Nameless

Since August last year, I've been spending some time with an assortment of older women--nominally part of a seniors' sewing club--in a little bungalow on a patch of ground in H-Section, Khayelitsha. "Doing what?" you may be tempted to ask. Well that's just the thing, I haven't been doing anything; I've just been hanging out. Like I do with my friends under the tree in my back garden, minus the wine. I've spent a good couple of months talking nonsense with the women, occasionally sorting their teeny-tiny little beads into colour-coded piles to avoid being accused of having "lazy hands".

About a week ago, one of the group leaders turns to me and says:
"You know ntombezaan'*, we were filling in this form yesterday."
"Oh Ma, what form?"
"No, I can't remember now."
"Oh, ok Ma." I turn a few pages of the Vukani while I wait for her to continue.
"Yes, so we were filling in this form."
"Mmm."
"And we had to put down the name of someone here at the centre."
I nod in reply.
"So we put down your name, because you always help us with these things you see."
"Ya Ma, no I see."
"Yes," pause and a little smile starts, "but we had a problem, Ntombi*."
"Oh no Ma, what happened?"
She starts to laugh and is joined by the woman sitting next to her as she explains, "We don't know your name!"
"Huh-Aah!" I exclaim and shake my head at her. "Ma I've been here how many months?!"
Much clucking and laughing in the group.
Ma'Sophe turns to me and asks, "It's Catherine ne?" while Ma'Regina tells me, "It's been so long we just forgot!"
"It's ok Ma," I smile at them, "nguJen."
A chorus of "Aaaah's" and "Jeeeeen's" and commitments that "Ok Ntombi we won't forget again."

The thing is, I only know their names because I wrote them down right at the very beginning of my time here. If I'm looking for someone in particular, I'll ask "where's Ma'Sarah?", but talking to them, it's always just Ma. And there are some women whose lives I know, and whose names I don't.

And me? Well I'm the ntombezana who comes and sits and listens to their stories. I'm either Ntombi or ntombezaan', never Jen. Contrary to what I've been brought up to believe, here in the bungalow, being nameless is an indication of relatedness, not the converse.

*Girl, daughter