WHO is Barbara

I was born on 26.09.50 in Nyamandlouvu Southern Rodesia (somewhere in the Bush in Matebeleland where there were a few huts of my grandmother) which then became Zimbabwe, of a coloured mother in a hut and was delivered by my grandmother, in my grandmother's hut. My grandmother and her husband (a blind black man who was not my mother's father, and his albino brother, and my mother's sister, etc., had the Sangoma's (the witches in the Ndebele Tribe) come and dance while I was born), so they danced for 3 days and three nights, turns were taken for some to sleep while others danced, there were always Sangomas dancing, while my mother suffered in labour. At the end of these three days and three nights I arrived and was named Sangoma..... That is the name by which my African members of family call me...... means "witch", in the Ndebele language.
My mother then called me Barbara. I lived with my grandmother until I went to school - 6 yrs. and my first language was Ndebele (the language spoken in Zimbabwe in Matebeleland). I went to live with my mother who was renting a room with a family and started school and learnt English.
I met my white father for the first and last time when I was 21 yrs. He cried because he told me that he felt I did not love him :
It was impossible to make him understand that it is not easy for me to love a man who is a stranger to me and who had hurt my mother through the misunderstanding of their relationship.
When I lived in Arabic countries, I coloured my hair with Henna. Maysera, my friend told me,,,,, a woman must have red hair sometime in her life...... So I remained for many many years with Henne coloured red hair. Since I could not imagine life without Henna. My hair became a very very bright red.......and was naturally frizzy and very very bushy and because Henna cannot be removed from the Hair, I always had to recolour it, and everytime, the shade of red would be different. When I felt I was now becoming old, I decided to give my natural hair colour a chance to be, since it would have been unfair to my hair, to allow it to turn grey in its unnatural Henna reds, so I let my Henna red hair grow out.........snipped it and snapped it away and went back to the brown colour to allow my hair to peacefully go grey in its natural browns. So now I am brown. I mourn my Henna reds…… I hope I will be strong enough to honour my middle age……. I think not, I feel the Henna reds beckoning to me……… but for the moment I am still brown, browns intertwined in white strands.

ZUM MENSCH - BARBARA

Ich bin manchmal schlecht gestimmt, (eigentlich sehr selten, einmal in 7 Jahren) aber ich kann mich aufraffen....... manchmal bin ich ein ganz beschissener Mensch ! Aber ich bin eine Afrikanerin.......
wenn ich Autofahre und fast einen Unfall habe, kann ich zum Lachen nicht aufhören........ und es ist nicht Hysterie....... oder ich lächle mein (fast) Unfallpartnerin/er an, und lache, und hier lacht man meistens zurück, wahrscheinlich weil die genauso verlegen sind.
Ich lache laut und gern, sowie eine Afrikanerin....... auch wenn sie nicht lachen können. Nur im Flugzeug bei Turbulenzen.... bin ich sehr sehr still.......(besonders wenn ich denke, dass ich dann sterben werde - und wenn ich lande...... dann weine ich und bewege mich nicht (ist mir einmal in Bamako passiert) beim Zwischenlanden, ist der Pilot in ein grausiger Sturm gelandet und ich war stil, stil, stil, bis wir gelandet sind - alle müssten das Flugzeug verlassen......meine 3 Kinder auch…. aber ich ging nicht, habe 2 Stunden geweint und dann 2 Stunden geschlafen.... und weil es Afrika ist, hat man mich gelassen) ich hasse fliegen, deshalb bin ich auch nicht nach Österreich mit meiner Familie dieses Jahr geflogen. Ich glaube, dass ich meine Mutter irgendwann in Simbabwe auf ein paar Tagen besuchen werde, ich werde mit dem Auto fahren. Wenn ich mit dem Auto fahre, bin ich restlos glücklich.

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First release on e-Stories.org 12/01/2002.