fine. In the meantime, there are wobbles here and there. I am doing my very best… Read More Black Boy Joy
I have finally made peace with my birth story. It’s been a long journey. I know that my story is not the stuff of which natural birth fairy tales are made. Although I did (unknowingly) labour, and had the support of a wonderful doula, my birth was not ‘physiological’. I had a C-section that… Read More A Woman’s Right to Choose
I am dreading Election Day. It’s been two years since I first cast my vote as a bona fide citizen and the lustre has worn off. I am still in close touch with the crushing responsibility, but I am now also aware of the helplessness of making this single set of choices when there are… Read More The World’s Cruelest Country, Maybe
Rumbi Writes 
You must be logged in to post a comment.