Soul Dose

I slept a lot today, I got hurt emotionally and spent hours trying to forget but couldn’t, so I pulled up my covers and slept… I’m not good at crying, yes I know crying sometimes helps in relieving the pain but when I was young and was going through the experience that I went through I told myself no more crying, now I’m older and I do cry but not as much as I’d like to sometimes.

I’m sure you’re wondering what I went through when I was young because I keep referring to it and as much as I wanna talk about it I’m not ready. I’ve made a post once and saved it as a draft but deleted a day later… Something inside me keeps saying “girl you have got to talk about this, see how much talking about the illness has helped, surely talking about this will help as well”. Do I listen to my inner voice (which can be dumb sometimes) or keep blogging and taking it one day at a time? I think I’ll keep writing and taking it one day at a time, writing what my fingers are able to click on that day and letting tomorrow take care of itself…. For now I will tell you about the kleptomaniac in our mist.

Alright, we all know there are different types of people, some good, some bad and some floating in between. I have never been a fan of judging people and I try to keep my mouth shut most times (made a lot easier by the fact that I can’t talk anymore)… So I get hurt when someone purposely hurts me and does something I could never do to them, ever.

Today I was in my room as always minding my business, I was trying to come up with a secret language I could use to communicate with my nephew (This idea came from the wonderful Doraz who has an amazing blog Believe In Yourself, if you’ve never seen it you owe it to yourself to check her out trust me) I hope you're still willing to help D, I need ideas because I'm fresh out. Anyone else who has some easy and fun sign tips please tell me.

So there I was trying to create easy signs you can do with one hand because I can only use my right hand. My mother shouted she was leaving for work and I reach into this box where I keep my money. I wanted to give it to her so she can but a gift for Sbahle’s birthday. I had R630 in there which had been a “buy whatever you need” gift from Mom Ndu’s friend. I opened the box and to my horror I only had R30 left. Then I started thinking back, I remembered that I had last seen my money the previous day around 4pm just before the smoke drama (the house had started filing with smoke and gran could not see the source, she feared there was a fire somewhere). So whoever took my money took it during the fire drama when Gran asked Shivile to move me to his outside room while they tried to find the source of the smoke.

My heart just sank and mom tried to ask everyone who had been around at the time but we knew it was a waste of time and at the end we gave up… Here at Gran’s house money gets stolen a lot but it never stops being irritating.

(My Mr Man wasn’t even here and I couldn’t cry on his strong muscular ripped shoulder, ha ha ha. I’m kidding.) Hey a girl has to be a girl sometimes, lol.

I’m going back to my sleep now but I already feel a lot better than I did this morning, and writing really is great therapy…. Thanks for tolerating my rant.

Cheers and Stay Beautiful.

Hello my friends, I’d like to tell you a little bit more about my family so you can understand some other things I’ve wanted to write about but couldn’t because I knew you were gonna get confused.

This family is my mother’s side and that is where I grew up.

My grandfather (Elliot) married my grandmother (Mayvis) when she was 18 and I don’t know how old he was. It was 1957 according to my calculations. They had two daughters, Nomusa (my mother) in 1960 and Nondumiso in 1962 (my mom Ndu, she’s like a mother as well).

In 1973 or 1972 my Grandfather met and married another woman (Philippine). She became his second wife and when she came into the marriage she already had a daughter by an ex boyfriend, her name was Nompumelelo.

After they got married they had their first daughter Geli in 1974, then a son Msa in 1976, Msa was followed by another son Mdu in 1979 (he’s my favourite uncle and treats us all equally really), after Mdu came another boy Nkosingiphile in 1981 but we call him Shivile, Shivile was followed by a girl in 1983 Nontobeko but we call her Zinto, the last boy Siphesihle came in 1988.

The following year my grandfather passed away after a long illness but I was too young to understand and I still don’t know what illness he had.

In 1994 Msa was gunned down at night at a neighbours house.

Philippine also passed away in 1999 followed by her daughter nompumelelo in 2002.

My mother had three children, Lindelwa in 1981, Silindile in 1984 and Mandisi in 1985, yeah I know Mandisi came too close for comfort and stole my spot. I remind them of this sometimes when I’m up to something., ha ha ha.

Mom Ndu sadly didn’t have children, I believe she can still have one but only the man upstairs controls that.

All the children have had children of their own except me, Mandisi, Siphesihle, Mbali and Thobeka.

This is the full family from my mother’s side. They live in the same yard but two separate houses.

Sorry for the long post but there are things I’d like to write about especially as I tell parts of what happened to me. I’ve only told up to 2005 and would like to start taking it from there till I reach the part where I woke up and  for me to do it clearly I realized I needed to introduce everyone.

Starting tomorrow I’ll try to blog everyday and will continue the story starting from what happened after my coming of age celebration.

(As for my family on my father’s side we don’t know them very well and they haven’t been active in our lives. I haven’t seen any of them since I woke up and it hurts but it’s life, as long as my father is here I‘m happy)

Cheers and stay beautiful, inside and out.

