“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves”
Celiwe Maggie is the oldest of three children and was born in the Mdantsane Township of East London, South Africa.
Maggie has been my friend for four years now and I still can’t pronounce her first name correctly. As innocent as the name Celiwe looks, it is not easy to say. IsiXhosa has three clicks in the language, each one made with a different part of the tongue. The letters C, X and Q all have a click when pronounced. So Maggie, like many others here, allows me to call her by her middle name.
Side Note … Under apartheid rule, parents used to give their children English names, so that white people wouldn’t struggle to pronounce their African names. It is believed by some that Xhosa’s were required to give their child an English name, but I don’t know if “required” is true. However, once the blacks got their freedom back, they went back to giving their children African names. These children are called the “Born Free Generation.”
Maggie’s dad was a pastor and moved the family around to various places in the Eastern Cape. Since many township churches couldn’t afford to pay the pastor much money, he moved from church to church hoping to support his family. This was unsettling for a young girl. She never had one place to call home.
When Maggie was in grade 7, her mom became very ill. Being the oldest, it was Maggie’s responsibility to care for her mom, siblings, the house and still attend school. She did her duties and tried to keep up with her school work. Her mom survived. Her school work suffered. Even though she was moved up to the next grade year after year, she did not have the basic foundation needed to pass her matric year (final year) of high school. She completed the year, but did not pass.
By the time Maggie was finishing high school, her father was living apart from the family. He moved to a rural area to pastor a church, while the rest of the family stayed in a township closer to town. Maggie took advantage of her father not being under the same roof. She began dating a young man and became pregnant at the young age of 18. Her parents were shocked and horrified.
One thing I have learned here — sex and birth control are NOT topics of conversation in Xhosa households. The subjects are completely avoided and ignored. It is so frustrating as an outsider to see this. I have had conversations with moms, telling them that they must talk to their children about these things! Not only is there the risk of pregnancy, but HIV infection rates are very high here. As many as 1:5 people are thought to be HIV+. Not only is oral birth control necessary, but condoms are a must!!
Ok… back to Maggie. After the baby was born, her parents did come to love her new born son. Soon after his birth, Maggie and the baby moved out to the rural area to stay with her dad. There, she was starting anew with her little baby boy.
As two years passed, Maggie began to get restless and decided she needed to go back to school to matriculate. She moved out of her dad’s home to be closer to a high school and left her son behind with her dad.
While living on her own, and now age 21, Maggie became pregnant again. She made it clear to me that both pregnancies were from boyfriends, consensual. This time she chose not to tell her parents. What would she say? Maybe the first time she didn’t know better. But this time she did. So it stayed a secret. For nine months Maggie kept her secret. She did not see her parents during this time, so a secret it remained. But as you probably guessed, unless she was giving the baby up for adoption, the secret was going to have to be revealed eventually!
As Maggie lay in the hospital laboring with her daughter, her mother happened to call her. “Why did you not meet with me today?” she asked. “Where are you?” “I am in the hospital,” Maggie responded. And with that, she had to come clean.
Her mother rushed to the hospital, panicked about how to tell Maggie’s dad. The news did not go well and he shunned her and his new granddaughter for 2-months.
When Maggie’s daughter was just 3-years old, Maggie’s dad passed away. This meant it was up to Maggie to make the money to support the family. She tells me that the only work she could find was in a warehouse in Capetown (an 11-hour drive away). So Maggie packed a few things, left her two children with her mom and moved to Capetown. There she stayed for 7 years working various jobs and only visiting with her children one to two times a year.
She thought things were going great when she and her boyfriend decided to start their own business making Gatsby sandwiches (a very “unhealthy” popular sandwich in Capetown). It was successful. They were making money. They bought a car! But then Maggie came to realize that she was doing all the work and her boyfriend was just spending the money. So she left.
She moved out to her own flat and decided to open her own business. Well, that did not go over well with her boyfriend. She was his livelihood! He tracked her down, physically beat her, and tried to stab her with a broken bottle. She escaped wth her life, but not her things. When she got away from him and ran off, he stayed behind and burned her flat to the ground. Everything she worked for was now gone.
Broken and scared, she moved back to East London to be with her mom and children. There she found a job in a supermarket. But once again became restless. East London was not where she wanted to be. Knowing that Maggie wasn’t happy, her friend/sister (yes, I meant to say that) invited her to move to Knysna. She liked the idea and moved there with her daughter, leaving her son with his grandmother. After just a year, Maggie’s mom became ill, so Maggie moved her daughter back to East London to care for her grandma and Maggie stayed in Knysna to work.
Maggie has always dreamed of opening a Gatsby Sandwich stand again. One like she had in Capetown. She put a decent business plan together and Kurt and I looked it over. It was good. It could work.
But that dream will not be realized in Knysna.
Restless… Maggie is about to be on the move again. She just sent me a message this morning saying she is going to move back to Capetown to start her life over.
I love Maggie. She is smart. She is sweet. She is my friend. However, I fear she will never be happy. Never truly be settled. Never root herself in one place.
To my friend Maggie, the unsettled wanderer … may you find joy and happiness one day soon. ~Tracy Cooper
Gingersnaps 