Nozibele Mjoli is a microbiologist who studied for her initial degrees at the University of Fort Hare and her doctoral degree at Notre Dame University in the United States. Nozi is presently a Research Manager at the Water Research Council (WRC) in Pretoria. She has held many positions: a school teacher, laboratory technician, lecturer at University of Bophutatswana1, research officer in the department of microbiology at the University of Cape Town, a Project Leader in the Division of Water Technology at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and senior lecturer at the University of Durban Westville.
A colleague who had attended a meeting of the Association of Black Scientists, Engineers and Technologists suggested Nozi's name to me. I telephoned her and introduced myself, requesting she be part of the project. She readily agreed and we set up meeting times. In what I was to discover was her efficient manner, she promptly faxed me acknowledgements of correspondence and maps giving directions to her offices.
I interviewed Nozibele Mjoli in December 1996 and January 1997 for about five hours. Towards the end of the interview process, after I had asked Nozi about how she felt about the telling me abo t her life, Nozi asked me how I felt about the process and listening to her story. I cornnlented that she had underplayed the various high and low experiences in her life - she has a very pragmatic approach to her life and will not labour on her experiences. In writing her story I was again made aware of how much I felt she had underplayed her experiences in life. My challenge, as the writer, was to emphasise those experiences.
Beginnings: ifyou have a father like mine who got his education through struggle, it would be a shame not to get anything
Nozibele Mjoli was born in Boksburg, at the home of her mother's parents, on 12 November 1954. Her parents are from uMzimkhulu in Transkei2 where they have lived
1Now called University of North-West.
2Transkei was one of the homelands in apartheid South Africa. This area now falls inthe Eastern Cape.
most of their lives. Nozi had very little interaction with her paternal grandparents. By the time she was born both were dead, but she had heard that they were very poor and did subsistence farming like most people in the rural areas. On her mother's side she had a step-grandmother and a grandfather. The family would travel from Transkei to Boksburg to visit them once a year. Her maternal grandfather, Jacob Lozini, worked as a clerk in the mines in Boksburg: but he had started off as a teacher (in uMzimkhulu) when a standard six education was enough to teach.
There is great pride in Nozi's voice when she describes her father, Paul Mjoli.
Nozi describes him as hardworking and says, "He came from a very poor family and managed to work and put himself through to school and got a Bachelor of Arts degree, which was quite a major achievement for somebody from a rural area." Paul Mjoli was fortunate to gain financial assistance from one of his distant relatives and studied on a full-time basis at the University of Fort Hare. Paul Mjoli then worked in a secondary school, teaching English and arithmetic, and later became an inspector of schools. When he retired as an inspector he went back as a contract teacher. He finally retired in 1996.
Nozi's mother, Doris Mjoli, also came from Transkei. Nozi's maternal grandmother had died when she was in standard three. Her father was then working in Johannesburg so she had to stay with relatives. She managed to continue and qualify as a teacher. However, she only taught until she got married. After this, Nozi's father did not allow her teach. "She had to stay home and raise her children and there are nine of us." Nozi describes her mother as "a very strong and enthusiastic person who is always involved in some community project."
In the Mjoli family there are six girls and three boys. Nozi is the eldest. Khuleka, who comes after Nozi, is married, lives in Matatiele and is a teacher at a college of education. Next is Nhlanhla, the deputy chief executive of a company involved in funding for housing. Zandile, at number four, is a senior manager at Eskom. Louie, Nozi's first brother is number five, and he teaches at a school in Transkei. He lives close to their parents and takes care of them. Louie is the only one in the family who is still in the hometown. After Louie there is a sister, Zungile, who is a medical doctor. Then another brother, Sibusisio, who works for Telkom, in Durban, as a marketing manger.
At number eight is Purnla who is the youngest of the girls. She works as an accountant for Barlow Rand in Johannesburg. The last bo'rn is Mzotolo who graduated with a Law
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Degree from Natal University and is serving his Articles in Umtata. Nozi explains the number of children in her family: "What used to happen with families in rural areas is that if they did not get a boy, they used to keep trying until they got a boy." There is a sixteen-year age difference between Nozi and her youngest brother.
1 comment that this is an amazing family story where everyone has done well educationally and ask Nozi what she thought was the reason was for this success. "1 think it is because my father is a graduate. He worked hard to make sure that he saved enough money to send everybody to school. 1 went to university when it was easy to get scholarships, so 1 had scholarships right through. My father had to pay fees for my younger brothers and sisters, which, when you consider his earning was not much at that time."
It is still a close family nit with all the children going home (to uMzimkhulu) for Christmas. Nozi's mother expects that. Now with the family being much bigger - there were about 13 grandchildren in 1996 - they visit for two or three days. Nozi is thankful for the closeness in her family.
The family house in the rural area of uMzimkhulu consists of several units making up the homestead. When the children were younger they had to work in the fields, look after cattle and milk cows and goats. Nozi's mother was primarily responsible for running the farm. "My mother was the housewife who had to make sure that the fields were planted and harvested. When the children were in high school they had to help on the farm. My parents kept cattle so we looked after them and milked cows and goats".
