Migrant Poetry of Adebola Fawole

Times and places

My mother said, “Don’t look me in the eye! A well-brought girl never does.”

My mother said, “You must learn to cook and clean! “It is your right.”

My mother said, “You must get married and have children! They complete you.

My mother said, “The printed page is a must! You can’t succeed without it.”

My mother said, “You must greet people around you! You will always need them.”

These values I carried with me on my journey;

not burdensome but a guide to chart my course.

And they served me well in that time and place.

But alas!

Crossing borders and the threshold of womanhood to bringing forth,

they are challenged.

I am told only liars can’t look you in the eye!

Women are no longer cleaners!

Men are unnecessary essentials and having children is a choice!

Listening to the book is the way to succeed!

You are all sufficient in yourself. Greeting demeans you!

And my children; crossbreed of divergent times and place

Are caught in the interplay

I can only point to the course I charted in the middle of the two.

 The taxpayer speaks

The door opened with a push from feeble hands

Eyes like daggers drawn looked towards it,

taking in the fact that this is a stranger.

You can smell them a mile away.

Questions are fired off without waiting for answers.

“Where are you from?”

“When did you arrive here?”

“When are you going back?”

Only the last answer made sense.

“Soon”, said the head

 bowed down in shame for a crime unaware of.

“It better be! Stop wasting taxpayers’ money!

Adebola Fawole was born in Nigeria and moved to South Africa in 2007. She is currently enrolled as a PhD student in the Department of Translation Studies and Linguistics of the University of Limpopo. Before this, she taught English language and arts and culture in a Pretorian high school. 

Migrant Poetry of Sarah Rowland Jones

Aliens

The South African National Biodiversity Institute

offers detailed and specific guidelines

on its website, for the identification

and treatment of aliens present in this country.

Some, especially those which threaten infestation,

are subject to compulsory removal.

They must be eradicated from the environment.

The law is clear, and brooks no exceptions.

Others are regulated by area or activity.

Permits must be issued to enter the country,

to breed, to move.   This much is clear:

they may not inhabit riparian zones.

Many pose no threat to the native populations.

These aliens may come here freely,

and enjoy leave to remain, to spread,

to put down roots and become naturalised.

The rules are clear and implemented with care.

Everyone knows exactly where they stand.

If only the Department of Home Affairs

would take a leaf out of the same book.

Across Time and Space

Red and white, autumn’s overblown roses

mark not as some suppose grape variety

but the good health of the earth,

the Western Cape’s fine terroir –

a wine-maker’s equivalent

of taking a canary down a coal mine.

My grandfather, who died at ninety-three

his pale tissue wrists still pocked with coal dust,

had been little freer than that yellow bird,

teenage pit-boy at his uncle’s side, until

the ground gulped and swallowed the man whole.

After that Alf picked potatoes,                                        

toiled in fields, anything that kept the earth

firmly planted underfoot.  Not so different

from these farm labourers,

nor those cramped Treorchy rows of grey stone

in the greyer Welsh weather

from the whitewashed cottages of this estate,

small and bright in the African sun.

And what have I, with my soft hands,

in common with these workers on the land:

the one, two generations and a continent away,

the others, here, today, a skin-shade universe apart?

Sarah Rowland Jones was a British diplomat for 15 years before being ordained as an Anglican priest in her home of Wales. She moved to South Africa in 2002, on marriage, and is Research Advisor to the Archbishop of Cape Town, Dr Thabo Makgoba, having also worked for his predecessor, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane.

Migrant poetry by Naomi Nkealah

An interrogation by a 16-year-old

Do people wear jeans in Cameroon?

Yes, they wear jeans of the highest quality.

But do they have shops and malls in Cameroon?

Yes, they have big markets and shopping centres.

But do they have cars to get to the shops?

Yes, they drive Toyotas and Mercedes Benzes.

But can they afford petrol to put in their cars?

Yes, you can’t drive a car with water, can you?

Oh, so people know how to drive there?

 Yes, they have driving schools just like here.

Do they have metro police like we do?

Yes, they have traffic officers like you do.

Do the police take bribes like ours?

Yes, some are just as corrupt as yours.

But do people go to prison there?

Yes, criminals go to prison everywhere.

But do they give them pap and meat like they gave Nkateko?

Yes, they give them pap and meat and fish and chicken.

You see, that’s why people won’t stop crime!

Oh yes, crime will never stop! 

Naomi Nkealah is a senior lecturer in the Department of Languages at the University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus). She holds a PhD in African Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and has published widely on various subjects, including gender, xenophobia, and human rights. Her articles have appeared in South African journals such as the English Academy Review and Tydskrif vir Letterkunde (Journal of Literature). She has also contributed chapters to various books published internationally. Besides her academic work, she writes short stories and poems which have been published in literary journals such as New Contrast, Carapace and A Hudson View, as well as in various anthologies.