My Mind Speaks…..Belonging (A story about my Incubator: The City of Kimberley)

We are all just trying to find a place where we feel like we belong. A place where people will laugh at our jokes and find our awkwardness cute; A place where we can all share memes and laugh till we cry; A place where our fragile bodies and minds are accepted and appreciated for what they are, as well as what they could be. A place of belonging is a happy place.

Many of you may already know that I spent a couple of years of my life in a place called Kimberley. Kimberley; Capital City of the Northern Cape. I like to call this period of my life “The Incubation Period” because of the many lesson learned during my time there. I call it the incubation period because during my time there; I was just like an egg and Kimberley was the hen that kept me warm and it made sure that I hatch and live up to my full potential. Kimberley was a good incubator. No, allow me to rephrase; Kimberley was a great incubator. I moved to Kimberley in 2012 when I got my first job. All I knew about Kimberley at that point was that it was known for diamond mining which caused the “Big Hole”. The irony of this story is that I never visited the Big Hole when I stayed there. 

As I was saying, I moved to Kimberley in March of 2012 and stayed there until December of 2013. Now, I want you to understand that as a venda girl from Venda laha tshika muroho; this new city was a culture shock for me. Although I had lived in Johannesburg for 4 years prior to my move to Kimberley, Johannesburg was everything I expected it to be. It wasn’t difficult to adjust to. It is what it is. You choose your little corner, stay there and watch the big city life unfold. Kimberley on the other hand is a small town with friendly people. Now for a small town girl like me I thought it would be perfect and that I would fit right in.

The first few months in this city were great. Everything was new and I was getting to know all the new characters in my life-it was truly interesting. As March turned into June I already had a church which I loved, I had friends from church and random friendships I made from a chance encounter at the Bank. Much like right now, my life was revolved around work and church. The only difference is that I was dating back then; and that too, was great. The story behind Kimberley can be broken down into a 4 book series because wow. Anyways back to culture shock, so like I said Kimberley is a small town, the kind where almost everyone knows everyone and everyone is connected to one another in one-way shape or form. I felt like I belonged.

Life In General

I found Kimberley to be such a warm and welcoming place. A place where one could easily call home. But it was also the type that could easily trap you into a comfort zone because everything was so easy going and somewhat carefree. Perhaps it was this easy going culture that subsequently prevented the city from reaching its economic boom and becoming a world renowned city. After all, it is a city founded on top of precious stones just like Johannesburg. I read somewhere that Kimberley should’ve grown to be the size of Johannesburg, but it is far from it. It is still mind-boggling to this day.

A white guy riding his bicycle to work at and smart lady working at the Bank as a customer care consultant, are what seems to be general characteristics of the city. People will welcome you into their homes and treat you like you are family. Up until that point; I never thought I would be that girlfriend, whose boyfriends’ parents adored, to a point where I had my own separate relationship with them. They would even buy me gifts when they go on their vacations. It was nice. I can’t even front.

The Language

The first cultural shock I got was that Kimberley was a predominately an Afrikaans town. Sounds scary right? surprisingly not; I found the people very friendly like I said. People that are considered black look coloured and they too speak Afrikaans but Identify as Tswana. Confusing; right? At that time; my Tswana was really bad and that’s code for I couldn’t speak Tswana at all. Neither could I speak Afrikaans nor did I want to. I would be in town trying to ask for directions in English and people would look at me funny. ‘’Engelse mense’’ they would call you if you tried to speak English in town… lol. I found it so odd that when you spoke English you were considered snobbish but not Afrikaans? like how guys?? Then there were some municipalities that had financials statements or supporting documents in Afrikaans and as an auditor you would have to rely on your colleagues to translate or use google translate. Belonging is such a fragile state.

