Hope/Every Mother Hobo Is My Mother

Hope

by

Bronwen Vaughan-Evans

Compiled by Njabulo Ngobese

"When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others" - Peace Pilgrim, Spiritual Leader

The University of Natal graduate with a Master's degree in Fine Art in 1995, Bronwen Vaughan-Evans is a Durban based artist that has received a merit award in for the Sasol New Signatures Art Competition and has been involved in solo exhibitions that include the One-Zero-One exhibition and the Negotiated Spaces exhibition that was shared with Nontobeko Ntombela at the end of 2006.

Bronwen is currently lecturing part time in the Fine Art Department at the Durban University of Technology.

Poem:

Every mother Hobo is my mother

Nise Malange

I was born under the bridge of the harbour

I was born with double pneumonia,

Frail, underweight and undernourished

Everyone thought I was not going to live

But my mother said I was a fighter

A tiny ugly little fighter

Whose umbilical cord was cut by a mother hobo

Using the broken beer bottle

My frail body only covered by old smelly

Towels and rugs from all the mother hobos around me

I was surrounded by love and caring

Every cents was kept to buy me formula and bottle

Everyone collected old baby clothes

My skin does not know the softness of baby clothes

I did not know the smell of new clothes.

So this is what I was told

So what did I know

What have I experience

Pain is my name and hunger is my middle name

I fight every day because other girls do not like me

I sniff glue so that I can be brave

I smoke dagga so that I can hallucinate

And feel good about my self

I never beg for money for food

But work for it

Since five men have open my legs

And touch my private parts

Every mother claimed me as hers so that

They can sell me as a sex slave

And get money for gavin (concoction of spirit, pineapple etc)

Six seven I remember every penetration, sweat

And scream of every colour and size

I do not remember when I have my first period

But remember men yelling and screaming because

I was dirty

So do not judge because you do not know where

I come from

Do not ask me where my home is because

I never have one

Do not ask me about my mother

Who gave birth to me because she died?

Few months after I was born

Do not ask me about my father because

Every homeless man in the street

Is my father

I am no longer the tiny ugly duck anymore

But beautiful and a body of a modeller

but suffer from suffer and irritate

my bosses when I have attacks

I am still in the streets of Durban

I come out only at night because

I am now a professional sex slave,

My body is an income for a man

Who claims to be my father

But still sleeps with me

he collects money paid to abuse my body

I get bitten up and horrible things done

To my little body

I am sometimes treated like a queen

When I am to serve dollars and euros

I get pampered and perfumed

I drink red wine and eat prawns

But cannot be in the streets for days

Because of all the money they pay

So do not judge me but pray for me

Because I do not know who will

Push me down the 15th floor

You know under this thick skin

There is still that little ugly fighter

Who is still underweight and undernourished?

Who still fight in the street so that she can lives

Any bridge under the harbour is my sanctuary

Because that is where my umbilical cord lies

That is also, where my mother afterbirth is buried

That where my home is.

That is where my memory begins

Umama onguSkhotheni ungumama wami

IsiZulu translation of poem extract: Nise Malange

Ngizalwe ngaphansi kwebholoho nginenyumoniya

Ngondile,ngimncane ngingondlekile kodwa ngiyisiqhwaga

Inkaba yami yanqunywa ngebhodlela likabhiya elifile

Umzimba wami awubazi ubuntofontofo bezingubo zabantwana

Ngazi ubuhlungu,indlala nokwesaba

Ngibhema iglu ukuze ngithole isibindi

Ngibuye ngibheme nensangu ukuze ngidakwe

Angikaze ngiyicele imali, ngiyayisebenzela

Kusukela ngineminyaka emihlanu ngiyisigqila socansi

Manje amadoda akhokha amadola namayuro aphesheya

Ngiyashaywa,ngidakiswe ngihlukunyezwe ngokocansi

Ngakhoke ungangihluleli ngoba awazi lapho ngiphuma khona.

A Brief Biography of Nise Malange

Nise Malange is the current director of the BAT Centre, and was born in Cape Town. She has been involved in social, political and community work for many years. After the unbanning of all political organisations in 1991, Nise founded the Stories that Can Heal project, an initiative that focused on the victims of political violence, using stories and poetry as means of healing past traumas.

In 1996, when the Truth and Reconciliation hearings were being undertaken, Nise’s project was invited to extend its work to help victims come to terms with the distressful conditions they were facing. She is currently working with young women who have been victims of rape and sexual abuse.