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Ismail Mahomed

Gubayba of Rylands and Aunty Faatma

Ismail Mahomed remembers last years Heritage Day when Aunty Faatma gave him a blow-by-blow account of what went down.



I called Aunty Faatma to find out if she had a lekker Heritage Day celebration yesterday. Jislaaik, I wasn’t expecting her to break the bank.


“Ooh Yaaa Allah, Isamayal, I work my ******* off yesterday to make koeksusters for the Heritage Day party that Gubayba of Rylands was organising by the community hall. I say for Gubayba, ‘Now Gubayba, I don’t mind making koeksusters for you but please tell for me, how can a koeksuster be your heritage?’. I say for Gubayba if the people eat a dozen koeksusters they is not going to *** out a naan bread so how can Heritage Day be maar a productive thing?


“Jirre Isamayal ... Gubayba give me that dikbek look and says for me that I want to always put a spanner in the works of her nation-building efforts. Gubayba say for me that Gubayba is taking koeksusters because everyone is going to bring food from their own community and Gubayba is taking koeksusters because koeksusters is a slaamse thing. I say for Gubayba, ‘like really? Koeksusters is a slaamse thing? Did Ghalima teach the koeksuster the kalima?’


“In the evening last night, Gubayba phone me and she say for me that at the party at the recreation Centre everyone just went mal for my koeksusters and especially the White womens that came all the way for the party from Camps Bay and Franschoek. I say for Gubayba, ‘like really? The White womens ate up my koeksusters even when they was Banting? Ooooh jirre, Gubayba, the White womans from Franshoek was probably feeling homesick. When there isn't bread then give them slaamse koeksusters’.


“Gubayba says the party was very multi-cultural. Jislaaik, Isamayal, multi-cultural is nogal a moerse big word, huh! Gubayba tell for me that it is about unity in diversity and that everyone was there with their own traditional food and their own cultural dress to show how separate but equal our nation's people is from each other. I say for Gubabyba, ‘but haai, Gubayba, that sounds maar just like what Piet Koornhof said so why the fok did we spend all this time to maar fight apartheid!’


“Ooh Yaa Isamayal, you know Gubayba gets maar lekker dikbek when I say for her that the more things change the more it stays the same. I ask for Gubabyba why she wear a doek to the party and not do like she mos did in the olden days and put a stocking on her head after she perm it. I say for Gubayba, ‘now Gubayba, why did you maar not wear a stocking on your head because Heritage Day is maar about remembering the olden stuff about where we come from?’


“You can imagine maar, Isamayal. Gubayba of Rylands what wears a embroidered punjabi dress everyday was mos the African feshun Queen yesterday. Before she go to the community hall she even come to show off by me with her Xhosa outfit that she bought from the design store at the Waterfront. I ask for Gubayba, ‘Now Gubayba, how can the dress be a original-Xhosa outfit because how many Xhosa people in Cape Town can afford to shop at the Waterfront if they haven’t still been tenderised by the ANC? Why didn’t you maar go buy a outfit from the dressmaker in Khayelitsha?’


“Ooh Yaa Allah, Gubayba sommer storms out of the front door without even saying salaam. Me ... I just go back to my kitchen and carry on filling my samoosas. Is no use that I make more koeksusters because now that Heritage Day is finish and klaar, the White womens from Camps Bay and Franschoek what loved my koeksusters will go back to Banting and who the *** will want to buy koeksusters? Heritage Day does fokol for the economy, man!

So me for myself and not for the Heritage Day party, I didn’t make koeksusters like everyone else yesterday. I just made dalchies for myself because if there is loadshedding again tonight at the ghadad everyone must know that when there is a blackout that it is me what is gatvol and it is me what is poeping from all the dalchies like a independent on Heritage Day because all this blerrie Eskom blackouts is having a big knock on my samoosa, koeksuster and dressmaking business!”

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