A bakkie-load of Shangaan construction workers huddles tightly in their rainbow beanies. The young men slap backs and flash smil es as they scoot past a bevy of Boers dressed head-to-high-knee in khaki. The property developers suck their skafes and puff steam rings through the icy air. It’s Wednesday morning in the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate.
Across the R40, a stream of Toyota Hi-Ace taxis pull up in front of La Bamba supermarket. Farmhands and well-made wives banter in circles on the steps and chew fried chips, the air already full of sweat and laughter. Army green safari vehicles crowd the petrol bowsers, and from a cloud of dust comes the inaugural class at the Amazwi School of Media Arts.
Here in South Africa, where history is delicate and fresh, revolution is a dangerous word. Hundreds were exiled for imagining a post-Apartheid state, and millions suffered trying to outlive it. But in this sleepy tourist town, on the edge of Kruger National Park, fifteen young Shangaan and Sotho women are learning to tell their stories straight.
It’s the first Wednesday of the month, and time for the Editorial Meeting. The first edition of the signature publication, The Amazwi Villager, is just three weeks away, and the students are restless to see their names on the page. Lydia, fresh from her Rise & Shine snack stall, sits quietly in a huge apricot sun hat; Constance dishes out sweet cherry bubblegum at a rand for six pieces; and Maria, the dressmaker, in her black velvet boots and a white woolen sweater, laughs to herself, no longer ‘crying beneath a Marula tree’, no longer so ready to quit the bush beat.
The newly built classroom of clay-coloured concrete, thatched roof and high wooden beams echoes with Tsonga whispers. The students are reluctant to present their new assignment ideas. The editor is ready to bend their ideas to fit.
As one-by-one the topics are revealed, the threads are hope and life and struggle, but death, it seems, is everywhere. There’s a profile of a prosperous coffin-maker, a tombstone carver, an investigation into Burial Societies, a day-in-the-line at a hospital, plus a staple diet of abortion, AIDS and TB.
We break for lunch, and the students burst into sing-song relief. “Aish, this journalism stuff is too hard!” moans Thandi, 22, for whom writing stories is in fact too easy. On her first assignment, Thandi spent an evening at a local shebeen (unlicensed bar), witnessed one stabbing and another near-death, and wrote it all up with poetry and poise.
Her Group B teammate, Siphiwe, 27, is a bronze Sotho athlete with high cheekbones —the right side stamped with a ceremonial scar—and a broad, ready smile. She wants to be a sports broadcaster, but for now, it’s an illegal immigrant from Mozambique who fills her days. Meanwhile, Bongekile, the accomplished, unofficial matriarch of the group, is trying to sort through the mess of government housing.
Revolutions can take at least four drafts to finish, usually handwritten and always double-spaced. Once submitted, everyone heads for Pick n Pay. Like a high school cafeteria, the class-come-newsroom bristles with mess and noise. Milk cartons – Maluti Fresh – twice-fried chicken, potato salads, cream-filled fatties, packets of Big Korn, Tupperware containers of thick beef stew, bags of wet peanuts and dry mopane worms. Copies of the Daily Sun change hands like winter gloves, and Gloria, this week’s blogger, writes a celebration of feminine might.
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According to a survey conducted by the Media Monitoring Project, in 2005, only 26% of news coverage in South Africa focused on women. Furthermore, the huge majority of this coverage presented women in reference to their families, or as unfortunate victims of crime. This in a country with a nearly 52% female population highlights a discrepancy in gender representation. The old boy’s club, it seems, has only changed colour.
Similarly disheartening is the way in which gender stereotypes are upheld by South Africa’s influential tabloid press. For every story of witchcraft and fraud, it seems there are two dealing with sexual assault. “There is a lot of media reporting on rape,” states the Media Monitoring Project report, Who makes the news?, “but it tends to victimize women or keep them silenced.” The report continues that, on February 16 2005, a prominent soccer star was charged with raping an underage girl. The married celebrity denied the charge, but much of the media attention was on his celebrity status, rather than the allegations themselves. Likewise, a study in the Rhodes Journalism Review found that “South Africa’s women journalists not face a glass ceiling, but indeed one made of concrete.
In light of South African women’s mirepresentation in the media, the role of Amazwi, which mean ‘voices’ in Zulu, is political as much as social. Rural stories struggle to be told in South Africa, as journalists must give precedence to the stories that affect their readers’ lives. As scores of men rush for the cities to find employment, many women are left behind, and life goes on unreported.
Yet here in the poor northern province of Limpopo, where news is usually bad, the women of Amazwi are blessed with an added responsibility. Rather than merely entertain the urban middle-classes with the oddities of the outback, they must bring everyday life to the breakfast table of the communities in which they live. It’s a tough job, but there’s no need to hurry. It’s slow news that sometimes burns brightest.
