Africans do we still have Ubuntu?

FEW years ago, just before the Covid 19 lockdown. I had the pleasure of meeting up and be part of a small acting workshop group that met every Sunday afternoon at the workers museum in off Mary Fitzgerald Square down town Johannesburg. Back then, I was preparing and focusing on going full time on my art.

By then, I had done everything that I thought would please amongst others, my father who was against the idea of me becoming a full time artist and making a living out of it as my childhood dream. I had ticked all the boxes to prove not only to the public but to myself that I was educated enough to make and maintain myself through art.

Through working as a domestic worker, security guard and later print journalist. I had earned all the experiences needed to manage, budget and use my money wisely. So financial savy that, when I started my beads business, I had no car instalment as the Toyota Etios 2012 model payment was long over even before I purchased my second property.

My surburb flat allocated at the back of the fluent surbub of Melrose Arch, a five or ten minutes drive to Sandton Mall and a walking distance to Alexandra Township together with my son were the only huge responsibility I had then. I was so prepared for the future that even in my wardropethrough out the years,had special clothes for that audition job for a TV presenter/ talk show hosts or a role of a classy businesswoman on the biggest South African Soap Opera, Generation the Legacy.

I could speak at least seven South African languages then and the magazine and TV had trained me enough on what to expect. So me being with this crew on a Sunday was a step closer to my dream world.

One of the sister, I met at Melrose Arch Camphor Cream advert auditions told me about these classes which were offered for free for any inspiring actor. But the lady forgot to tell me that the person giving them was a Nigerian national.

I'm not sure if she had kept that information from me deliberately, knowing how I will act towards the information. The only part I got was that, he was the director of of Isibaya, a popular drama series that was airing on Mzansi Magic daily,it was quite big on our telies then. His name he did tell me, but out of arrogancy, I thought he was either Vhenda or xhitsonga or Pedi.

So there I was in the workers museum every Sunday amongst other inspiring actors some who had done a bit of TV work while others were still hustling to get in.

The guy was so nice. Coming to his work shops made me forget my troubles with the big Sunday national newspaper then. Lets just say, it had some attachement issues and I was just enough with being bullied for a salary. The bullying had made the passion for writing and reporting on national stories on print vanished. Instead, I was looking at the other means of telling and documenting our African stories. Coming to the acting workshop though was a therapy, it reminded me of the 90s British sitcom, Mind your language which aired on SABC1 but this was an African version of it. The Mr Brown was this Nigerian guy, with students from all over the township of Johannesburg. He spoke English, his students could hear him but others find it very hard to express themselves in the language. As a reader, you need to understand how apartheid affected especially the black men's education system in order to know and enjoy how these young actors reacted. But the nicest thing, the master was patient, no one had wrong answers in the class. Some answers were right but not for use in the current moment, they were prophetic answers. His work ethic made me forget one of my my life rule ie....Stay as far away from Nigerians as possible especially when have no back up. Sorry Nigeria but in South Africa, Nijas are notorious for many things ie abduction of girls and forcing them into prostitution. As a journalist, one of the most inhumane brutal stories ive ever done was that of a small body of a teenage girl thrown out of the fourth floor building in Central Port Elizabeth. The three Nigerian men who were well built and more masculine than her were trying to force her to take drugs. This was a high school girl from New Brighton, a member of an Apostolic church and the only child her mother had. Nor will I ever forget the humiliation, dissappointment and betrayal of Nolubabalo "Babsie"Nobanda from Grahamstown. She was well educated, came from a well off family what she did didn't add up with her character according to what I picked up from relatives and friends. But like all stories, there was a Nigerian man behind her betrayal. I interviewed her family soon after her arrest and dumped the SA drug mule in Thailand. Her story read like something in the movie and yes, there was a Nigerian brother played with her innocense. He didn't care of the pain, humiliation he had caused to not only the family but the community and South Africa at large. Trust was already broken even if you met a nice one there was always that...."But you are Nigerian my friend, I dont trust you" Anyway, the guy heading the workshop was generally nice had his coworkers from the drama coming in to talk to us or help him out. I remember one of the event he took us to Sandton convention centre to present our short theatre play on xenophobic, it was so nice I even twitted about it,

Khanyiswa Ndabeni🇿🇦 (@ndabenik) posted at 9:14 am on Sun, Nov 17, 2019: Nigerian artist, @iam_kcee and I were preaching the same message at the @RiseupNija an event aimed at uniting Africans and saying no to Xenophobia https://t.co/eS8nlVdJKk

I was sold to the whole Idea, with little knowledge of what the root course of the so called xenophobic attacks.

But I was all over preaching no xenophobic and even gunned an interview with NijaTV. Telling the whole continent and the world how we needed to stop the hate and start loving each other.

Lets just say, ugal was already running with the vision with no direction. But the little information from the stiries i picked up and read while doing full time print journalism. To be quite honest, it is only now when I think of it.... Were South Africans really xenophobic or were bullied by our own African brothers out of everything they had. No one dared to really listen to the voice of SA then, it is only now through drips and drabs that we seeing the real cause.

Bullies have been at it and got away with it for a long time while even the good guys were painted with the same brush. As Africans, what happened to our communal set up. Why would a fellow country men keep quiet when another is doing wrong as this affects the image of everyone from that country. Black leaders, do they stop to lead and guide their people once their outside their homestead? Im saying this because I've seen for myself that some of the incidents could have been avoided had a leader rose up and told their people to stop it.