Nozi enjoyed milking cows but did not enjoy staying out in the January sun from seven in the morning. Her parents are still living in the same homestead.
The homestead did not have electricity or running water - some areas still do not have running water or electricity3. Candles provided lights. Because Nozi' s parents could afford it, they had rain water tanks. These provided enough water to last them throughout the year. From about the age of seven the children had to fetch water from a spring about 500m from their home. This involved a steep climb and many trips to the spring - hard work. Nozi indicates that she is very happy to be involved in water now.
When asked to describe the community set up where she lived when she was young, Nozi indicated that the homesteads used to be about a kilometre apart. "You
tended to know almost everybody within a certain area and even people you were not related to were considered family. Children played together. When there was a party or if someone was sick, everyone came. In later years, with the resettlements and rezoning, they moved people together and left open spaces for grazing purposes. People are now closer in terms of physical closeness, but the community spirit has not got any better".
The home language was Xhosa. At home the family communicated in Xhosa. In school everything was in English. Nozi's curriculum vitae now indicates that she is able to communicate in Xhosa, English, Zulu and Afrikaans. During the interview she indicated that she had to study German as a pre-requisite for doctorate in the sciences - quite a language proficiency.
The qualities that her parents considered important in life and tried to instill in the children were" do your best, hardwork and be good people". Nozi was brought up in a Catholic household and was immersed in Catholic values and a hard work ethic. I asked Nozi about her parents' expectations of her in life. "Parents always expect their children to do better than themselves. If you have a father like mine who managed to get a BA degree under those circumstances, then it will be a shame for anyone to waste his hard earned money and not get anything out of it. Because I am first born, my younger brothers and sisters followed my path - you finish high school and go and get a degree."
Nozi indicates that her father did not put any pressure on her about what to study or what career she should follow, but an analysis of her story suggests her father's strong influence. Nozi's mother however felt that having the qualification of a teacher was a good thing because it meant you could not be unemployed. "As a result, in my family, only the last three do not have a teaching qualification. I did a University Education Diploma (UED) after my Bachelor of Science degree. My mother said 'If you have a certificate as a teacher there is always a school that needs a teacher so you cannot be without a job.' It is interesting now that it is unlikely that any of us will be teachers again; but it has helped in other areas like communication."
Nozi was brought up in a Catholic household, went to a Catholic high school and a Catholic University. However, the fact that the high school and the university were Catholic were more by accident than design. Growing up, the children went to church on
3Recently (1999) I drove past uMzimkhulu and saw boards indicating that pipes were now being laid to provide running water.
alternate Sundays because they had to take turns staying at home looking after the babies. "My parents went to C urch every Sunday. When they did not go to Church, my mother especially, would feel that something terrible had happened." As an adult Nozi says she has nothing against going to church; but when she moved to Pretoria and went to the local church she got fed up when they preached politics. "I did not want the church to tell me about the ANC and the wrongs they were doing. After a couple of those I thought I didn't want to get up on a Sunday morning to listen to that. Until I move to an area where there is a church relevant to my spiritual needs I would not go".
Religion is an important part ofNozi's life. "Because I grew up in an environment with my mother praying with a rosary all the time, religion became important to me and I appreciated prayer. Even now, although I don't go to church, I still read the prayers."
Nozi' s parents were not directly involved in the larger political issues. "In uMzimkhulu, like in most rural areas, the environment is such that you are so far away from things that you don't really understand why things are the way they are. If I grew up in the city then I would have been more aware of the issues. Itwas only when I went to school in Marianhill, that I interacted with people who had more information and I began to understand the dynarnics of the system."
Trying to figure out the question of Nozi's social class, within the African community, is complex. Since both Nozi's parents were teachers, it put them apart, socially, from the rest of the community. In Nozi's extended family it was only her parents who had a tertiary ed cation.
Primary and high school: help from parents and the opportunity to attend Marianhill High School
Nozi was five years old when she entered Mhlaba Primary School as a pre-sub A4 pupil. School was a ten-minute walk from home. I asked Nozi to describe the school [which is not being used anymore]. "All of us [children] went to that school. It was an average rural school where you had a rondavel as a classroom and no facilities. Sub A and sub B children sat on the floor or outside when it was nice and sunny". Class sizes varied because in those schools nobody was turned away. "When you start for the first time, your parents do not have to book - it was just taken for granted that all the children
4Reception year of study.
in the area would go to that school. If the classes were too big, then they just divided the class into groups and taught one group outside or taught one group in the morning and one group in the afternoon."
Nozi indicates that she had an advantage because her parents, being teachers, helped her with schoolwork. "I was ahead of the other children who did not have parents who could help them. English was supposed to be the medium of instruction from standard three upwards; but in reality instruction was a mixture of Xhosa and English and when it came to writing the exams, everything had to be answered in English. The textbooks and notes were in English. In this environment teachers encouraged students to memorise the books. That is the only way to deal with a situation where people have to adapt from using the mother tongue to English.11
Nozi remembers the teacher who taught her in standard three. "He was a very good teacher and when he arrived the results improved significantly. He also wanted pupils to memorise things and he punished pupils who didn't. He used extrinsic motivation to get pupils to study. Well, it worked, because if you wanted to survive, you made sure that you studied or else you were in trouble."
