NB: The interviewee asked to remain anonymous
“I know it’s a drug, but I use it responsibly and conventionally…anyway, there are no side effects.” First year is easy for some and tough for others. Mary Anne Khumalo, or just “Jay”, finds it tough, but uses a controversial yet effective remedy to solve all her problems – marijuana.
Jay’s room is an academic sanctuary, with eco’s and accounting books draped over her clothes that are loosely placed all over the floor, further layered by piles of magazines with missing pieces of the front page! I can’t help but wonder where these small pieces are. “Oh, don’t worry about the mags; I tear small pieces to use as filters…for when I smoke that is.” While her neighbour’s room smells of perfume and hair products, Jay’s room wreaks of burnt pinecones! Oddly, the smell grows on you and evaporates into the imagination as she wows you with her intelligence. She is studying Economics, Accounting, Management and Commercial Law building towards a BComm degree.
So what’s bothering her you wonder? “Rhodes is cool hey, but I hate feeling under pressure, I hate thinking about my parent’s issues and the girls in this place!” I could not help but notice her face furrow into ripples of distaste when she mentioned the “plastic faced cows” of Rhodes! Jay has no female friend’s despite her neighbour’s brave efforts to make friends.” Ever since I came here, all I ever hear and see are their sick little utterances and judging facials.” According to Jay, girls are too narrow minded and just need to stay out of her business when it comes to marijuana. Jay fidgets uncontrollably as she travels around the room attempting to sift through the layers of dense foliage that she once called her floor, for a magazine. These issues may seem small to any other girl but for Jay, these constant pressures on her are just too much. Instead of fighting, she locks her room, pulls out her stash, and gets rolling. “It’s like everything just disappears and I am in the best place on earth.” She grins.
Jay calls Welkom home, but has no sense of belonging to “the little pit”. Welkom is just too small for her ambition. This is where she first encountered marijuana. A friend brought some over to her house after she had a huge brawl with her parents about her university options, resulting in a rift between her and her parents. Jay recalls with a smile the first time she smoked. “I felt so alive, just like so happy and stuff.” She literary smoked the stress away. “I knew then, that this was how I was gonna deal with bullshit.” Jay pauses as she licks the rizzla (paper used to roll marijuana) to make it stick. She has an intense look on her face as she smoothes out the joint and taps the side of it to make the marijuana move down the joint. It’s all quite intriguing, well for me at least because I have never seen this being done before! It’s very hard to absorb all of this. She continues to talk casually as she lights the joint and twists it round to make sure it’s fully lighted.
The future is bright though as she is confident she will pass her first year and the following years. Mary Anne Khumalo hopes to start a communications and finance business. Laughing at herself, “maybe I will just become a politician or something so I can make blunt (marijuana) globally legal!” She plans to stop when she finds another way to diffuse her stress, but for now…”it’s too good to quit!”
Smooth operator
