Xhosa
One of the official languages of South Africa, this is the language Mandisa and her family speaks. It is a Nguni Bantu language with click consonants.
UmXhosa
Person who speaks the Xhosa language
Guguletu
Name of the township to which Mandisa's family is relocated in her youth. The word "Guguletu" means "our pride," but residents call it "Gugulabo"—"their pride," an ironic note on the miserable state of the residents as enforced by the apartheid government. It is described as congested, with hundreds and hundreds of houses as far as the eye can see. There are few schools, and the ones that exist are ineffectual. It is also dirty, as Mandisa describes: "The streets are narrow, debris-filled, full of gullies alive with flies, mosquitoes and sundry vermin thriving in pools of stagnant water that are about the only thing that never dries up and never vanishes in Guguletu." (24)
shushu
Hot, as in temperature.
In novel: "But now, people look at me as if I’m the one who woke up one shushu day and said, Boyboy, run out and see whether, somewhere out there, you can find a white girl with nothing better to do than run around Guguletu, where she does not belong." (5)
Blouvlei
Mandisa's birthplace
Hokkie
A shack-like house made of aluminum, small and easily torn down. The kinds of structures built in Guguletu in preparation for the forced migration of the black population.
Ubhuti
Brother; bhuti when addressing a person
Mlungu, umlungu
A white person
Umyeni
Husband
Mfazi
Wife
Usisi
Sister; sisi when addressing a person
Umama
Mother; mama when addressing a person
Utata
Father; tata when addressing a person
Siyanqoba
We overcome; a war chant
Toyi-Toyi
A back-and-forth chant
Khawutsho
Tell us, speak
Awu
Oh no
Ndiyeza
I'm coming / I'm on my way!
Ummelwane
Neighbor; Mmelwane when addressing a person
Molo
Hello
Boer
A white South African of Dutch, German or Huguenot descent
Iimpimpi
Black people targeted by violence by other black people in townships, thought to be informers to the government
Operation Barcelona
A movement headed by schoolchildren in support of the teacher's strike. Mxolisi was part of the operation before his arrest.
