Page 55 - The Mending Season

sixIn the following weeks, I hardly spoke at all in school. When people talked to one another in groups, I would either just lis­ ten or stand a few feet away and watch them talk. My prob­ lem was that someone always tried to draw me in, thinking they were helping me feel more at ease. I just wished there was a lemon tree I could climb and hide in. They wanted to know where I was from, how I liked the school so far, if I knew how to play netball, hockey or tennis. I was only comfortable speaking to the Black girls since, when they were alone, they only spoke Setswana or Sesotho. But when everyone was together, speaking English, I would shrug and give one-word answers, feeling embarrassed and angry with the people who had asked. Sometimes it felt as if the whole world would pause, waiting for me to speak and after I had spoken they would stare, waiting for more - and that was always the worst part, the pauses.Most of the time in those first few weeks, people would reminisce about the year before anyway, and get excited about sports and boys, two subjects in which I was no expert.The only things I could share were news about people in the township and whatever my aunts had been talking about that week. But I noticed that the Black girls were almost never asked about the townships by the White, Indian and Coloured students. Even among ourselves, when we talked about the township it was usually telling the latest joke, and not much more. White, Indian and Coloured girls spoke at great length about where they lived. I felt as if I was getting55