Akamefuna- my name will not be lost

| a short story written by Sphesihle Gxotani (Sihle G.) [2019]

Foreword

When the word ‘name’ appears, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Often we have to fill in forms, sign contracts-more often than not it feels as though you are signing your life away, is not it?- the first thing you are required to put down is your name, then everything else that describes you follows; gender, race, and whatever else society deems important. When I was a little girl, I think I was about eleven years old in secondary school run by missionaries, in Onicha. Our class teacher’s name was Mr Kent, a white man who was well in his late forties — in all honesty, he looked much like a fit, sixty-year-old man to me-, he had a bold patch but would not shave the rest of his head bold, with an unsettling smile that showed crooked yellow teeth, and of course the signature old person’s glasses hanging by a strap around his neck. Mr Kent often made us recite a grammar poem during the English period, and in our white school shirts, brown culottes and brown shoes, the boys differing with grey trousers, we stood, and like well-trained soldiers, we would recite the poem in unison, the first part of the poem read:

“Every name is called a noun, As field and fountain, street and town;

In place of noun the pronoun stands As he and she can clap their hands”