Two Women On The Dromedaris Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

They sailed on blue seas to lands far away.
They saw it all, this landing that shook the
ship and had it wrecked on a strange land.
Two women on the Dromedaris, where
fourteen men went on a spicy search.

This Van Riebeeck ship landed on shores
blue, called the Cape of Good hope,
also the Cape of Storms soon to
become the cape of misery.

This cape was no cape, this new name
was heard also by the two women. One
was a priest's wife. One was the gardener's
wife. They would meet and stay where too
currents meet. Sister Benguela and sister Agulhas
for people think about gardeners and priests
on journeys where life could take a new turn,
as it did here.

That day they prayed, and also ate,
for the two people and their wives,
had made the Dromedaris home.
A home now wrecked on the shores
of the land called the cape.

We do not know their names, for they
were not the captain. The people around
having never seen a big ship wreck like this,
Surely knew their souls had also been wrecked.

Women on the ship tell us, what sounds you
heard that day. Were they like silence, or like
whips cracking on the backs of people, like
waves shattering themselves on the rocks?
All we know about Boers, is that days of
whips cracking on backs of people and slaves
pouring in had begun. So had wars over
cattle. Did you see it all?

I ask for the retelling leaves you out.
Nobody except the books of the
latter saints tell of you. I ask for a
society that speaks the words of people
like you, for you can also attest to what
happened when the Dromedaris landed.

It became news with consequence,
this fit of the landing of a Dutch ship.
Nobody wanted the spices anymore.
Nobody could progress anymore for
the trip to Indonesia was now ended
on a new Dutch East India Company morning.

Years of history tell us you two,
could not sustain a population of
these fourteen men. Who were the
new brides? Was it Sarah Baartman,
or some Sarah Baartmans whose names
are lost in history like yours?

I ask and tell for in questions are answers,
and in telling words, for people need them,
Even if to create a false history that says
history began the day Van Riebeeck landed..
Someone out there is asking the same
questions as these. For these are the days
of knowing, where a mouse cannot squeak
and not rock a house and bring it to its feet.

Here lies the Dromedaris, in these pages of history,
with Jan Van Riebeeck bigger than all the people
once on the ship, the day it landed. His name can
blow the wind, that covers the names whose souls
wrote with footprints in the sand, for only the sand
could tell us, who stepped out of the ship and walked
on it that day.

People of this world, I have read and will tell, that
there were two women in that ship; one priest's wife,
the other the gardener's wife. If women's names would
be recorded, like the names of men, we would know their
names.

Lifecaptains, the way the sea likes them,
history likes men, the way it loves Van Riebeeck.
I chose to ask that we find out more, now that the
cat is out of the bag, it cannot come back into
the bag empty handed.

When we read next about Van Riebeeck, let us not
forget, he was not with men alone. He was with two
women, this I proclaim. They already belonged to
someone. Yes, Van Riebeeck is not said to have had
a wife. He had sailed year in and out on the high seas,
where a woman to a captain would have been a distraction.

Captains too sleep on pillows softer than a woman's, I declare.
I have seen life to question it with the micro phone in my eye
and my brain. When you ask questions loud, you get answers
loud. For they say it is culture. For now we learn of how it was
for lives lived daily, on the Dromedaris. Don't ask me, ask history.

We said one day, we will rewrite the story of this ship,
and not say the history of the people of the land,
begins with Jan Van Riebeeck. When we do so, let us also
rewrite the missing chapter, that tells of women on this ship.

It may not rewrite it and give the honor due to Sarah Baartman,
for Saratjie, who lived to see lands far away, this freak of the world,
whose genitals were on icons, whose behind was the spectacle,
that mine and yours refuses to be is now dead. She who wore no corset,
when those around her of her shape did, is dead. She rests now in our
bosom, for our soil has taken her from France to its bosom, where she belongs.

This story of women and the Cape, rings hollow to me,
when it is told from the chapters in the books of male professors,
who glean the archives and eat and forget that food can only
be present if a woman who gives birth is present. Her story is
the story of the land. Let us tell it.

We may not know where they died, but surely they arrived.
We may not know who they gave birth to, if surely they did.
One thing we know about women, they are our mothers,
No matter what shape, colorant heightthey come in.
Theythey mother us, and so they should be given a voice.
Even if the voice is distorted like mine. Hear me out,
there were two women on the Dromedaris.
That is my sermon for today. Say Amen!
Then read this new chapter of the bible at home, with your
finger on the name of the first woman called Eve. Make
this bookmark, on behalf of the two, for names are important,
for they give us a way, to know things and name them, for that
is what knowing is, in this land of we, we men.