I can't recall a time when I did not know how to speak English. When I came out of my mother's womb, I believe that even my cry was that of an English tone.
Unfortunately for my mother, this was not the case. According to my dear mother, the first English phrase that she recalls learning was " he he he. I am laughing" (said in an African accent). Now my mother had no idea what this meant but she so often heard her teachers recite it that when she felt like showing off to her siblings, she would confidently chirp "he he he, I am laughing", in or out of context, based purely on luck. But who can blame my mom's lack of understanding of the English language when all they did in the Agriculture class was draw a cow?
That was in the 1970's...fast forward 2 1993. Education had seen a vast improvement. I was 5 and looking forward to finally starting (then) class one. The applications forms were sent in and I patiently waited for my interview date. In the mean time I prepared a schedule. Everyday I practiced counting, pronouncing words like my friend Lauren, learning the alphabet (with the kind help of my big brother) and writing my name. Yes, I studied hard for my class one interview...
Then the day finally came for my interview, I was prepared! I knew my ABCs, could count to twenty -error free- and not only write my name but those of my siblings too! When I got there they asked me my name and I said it in English (Zee-yan-der Coo-ma-low). Score, one to me, zero to failure. Round two was conversational. Round three they gave me a picture of a cow and instructed me to colour it in. Once I had done my best Leonardo Da Vinci impersonation -perfectly colouring within the lines- the interviewer took my paper and thanked my mom and told her the interview was done. What? That was it? After all my hard work they are going to take me back to my mom's Agriculture class era??? I was not impressed!
I got a call back! I mean, I passed the interview, and started class one (will hence forth be referred to as grade one for the younger generation) at Empangeni Preparatory School. Now I took grade one very seriously so when Mrs Cattroll started teaching us the alphabet I was probably thinking I got this, silently running through what my brother had taught me..."Ay, Bee, Cee, Dee, Eee, eF..." Then Mrs Cattroll went off "Ah, Buh, Kah, Duh, Eh, Fff...". Oh! What a waste of time! Needless to say, I spent the most part of that year unlearning what I had learnt.
So now you can see that my determination started at a young age. I've always been driven and not afraid of a little hard work.
See work started off a bit slow for me. Naturally I like having a lot of things to do, it keeps me sane for some odd reason. After my brief cry for more responsibilities at work I finally got loaded with plenty to keep me busy for a while! While some people wouldn't mind getting paid for doing nothing, I find it pointless. Where is the growth in that? To accept waking up to spend the whole day at the office surfing the net and living on social networks says something about you. Shame on you! Recently I spoke to a friend of mine who started working for an insurance company last year and spent the first couple of months doing nothing but the occasional photo copying. And she found this immensely frustrating, all she wanted to do was work! It was comforting to hear this from a young professional. We so often hear that South Africans are lazy and have low work ethic, but to know of people who actually want to work is promising. It shows that we are heading somewhere as a country. We are fortunate enough to have received an education that our parents could have only dreamed of, they have played their part, now the onus is on us to make a change in the way we do our jobs be it corporate, government or anything else in between.
P.S my mom has since perfected her English and has been using the phrase; "He he he, I am laughing" in the right context for as long as I can remember
