WHAT READING DID FOR ME

The email came just as I locked the office door and was making my way to the bus stop. I had probably breathed several heavy sighs because minutes before I stood up to pack my things I had received a peculiar phone call.

The phone rang, my cellphone is always on vibrate so I heard it but couldn’t immediately see it because it was under a pile of documents I was working on. When I fished it out I saw a South African number flash across the screen, in my mind I rolled my eyes as far back as they could go – not daring to roll them for real in case the caller could somehow sense my trepidation.

I hate phone calls. It doesn’t matter who is on the other end of the line, it doesn’t matter how far I am from home I just cannot enjoy a phone conversation. So as you can imagine it is infinitely worse when I do not recognise the number. I took a deep sigh and swiped across to pick up the call.

breezy

“Hello, this is Nono”, where had the breezy voice come from?
“Hello Nono how are you?” a deep but not loud woman’s voice said
“I’m fantastic thank you how are you?” do you see why I hate phone calls! Perhaps it is human interaction I am wary of. I still did not know the identity of the caller or the reason for the call. We got our pleasantries out of the way when she said, “I got your number from Professor Nhlanhla Maake” I sat up straighter and thanked the Lord my parents insisted on politeness as a soft skill or else my brusqueness would have seen me wiggle my way out of whatever Professor Maake had given this polite lady my number for.

panel

She went on to explain that the organisation she works for is organising a conference in November for writers in Johannesburg, Professor Maake is one of their partners and he had given them my details to have me join a panel discussion on...at this point my ears were hot and I was barely processing what the caller was saying. She confirmed my email address and said she would email me shortly. It must have already been typed and queued because not two minutes after we hung up it was in my inbox.

vibrate

So back to the email. I felt my phone vibrate in my hand and checked the notification – it was an email from the African Union’s Department of Social Affairs, they were inviting me to a bureau meeting to finalise the concept note on promoting reading, the author and African literature. I wrote this from Nairobi, Kenya where I have come to attend this meeting.

It was so important for me that my passion for reading and truly my purpose in this world was revived and for it to happen in this way was amazing. I have been considering a project to implement in the country that will promote the culture of reading among young people while elevating our indigenous knowledge systems (tinganekwane etc), traditions and values.
proud

Everytime I travel Ieveryone remarks about imvunulo yetfu nemasiko etfu  and it makes me proud to have something so beautiful and personal on a national level resonate so easily with strangers from all over the world. It is for this reason I believe we can teach young people the beauty of their Swati identity through literature and we can encourage young people to read more through the use of culture.

Books are so personal to me. It goes beyond an English teacher handing out a passage and instructing you to answer the questions below. Books taught me about romance, Roald Dahl taught me about the BFG, Enid Blyton taught me about girls living a high school hostel, R.L Stine is the reason I knew early on that horror was not my genre of choice. Books expanded my imagination in a way that still takes my breath away. It shifts your thinking and approach to life in a way you simply cannot undestand if you do not read.

Prolific Zimbabwean author David Mungoshi made a great observation during the meeting, “people think they read because someone is a lawyer and reads judgements, a doctor will read medical journals but not enough people are reading creative literary works” he said.

strategy

Dr Mongane Serote spoke passionately about indigenous knowledge systems and not leaving those behind as we craft this strategy to promote reading, he made an interesting point about how literacy is measured, “You will go to attend a funeral in a rural area and find the message that is being shared by the mourners to comfort the family is from the Bible. Furhter a lot of black people read the Bible, it may be in our Afican languages but they read it nonetheless. How they came about that literacy is another matter,” he said.

He raised a question I have been mulling over for days now, which I will leave with you ‘if you can only read and write in an African language, according to the statistics that are always shared are you literate or illiterate?’

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