Primary school education ended in standard six. Nozi liked school, did well and performed at the top of the class. The schools did not provide any books, so parents had to provide the books. The school did not have any laboratories, so all the science (called nature study) was learnt from textbooks.
During the standard six year, Nozi considered high schools. There were not too many high schools close by. Her father taught in a secondary school in town, "but none of the children wanted to go to his school, and he also did not want any of us to go to his school." Nozi speculates that the reason might be that he felt if he taught his children they might expect special treatment. Nozi realised that for a good high school education she would have to go to a boarding school. She applied to some schools in Transkei and to Marianhill High School i Durban. She knew that Marianhill was a good school and because her father went to Marianhill he helped her apply. Nozi was the only one in her family, as the first born, who was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to Marianhill. The others did not go there because her parents could not afford it. They went to other Catholic schools, "but they were not very good ones." Birth order becomes important in a situation of limited resources.
Nozi started at Marianhill High School in 1969. We discovered during the interview that she had to go to school for 13 years before she got her senior certificate and I (of Indian origin went to schools designated 'Indian') had 12 years of schooling.
Nozi says (and I agree) "We just did not know about other systems because of separate development and Group Areas." Nozi talks fondly of Marianhill, which was a boarding school. She was taught mostly by German nuns. "The German nuns were very hard working and they got everyone to work hard. The quality of education was good." The medium of instruction was English. They insisted that students communicated In English. "There were all kinds of punishment for speaking anything but English."
At Marianhill there were separate classes for boys and girls from Form I to Form Ill. For Form IV and Form V there were co-educational classes. "I don't know if this was of any significance to my education [laughs]". In Form IV and V her subject choice was mathematics, biology, geography, English, Afrikaans and ZuluS. I was surprised that she did not do physical science. Nozi explains that although there were physical science classes, for some reason the teacher did not like people from the Eastern Cape, so they were not allowed to join her class. As Nozi had done well in Form I General Science she had a choice of either physical science or biology for Form 11. Because the teacher did not like her, she could not do physical science. I asked her how she felt. While she was upset, she felt that since the nun was going to teach the subject "insisting and fighting was not worthwhile." For the physical science class in the matriculation year there was only one girl and she had come from another school. I suggested that possibly the physical science teacher actively discouraged girls in her class. Nozi agreed that that might have been so. I was surprised that a nun had prejudices.
Nozi's reaction to the nun's decision not to accept her in the physical science class is indicative of her reaction to obstacles that she faced along her pathway. Her story illuminates a life where an individual feels she has something to offer and will look for a space and way where she can contribute. She has a 'pragmatic fatalism' where if things don't work out in one place she will look somewhere else.
I tried to probe Nozi's liking for and inclination towards the SCIences. She indicated that she is curious, has an inquiring mind about how things work and loves to
5Since Marianhill is in KwaZulu Natal she had to switch to Zulu.
"unravel mother nature's secrets". Nozi reads widely and I feel that she would have been successful in anything she embarked on.
I wondered what Nozi thought of doing after matriculation. She indicated that since there was no career guidance, she did not have many choices and "if you have mathematics you can go into science". I probed further and Nozi indicated that "without career guidance you want to stick with things that you know. I knew that if I did a BSc.
degree, I would still be doing biological sciences and some mathematics." I wondered why she did not follow a career like social work and Nozi replied, "Social work was out because if I had matriculation with mathematics and biology I would do a BSc. I wanted to keep to thingsI knew." With aB Sc. Nozi knew her choice of career would be either medicine or teaching.
Nozi's high school biology teachers were good. There were laboratories. She had a good biology education. Nozi also enjoyed the mathematics taught by the German nuns who were "quite good." Nozi says that in high school she worked hard, enjoyed her studies and did well. She did not really need anyone to push her, and could not think of any teacher really making an impact on her. Nozi describes herself as a "self motivated type."
At Marianhill High School classes started at 8 0' clock in the morning. They then went back to the hostel for lunch, had two hours of lunch break, came back at 2 p.m. for more classes and had practicals until 5pm. Supper was at 6pm and then from 7-9pm there was study time. At boarding schools, especially the Catholic ones, things are very structured and orderly. Students are not allowed to speak with anyone from night prayers until after breakfast. Nozi's i tellectuallife thrived in that atmosphere.
Nozi says she loved Marianhill School - something she only appreciated years later. She did well in the matriculation examination gaining a first class pass with a B aggregate. Her best subjects were Biology, Geography and mathematics and her worst symbol was in Afrikaans. She says she worked very hard in Afrikaans but German nuns taught them, so the average was expected.
In the matriculation year there was only one student's performance that was better than Nozi's. Nozi appreciates the competition in Form IV and V, indicating that when she was in the all girls' class, she was ahead of the others and there was no motivation to make the gap bigger.
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