TruthAboutLies101

Cross Legged with hands resting on her lap, her tiny foot sways like a pendulum back and forth. She uses all four eyes to search across the ceiling, her hair finding its place routinely on her shoulders. Itumeleng Sekhamane, a small part of Lesotho soil, recaps the past year spent at Rhodes, and what the experience has meant for her in her own life. Tumi, as she is referred to by her friends, has given herself a new chance to live life without merely existing. Being a Bachelor of Arts student, Tumi has found a sense of freedom reverting from social expectations and requirements. She sits on the edge of the bed, facing an alphabetised bookshelf, personal assistant looking workspace and whites and colours structured wardrobe, all in a room with the new smell of vacuum.

Walking to her headquarters we were stopped constantly by phrases such as “Hey Tumi!” and what followed was a bright, white display of incisors and molars. A beautiful surface, what lies beneath is dull and black. As she leans on the other leg, she recounts the story of the mountain she has had to climb over this year. A carb filled, beef smelling, onion and tomato surrounded mountain, with lettuce for a foundation. The Burger, bane of her life. “I always used to think that whatever it is I was doing, there were just people watching me, analysing me” she admits, with a comprehensive expression.

She describes her difficulty with being anywhere in the public, rapidly walking to classes, bag saddled down across her body, head down and eyes on her feet. It is this nature that had prevented her from steering forth into the dining hall and attacking her food. Embarrassed at the possibility of making a mess with her meal, her first time in the dining hall was like having to walk down a path of needles with a ball of fire in her chest. Planning before hand how she would go about making her way through the different meals, she told herself, “I just won’t eat, I’ll eat another time. Don’t look at anybody, walk normally.” Eating had in fact become, Mission Impossible.

As the seasons changed, or stayed the same in Grahamstown, this nature subsided. The Burger is no longer the devil. “The first time I ate a burger, I felt triumphant. I bit into it and the sauce went out on the sides but I didn’t care. I finished and no one was looking at me.” She says this with hands swimming an unknown stroke in the air and eyes illuminated. She is calm, takes a deep breath and what follows is a bright white display of incisors and molars. She still walks rapidly to classes, bag saddled down across her body, with head down, eyes looking at her feet. Only now, she is able to raise her head as she walks towards the dining hall and The Burger, has moved form being a stubborn, starchy mountain, to just being food.

Yvonne