The Workplace

This is the one place that solidified the fact that there were cracks in my sense of belonging. Government is the biggest employer in the city of Kimberley, maybe followed by Banks and as you may already know the Office of the Auditor General is responsible for auditing all government institutions in the country. This means I got to interact with the workforce in Kimberley. Because auditing is considered a scarce and critical skill in South Africa. The Office of the Auditor General –Northern Cape was predominately full of people from other provinces. Most of them studied in Bloemfontein and were also originally from some of the cities in the Free State. A very few from Gauteng, Eastern Cape, North West and KwaZulu-Natal. An even fewer number of colleagues were from the mighty province of Limpompo lol. No guys, it’s Limpopo, please. People originally from Northern Cape were surprisingly few. I am not sure if this can be attributed to the fact that there was no university at the time or just a lack of ambition. Maybe their top students like the rest of us went to study across different provinces and never returned to work at home because of the lack of opportunities. I don’t know; but I know I struggled to fit it because from the moment I got to Kimberley I knew exactly what I was there to do and the period of time I would be there. See, for me it was a season that was going to pass; yet a season so critical. By the time I left Kimberley my goal was to have that CTA thing done. I guess that conversation made others uncomfortable. I would often get comments like: “Nobody has passed CTA in this Business Unit or only one person from many moons ago had passed”. I just didn’t want to believe that would be the story I tell my family, that nobody had done it. Yet again my precious belonging started dwindling right before my eyes.

The Friends

I remember for the first time in my life I started feeling different when I was among the locals; but I wasn’t “different” alone. There was also Lefenyo, Shane, Thato and to a certain extent Thlogi was different too. Ok yes, these are all my friends I guess we were drawn to each other because we were the outcasts. Each one different in their own way. Lefenyo a Wits University graduate with her Gauteng tendencies of having high hopes and dreams and of course her English seemed to make others uncomfortable. She also has/had a lot of compassion. I remember on days Shane and I had no money, she would help us out. Liefie is a very generous person, I was drawn to her because she was a christian girl who tried her best to live a purpose driven life. Don’t get me wrong; she is also all sorts of weird, but it is a weird I could live with. My kind of weird. She eventually moved back to Gauteng.

Thato being an extremely complex human being; it is even hard to try and find words to bring her character to life. Somewhat a slay queen; smart enough to go on to become a CEO of a mutual fund company. She can be very dramatic and mean and in the same breath take off her heels and wig and scrub pots for you because the moment requires her to. She is very motherly which I love and hate all at the same time. She cries over anything and everything. She gives her all for the people she loves. Although Modise and I occasionally call her selfish when she pisses us off, we both can’t deny she is a person of influence in our lives especially in trying to get us together. Also a person raised within Christian values and a prayerful person. My relationship with Thato has transcended beyond the boundaries of friendship, she’s family. She eventually moved back to Rustenburg.

Then there was Shane and Thlogi, both originally from Kimberley. Thlogi was different because she was one of the few people in the Business Unit who had CTA and she had done 2 years of articles already with PWC when she joined AG. Although originally from Kimberley I do not think she can speak Afrikaans or maybe I just never heard her speak Afrikaans. Sy was 'n Engelse mens. We also started on the same day so she had to be my friend. Underneath all that; I found her very smart and caring. She still lives in Kimberley.

Shane, my buddy, the one assigned to me to help me settle into my role. He is an example of how keeping company of people with a positive attitude towards life can positively affect your life. Even though he is a lad compared to me, one couldn't help but draw strength from his ‘’never say die’’ attitude. I will always remember him as the person who kept my hopes alive with his passion for the CA(SA) qualification. This guy had a good understanding of exceeding, abundantly and above all and he was so young. A few other guys like John Seleke were also part of the different spirit people.

The Migration

My original plan was to stay in Kimberley for 6 to 12 months however somewhere in my 18th month in Kimberley I decided it was time to move back to Gauteng. The journey from Kimberley to Venda was tiresome. I would have to take 2-3 days leave just to travel home. A journey that took 15 hours on the road. How could I possibly belong in a place so far from where my ancestors lay? Not to mention that the journey usually involved a night in a Greyhound or Translux bus; coming from Cape town via Kimberley. It would already be so stuffy by the time it got to Kimberley, my word. I could no longer put my soul through it all so I decided to move back to Pretoria. My time in Kimberley now seems like a distant memory, yet I treasure all the memories of my time there. Kimberley was a great incubator. Oh a tremendous growth period!! And yes I went on to finish the CA(SA) journey. I’ve since realized that career paths we choose play a big role in creating dreams and achieving them seems monumental; like it would mean something once we reach them but when you eventually achieve them the actual moment does not always come with a resounding sound of victory, but you’ll realize that this too; just like life was never about the destination but the journey. And so it was a journey back home, where I belong.

My Mind Speaks…..