The prince has spoken,

his word is law,

for he is the wisest,

cutest prince in all the land.

I was with my nephew and gave him the honor of naming my gift from Doraz.

He thought about it in a princely wise way, and asked is this baby my little sister?

I had to laugh at that line but thought it was too cute.

Then he said, loud and clear "Pearl"

So there you have it, who am I to go against a prince's word?

Meet Pearl Ntuli

   (That's me on 05 February 2005)

One black South African tradition is called "Umhlonyana/Umemulo", that is they make a ceremony for a girl saying you're a woman now, you're free to get knocked up... I'm joking about the knocked up part, just trying to lighten the mood after my boring post yesterday.

During the ceremony, the young woman is showered with gifts in the form of money notes, which are attached with safety pins to something she wears on her head called "inkehli", it's  hat of some sort with decorations and I don't know the English word for it... The whole thing is really nice and to prepare for the the local girls together with the girl in question sing and go around the neighborhood dancing for neighbors and asking for coins in return, it's all part of the fun and of tradition. If they come knocking on your door you go out and watch them Zulu Dance for you, then you contribute and the sing as they walk to the next house. They do this every evening for the whole week till the ceremony day.

Mine was a lot different though, I was getting worse and was about to turn 21 years old, my family wanted to do it for me because it was time but also because they wanted to make me feel alive and part of something outside my bedroom. I was hesitant because I knew a lot of local people were gonna come and a lot of other people, I hadn't been seen by lots and I was too self conscious. But they convinced me and well who can say no to a party.

So we spent Friday night at my grandmother's house (my dad's mother) and went back to my other grandmother's house for the party, the one I live with. We got there very early in the morning on Saturday the 5th February 2005 and as tradition I had to go bath in  the river with the other girls that were gonna be Zulu Dancing with me......... I couldn't do this but my family thought it was important and decided to drive me and dip me, leaving the other girls behind (I hated this part of the ceremony but I was about to have my memulo and that was too nice because I had written it out of the things I was gonna have, along with children, marriage, degree, job, you know the usual, ha ha ha.

We went back home and I got dressed in my slight traditional wear and that's my grandmother getting me ready to go to the yard where the dancing and celebrations were to happen. The man next to me is my grandfather's brother and my favorite guy. He sadly passed away in 2006 and I'm still not over it because I only heard it fresh in April and he was very special to me and apparently we got even closer after I got sick.

Then I went out to start the celebrations..........................

And another one......................................

They put money on my head (my favorite part)

I did have some unpleasant fainting moments and couldn't keep my head steady after wards, like above.

When the dance ended I changed and wore my party clothes, we went into the tent and  I had all my friends with me, take a look.

I'm the one in the light blue top and the one holding me on my right is one of my oldest friends, the one holding the left we were during our last year of high school.

After that we went to my bedroom because I was tired and laughed for hours, some spent the night and others left very late..... Judging from the pictures it was a great day and I thank everyone who made it possible, God bless you all.

By the eve of my 21st birthday party I was ready, my friends were invited and neighbors were asked to help with the dancing. I was very happy because a 21st is a big thing and I was finally turning into a woman Zulu style.

We left my grans house and went to my other grans house (my daddy's mother), we were gonna spend the night there and go back to my other gran the next morning and then the party was gonna start.

• We got there at around 6pm if I'm not mistaken, keep in mind I'm telling this from what Mom Ndu and Mama tell me when we're not laughing at nothing in my bedroom.
• They gave me a bed to sleep on, mom got me ready and after saying our prayers we slept at 10pm and everything looked fine.
• Of course I was fainting and waking up at least 6 times per hours.
• At 2am mom was awake and noticed that it had been nearly 30 minutes since I last shock and fainted, and at first she was happy I finally got 30 minutes of sleep, till she touched me and realized I was barely alive.
• At that point mom says she woke everyone up and they worked on me, seeing that it was too late they called my nurse aunt as they watched me die......... They say by the time she arrived they could hardly feel my pulse and my body looked and felt lifeless.
• Hours later I was awake and my breathing was slowly coming together..................... And as soon as I could write again mom asked me what happened and what you're about to read next is unbelievable, I don't believe it myself but I know they wouldn't lie to me.

This is what I told mom - She looked me straight in the eye and  said , Silindile Ntuli told her the following [ I felt like I was dreaming and in this dream my body was in no pain, I could see my other tortured body but my dream body was unbelievably peaceful. I wasn't fainting, wasn't getting any stabbing pains, wasn't getting my breathing cut off every 5 minutes and I was in peace. So while I'm stannding there this stranger comes and says let's go. Without any questions I follow this stranger and even though I never saw the face I kept following. On our way it started raining heavily and I said I was going home to get my umbrella, I turned back and woke up from my dream.

A priest believes I had a near death experience that day but me, I believe I was dreaming.... Do I believe in near death experiences and all that? Not really, my problem is I question things too much and take them apart piece by piece.