Of course, she is a Scorpio woman: a law unto her own Self. Only this dense late-October brawd could own her Self in the midst of the world’s (superficial) judgemental glare. Much to UCT’s chagrin, she is unapologetic. She fractures “society’s “rules” on what should be perceived as the normative yardstick of a beautiful woman”.
Jill Scott's The Thickness themes our interaction: “she a big chick! Big ol’ legs, big ol’ thighs, big’ ol hips, big ol’ ass, big ol’ tits”. Young South African girl, twenty-years young, old time hater of self, “saturated with self-hatred”.
Only a day old, Oyama Unathi Botha left behind her “Queen” mother, in the “beautiful strong” town of Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape (“fort”, French for “strong”. “Beau”, French for “beautiful”), with her maternal grandmother. The Queen’s priority was to finish school. Off to De Aar in the Northern Cape, to be raised alongside cousin Ziyanda, her mirror. Oyama was a happy child. A happy,chubby child. Distinguished and set apart. “U Oyama no Ziyanda ka makhulu, omnye utyebile omnye ubhityile”: grandmother’s Oyama and Ziyanda. The one is fat, the other is thin”. A note for Oyama: your physical build defines you. Thus marking the beginning of the journey to self-denigration. Unknown destination. Until after the matric dance, perhaps. The mother city is shall be.
The University of Cape Town, hippies and cool kids’ headquarters. No space for a self-assured, voluptuous one point five metre black girl. In fact, not another Strong Black Woman. Please. But you cannot miss her. You will not miss her. It is one point six metres of oversupply. Confidence and pride 101. Triple majoring in International Relations, Public Policy and Administration as well as Organisational Psychology, a blogger and admirer and advocate for Nigerian author and feminist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Oyama is well within her own Self. But It wasn’t always like this.
I would have to be “very careful” if I was going to engage a big girl, inquire on how she navigates her Self in this mediated UCT. That is what they said. “Be very careful. Don’t make them feel bad. Weight is a sensitive issue”. They don’t know this girl. They clearly haven’t seen her! But I was right, as usual.
As expected, Oyama is real. No time for evasiveness. Her blog, Yammie Hearts & Curves, presents her in a turban bra, tummy bare, gazing into the space. Luxe et volupté.
Oyama did not like her corporal Self. Why, I ask. “The media. It all goes back to that”. She physically gestures “it’s obvious!” The answer is indeed obvious. But not a thorn in the flesh if you are unaffected by the media’s hate-yourself-because-you-are-not-enough images and messages. It is only obvious to the victim, who knows that she is the victimizer’s object of (injurious) affection, a quadruple threat: young, woman, black, full of potential. The media is what broke her down, divided her into two, subtracted self-esteem, added self-hate, and multiplied notions of double-mindedness, internally brawling with God and “the other voice”. The former avowing that she is “fearfully and wonderfully made”, the latter declaring that she needs to “shake it all off”. Oh really?
The Thickness sustains our conversation. The words ring truer: “she’s so big, ain’t nobody even tryin’ to reach her mind”. She would know, she is (unconsciously) on the receiving end of our judgements. Turns out, Oyama exercises. She recalls of a brief encounter with a girl who was inspired her boldness, her way of dress, who confessed that she “could never” wear shorts the way Oyama does. This girl was half her own size. “At that moment, it occurred to Ms.Botha that “perhaps it’s not a matter of the exterior. It’s a matter of how you feel inside”.
Surprisingly, Oyama is not able to pin-point the day she shook off her feelings of insecurity. High-school did play a preponderant role, however. Kimberley Girls’ High’s self-conscious teacher’s pet “got it all” one particular morning and the rest was history.
The antidote to shame is pride. Oyama’s subversion of shame is illustrative of the healing properties of what she advocates: Radical Self Love. The absence of fear transforms feelings of disgrace into the embracing of all that is different. Oyama found refuge in Akhona, another full-figured school-mate who shaped her desire for redemption from the world’s judgement of her.
At one stage, Oyama recounts that she “went as far as entering plus size competitions, wearing what I wanted to wear and feeling comfortable in my own skin thus, not conforming to other peoples beauty standards”. She seems to illustrate the determination needed to escape the clutches of the media in order to become the standard, not part of it.
She shares the following with me: “NOW, I am here and, for some reason along the line, all the “issues” that caused me to be cruel to myself are now contributing towards my story telling and radical self-love journey.A story that is provoked through contributions of receiving kind messages of how I inspire girls to love themselves and stop conforming and always remembering that loving yourself radically starts from within”.
Oyama Botha is a survivor. She disturbs convention. That simultaneously makes her an icon and a marginalized member of society even after having made the decision to go against all odds in order to own and authentically define her own Self.
Jill Scott’s words will carry her through the next leg of her journey…“Lift her. Lift her. Let her be elevated. Let her be elevated”.
Follow her BEAUTIFUL BLOG @ http://deepcityblog.wordpress.com
StayBlessedandLoveYourself
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