La Mama Desnuda (The Naked Mama)

Friday morning. I had survived my first full week in Langa despite the fact that I was so fraught with anxiety that I didn’t think I’d make it through the first day. I was more than doing okay: I was excited for the weekend (TGIF), excited that I finally got a great night’s sleep, and excited to wish my Mama a happy birthday. My Mama, a big, bubbly, and boisterous sixth-grade schoolteacher was turning 51 and, I swear, could not have been happier that another 364 days had passed in order to celebrate this joyous day with friends, food, photos, and an opportunity to shamelessly promote herself as the center of attention. It was a self-serving industriousness that I could not help but admire and that I somewhat hope she will subconsciously impart to me for my many birthdays to come. I leapt out of bed to start my day and took a peek at my class notebook to make sure I had the Xhosa words to the happy birthday song memorized. Imini mnandi kuwe, Imini mnandi kuwe, Imini mnandi kuMama, Imini mnandi kuwe. Check. I could hear the television emitting the wholesome voices of African gospel singers and knew that, just like most mornings, my Mama was already awake and ready to begin her day.

I quietly cracked open the door, slipped out of my bedroom and started walking down the hallway towards the noise. However, when I reached the living room I immediately knew something wasn’t quite right. It only took me a quarter of a second to realize that I was beholding the back of my 200-odd lb. Mama, stark naked and doing a little birthday jig in front of the television. I froze; that’s not an exaggeration, I literally froze in my tracks. I froze because I knew that I had to be quiet to give myself a minute to decide whether I was going to venture forth into the presence of my Naked Mama or to retreat into the confides of my room and pretend as if I had never seen a thing. You know those Twix commercials that show people in dire situations and then freeze-frame to a male commentator saying, “Need a moment…? Chew it over with Twix”. Well, despite the irrelevancy of the brand name, let’s just say I could’ve really used a Twix at that moment. My very first feeling was that of guilt and it hit me like a brick. My Mama had obviously made a mistake, right? She had crept out here thinking she could have a private moment to herself without some household invader discovering her in this defenseless state. Who the hell was I to think I could come out here and disrupt her attempt to enjoy a birthday dance in her birthday suit?

If guilt hit me like a brick when I first entered the room, then it hit me like a house crumbling upon me when my Mama, perhaps sensing my frozen and criminally-posed presence behind her, turned right around exposing her entirely bare front side. The only way I could think of to rectify the situation was to somehow figure out a way to channel the uncomfortable energy into action. I knew that I couldn’t turn around and run at that point, for I’d already been caught: the jailbreak option had failed as the spotlight turned on me. But, I also knew I couldn’t just stand there speechless or I’d look like a freak. I swear that in that split second I imagined this fast-forwarded scenario of my Mama calling up the directors of SIT (my program) and requesting a change of students after a blatantly inappropriate “incident” in which I stared at her naked; or at least I imagined the feeling of criminality associated with if this scenario had happened. With these two options eliminated, the only obvious one still stood: to sing. Before I knew it, the Xhosa birthday song played itself flawlessly through my mouth, and with each line, my smile got wider, and the timbre of my voice raised itself to girlish heights; for that moment I trained myself to believe that if I behaved as if the whole situation was normal for me, as if it was something I had intended to encounter, that my statistical chances of coming out unscathed would be increased. And to my surprise, with each line, my Mama cooed with joy, chuckled heartily, clapped her hands and danced, not once attempting to reach for a piece of clothing. “You clever, clever girl!” she shouted gleefully in her distinctive South African enunciation, and motioned for me to come get a kiss. So I came to get a kiss, practically enveloped in my Mama’s bare bosoms, and that was the time that will go down in history as the morning I sang to my Naked Mama.