Jaz & Miguel Read Online Free PDF

most notorious of them (although they didn't drive past this
one) was a place called "Alexandra" and Jaz remembered it as being
the name of the place that had suffered those riots only weeks before she'd
left, and which had caused the US to issue those travel warnings.
    After the trip, Jaz was taking a break by the pond in the center of
the Wits East Campus quad (just ahead of the Great Hall), leaning against a low
brick wall underneath a tree with almost blue (yes, blue!) leaves she couldn't
quite name, and looking at two fountains in the pond spraying up
intermittently. Thandie had left to go to a mall in a place whose name Jaz had already
forgotten.
    She'd forgotten many names. Everyone used them like she was supposed
to just understand them all but all she did was end up getting confused. She
knew Soweto, but she'd already forgotten the name of the place they were heading
out to after the weekend. She knew Johannesburg (of course) and liked
the Jozi appellation as well.
    "Howzit."
    Howzit. That word she recognized. And
she could tell that the male voice uttering it was directing it at her. Jaz
looked up to find a well-dressed man of about twenty, in a light-blue button-up
shirt and khaki slacks, donning spectacles that made him look like a Harvard
grad and shoes that looked like they'd been shined for two hours. He carried a
notebook (the kind you write on) under his left arm. A sharpened, yellow pencil
stared menacingly at her from above his left ear.
    "Howzit," she said back, proud of how the word had now
become part of her own language, as if she'd been using it her whole life. The
first time she'd heard it (at the airport), she'd looked at the person blankly,
waiting for the "going?" at the end of the sentence. After hearing it
two more times and realizing that howzit was
merely a statement and not a question (one meaning simply "hello")
she'd smiled and shook her head, chalking the experience up to yet another one
of the many, many things she still had to learn about this country.
    "I'm Sandile," said the guy, now extending his hand to
her.
    "Jaz—with one Z , not two." He stared blankly at
her. "It's Jasmine ... actually. Just—just Jaz." She wondered why he
hadn't replied to her when she realized she'd never reciprocated the handshake. Damn it! "I'm sorry!" Jaz was always
pretty nervous when meeting new people, but especially boys. And, particularly,
good looking boys. She extended her hand in one convulsive movement.
    Sandile laughed.
    "Scared of a black man or something?" he said openly to
her.
    Her face went serious.
    "I'm joking! Sheesh!" he said. "Thandie told me you
were all into this political correctness shit. Just relax!" He sat down
next to her and she scooted over to let him into the shade, but he seemed happy
to just sit basking in the sun, closing his eyes for a second as he looked up
into it. She noted he had a ... different ... kind of accent, sort of a mixture
of the white and black accents she'd heard from others.
    "You know Thandie?"
    "Yeah, we dated once ... a long time ago. So, how's
South Africa treating you?"
    "Oh, you mean despite all the complexities of language. I mean, howzit and broe and ... urgh!"
    "And don't forget lekker ?"
    " Lek- what?"
    "It means 'cool, awesome.' It's Afrikaans."
    Jaz thought for a moment. "Afrikaans ...."
    "The Dutch-based language," he said
    "Oh, right .... Right! That's the confusing thing—it's called
'Afrikaans' but it's spoken by the white"—she hesitated—"Africans."
    Sandile laughed. "I see you're still doing that white-African-black-African
thing. Thandie told me about that, too."
    Jaz shook her head, embarrassed, and raised her palm to her
forehead.
    "Don't worry about it. Just say whatever makes you comfortable.
The only word you shouldn't use for us is 'kaffir.' That one generally doesn't
go down too well."
    Jaz's jaw dropped. Did he just say—? God, these people are in
your face down here.
    "But, back to your question," Sandile continued, "it's
not