Summer Women

We look forward to the summer to feel the sun in our face, stay out longer because it’s not dark at 9 p.m., watch kids playing in shallow pools, play basketball in neighbourhood courts or watch girls play jump rope.

Summer is personal except for national days like Canada Day and America’s July 4. Summer is a girl’s name and we can guess why. She was either born in June/July or was conceived during an unforgettable summer. To music lovers, summer is synonymous with jazz in the park, meeting new people and bumping into yesterday’s friends and foes. To some people, summer is synonymous with nature’s bounty and pleasant surprises. White pumpkin? That’s nature for you. Summer triggers memories of farmers’ markets with beetroots and carrots still dripping with soil, all you can eat strawberries, lettuce with leaves like a fan and corn on the cob, yellow like the sun.

Kept women also look forward to the summer, because they get out out during cultural days and see the other world. Kept women? No, not mistresses or side chicks. They are women listed as family members in immigration papers, but are actually slaves to keep girls and women of the house nicely coiffured; traditional food cooked; big houses cleaned; mountains of laundry washed and kids prepared for cars that take them to school. It’s something they did in the old country, but they still wish they were carefree like Canadian and American women they see during the summer.  

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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