Tumi Or Not Tumi

Comedienne, actress and presenter Tumi Morake is now also an author, and her first book, And Then Mama Said, takes readers behind the scenes in South Africa’s entertainment scene

- Tumi Morake

We can live on bread and water

Mama used to say that she would happily live on bread and water as long as Vonani and I were educated. She held educated women in very high regard, and I wanted to be that: Mama’s graduate daughter of whom she could be proud. In January I received a letter from Wits: I was two points short because of my maths grade. Go figure. Maths had stopped being my friend in Grade 8, when I discovered that boys could be more than just friends. I had to travel to Johannesburg to write an entrance exam to be admitted for first year. Again, a glimmer of hope in the grey cloud forming overhead.

Before, Mama had managed to get me to Johannesburg, but this time I was on my own. I arrived at Park Station in downtown Johannesburg and had to figure out my way to Wits from there. Now, Park Station is a meeting point for travellers coming from all corners of South Africa and surrounding borders via train, taxi and bus. It is an overwhelming bustle of people and the Tower of Babel of African languages. It is also a feeding ground for petty thieves. I was just a small-town girl trying to make her way to a university somewhere near this place.