I went to Cambridge

(Part One)

I went to extra maths, I went to ‘Special Ed’ to learn how to hold a pencil properly, I went to Cambridge. I went to the school councillor, I went to an educational testing centre to determine what was wrong, I went to Cambridge. I went to extra Afrikaans, I went to extra English, I went to extra History, I went to extra Biology, I went to extra Art, I went to Cambridge. On account of school being wrong for me or me being wrong for school, I went to lots of different ones. In every single one, we were soldiers being marched in a uniform line in polyester uniforms with uniform grimaces into the open mouth of our pre-ordained, mechanic, hamster-wheel futures.

And what a privileged buffoon to say so, to know so, to yawn lazily between the stone, white, grey, cement walls of a school and mutter about the myriad short comings of the outdated system that held me against its bone buttoned breast like a throttling lifeline until I was eighteen. While the majority of my countrymen don’t get to go to school at all, or go to a room hungry for knowledge only to find no teacher and no book - I went to many different schools like I was trying on outfits. I went to school. I went to Cambridge.

At one school, I sat in a tree inspecting lichen with the same wonder as if it were phosphorescence come to land. I jumped barefoot onto a bee. At another school, I was shouted at for eating the honeysuckles that grew along the border of the playground. I felt shame for the first time. At another school, I wrote an essay without knowing it had to have paragraphs and lied that the computer had done it. At school, I wiped nightclub stamps from my inner wrists, the answers from my outer thighs, tears from my cheeks, blood from my knees, monotony from my memory, prayers from my mouth. I prayed I would fall from a height and break my right arm to avoid the exam I was about to fail. I was too scared to jump. I went into the classroom with sticky palms. I went to Cambridge.

At one school, I got 100% for a story about a talking octopus. At the next a month later, I failed English. My porousness, my growing, soft new skin, the puppy smell, the smell of metallic sweat, the shards from a shattered heart making its way up scratched veins, I was a half-formed person internalising a belief that she was stupid. Because it was always implied that if you were not participating, thriving, conforming, surviving, trying, blinded by the system, well then you were stupid. You wouldn’t be going anywhere in life. Guess where I went?

I refused to do team sports. I refused to wear the shiny, blue shorts that rubbed between thighs to the chorus; “shweeshweeshwee”. I refused to try once I had decided that I couldn’t do fractions, physics, French, timetables, grammar. I refused to pray to a God I didn’t know in a chapel I was made to attend. I refused to perform the saxophone I played, on a stage. I refused to practice anything. I was told that I was stupid. I could write a good story and talk to adults and make people laugh and draw a fruit bowl, but I was told I was stupid by a system that was stupid.

My pride put its tail between its legs and ran, whimpering, into the dark wound in my soul. Even when I did do well, the recollections of failing, of teachers being driven to frustrated shouting in my face, the angry tears that came in the place of right answers, drove me back to smallness. In my final year of highschool, I got my shaking hands on some Ritalin, some coffee, some cigarettes and I did Okay. Hopefully, tentatively, nervously, courageously, I applied for an undergrad at a good local university that I most wanted to go to. I didn’t get in.

So, I lost myself and I found myself in a nightclub looking back at my own eyes like two black mirrors. With black talons, I shattered the surface of the lake where my future reflected back at me. I pulled the blanket of humiliation all the way up to my chin. I watched my friends receive acceptance letters from inside a bitter, silent bubble. I washed my hair with bleach, I slathered my teeth in terror, I reached inside my stinky, black guts and gripping hard: I pulled out a kicking fight. In partial secret, I repeated my subjects, rewrote the exams, dared to re-apply and… I got accepted.

At university, I read ‘Nacarema’. I read Foucault. I underlined Edward Said. I put my hair down, I put my hand up. I scraped a pass. I didn’t find a professor worth seducing. I ordered instant coffee one sugar, and one loosey, whichever cigarettes the man at the caf was selling that day. No one pretended they hadn’t studied and complained about getting 80% rather than 85%. No one cared what mark you got. They cared if you had a lighter or a boyfriend or a moment to spare for their cause. I felt anxious and I felt insecure and I felt my brain on a highway and I felt stressed and I felt socio-politically mind-blown and I felt guilty and I felt tired and and I felt scared and I felt out of control but I didn’t feel stupid. I went to UCT, I went to Cambridge.

To be continued.