Ukunqamuka Kwe Mbeleko

Ukunqamuka Kwe Mbeleko

by

Nomusa Makhubu

Compiled by Njabulo Ngobese

Day 15 of Women's month as we celebrate the works of women devoted to using their art to raise awareness on children's rights.

Today we pay tribute to the work of Nomusa Makhubu who matriculated in 2002 at Riverside High School, Vereeniging, Vaal Triangle. She is currently studying towards a BA in Fine Arts at Rhodes University specialising in Photography. Her work experience includes the National Arts Festival 2004 as an Art Assistant, National Arts Festival 2005, Narrator (part time) at the South African Library for the Blind, Student and Paperwork Exhibitions 2004/2005. Nomusa is also part of a society called Kujenga Inchi Upia which deals with outreach programmes that aim at creating student involvement in the community by teaching art, music & dance.

In 2006, Nomusa Makhubu was awarded the Gerard Sekoto Prize for the most promising artist in the ABSA L'Atelier Art Competition 2006.

Poem:

look at me

Khona Dlamini

look at me

see me

do not let your eyes

turn away from the contours of my being

i am the child whose life

is ordered by numbers

who is mothered by the social system

fathered by the education system

look at me

not through me

let butterflies flow from your lips

to caress the catacombs in my heart

so that i

can

taste

LOVE

and know that

I AM/ MATTER

look at me

not through me

Ntjhebe

Sesotho translation of poem extract: MP Letsie

Qotso

dirurubele di phalle ho tswa dipounameng tsa hao

ho phaphatha mabitla a ka pelong ya ka

hore ke

kgone

ho latswa

LERATO

le ho tseba hore

KE MOPHEDI

ntjhebe

o se ke wa ntlodisa mahlo

A Brief Biography of Khona Dlamini

Khona Dlamini is a Durban-born writer and journalism student at Rhodes University. She has worked as co-ordinator of the Women’s Day celebrations at the BAT Centre since 2002. Her writing has been published by the Agenda Feminist Media Project, Y-mag, kush.co.za and Grahamstown’s local paper the Grocott’s Mail.