It is believed that each generation has its Sanusi, that will stand in the gap of faith between other realms and the physical world. They would intercede for humankind to find their way back to who they are. It is no far cry that conjurer of spirits through song, Sibusile Xaba is the person for this generation. He who birthed Umdali with Naftali, Fakazile Nkosi, and AshK and offered it to us as an anecdote that is to convey messages to us about where we come from and who we can be.

Jazz and Black Consciousness both emerged out of efforts of Black people to find their own voice in an anti-Black world that denies Black people a sense of being and belonging that is at variance with the stereotypical portrayal of Black people as subhuman and inferior beings who are incapable of making and developing any refined and distinguished philosophy, science, art and culture outside the proprieties, protocols, conventions, canons, and orthodoxies of Eurocentrism and outside the regimes and regiments of White Supremacism.

Closure. We all need closure. Closure is what many families were deprived of when their loved ones were assassinated by the Apartheid police or sentenced to death by hanging and some given a pauper's burial for their political convictions.

If there is one thing we could call universal, it would be gender roles. Not only are gender roles universal but they are consistent. From the stone age times till today, people are assigned roles based on their gender. Which leads us to the important question, "what led to the birth of gender roles"?

Snooker superstar Ronnie O'Sullivan bizarrely believes the races are not won by Hamilton but his technically superior Mercedes car. O'Sullivan's (lack of) reasoning is that, "If you have a car that is going a second a lap quicker than the other cars, in theory all he has to beat is his team-mate [Valtteri] Bottas – who seems to be comfortable and happy playing second fiddle".

I being one to never page through an album chronologically, I skip towards the very end and ask Silas which, among the plethora of reasons, is the one that he believes to be the spine that holds together the volume that captures, “come study at Market Photo Workshop”. With no bokeh of hesitation he replies, “why would you come here?” he pauses, muses as if adjusting his aperture and putting the perfect picture in focus, looks back at us on his computer screen, then proceeds, “If there is one reason to bring you to the Market Photo Workshop, it has to be that here you learn how to create images, not how to take them.”

Perfect timing and soothsaying can never really be taught; a part of it comes naturally and most of it requires a willing and an engaged initiate. The Market Photo Workshop gets this very well; hence its pedagogic method is framed as ‘workshoping’ rather than training. And so an interactive environment is created between student (initiate) and teacher (initiator). Maditsi attests to this: “At MPW, no one is superior. Everyone is respected for the artist that they are.”

There is so much that is said, written and reported about fathers that today I wish to shift my attention and write about a particular set of experiences with our mothers. These experiences are in no way a reflection on all mothers nor is it a rebuttal on behalf of failing fathers.