I was not expecting her tears, in fact, I admit, I was
a little taken aback. However, I could see that these were not sad tears.
Rather, though there had been sadness, now something else was birthing these
tears. It was the emotion due to being acknowledged, being heard and being
honoured. I was meeting with Nomamela Sijila, the PNPS isiXhosa teacher, to
find out more about how isiXhosa had been included in this year’s poetry
competition, and her tears were not for herself, but rather they were her
response to the inclusion of her mother tongue.
Nelson Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a
language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his
language, that goes to his heart”. As Nomamela explained the gradual embracing
of isiXhosa by PNPS, I came to see how this wasn’t just a journey about the
academic learning of a language, but this was a journey of the recognition of a
culture and a people into the school space.
