SAWUBONA //
✋ gummy clear x sugar scrub x lava rock x fishbowl
👃 dried marula fruit, rooibos tea, vetiver, cedar, dried grasses, guava
Note: Each slime comes with an add-in baggie containing iridescent fuax quartz, iridescent bingsu / straw beads, and an assortment of eye charms.
A greeting in isiZulu meaning “we see you” but that carries much deeper meaning than mere passive acknowledgement of someone.
Orland Bishop, an African-American youth worker & community leader studying South African spirituality & indigenous knowledge systems for global healing & restorative justice, often references Zulu philosophy & the concept of sawubona in his teachings on radical relationality, the idea that transformation & freedom arise in the space between people.
He frames sawubona as an invitation to deep witnessing & presence, an agreement to affirm & investigate the mutual potential & obligation of a moment. The phrase is collective: not “I see you,” but “we see you.” ‘We’ includes ancestors, the divine, the community. To say sawubona is to bring all of them into the room; it’s a form of sacred attention.
“The response is yebo sawubona — ‘yes, we see you too’ — because seeing is a dialogue. When two human beings meet in this gesture [...] the acknowledgment becomes an agreement. We're obligated from that point to [...] investigate our mutual potential for life. So it invites us to communicate: if we are seeing each other, why are we here at the same time? What has this moment given us to do?” He explains sawubona invites participation in one another’s lives, offering what is needed. Orland asks, “How do I have to be in order for you to be free?”
“Freedom can't be pursued out of self-interest. Freedom must be a mutual gift from one human being to another,” he says. “If I limit one person's freedom, I limit my own.” The act of seeing becomes an agreement that binds us not in care.
This slime is a reminder of this. Its clear base represents transparency, the willingness to see & be seen. Opaque “sugar scrub” beads remind me of teeth, suggesting ancestral presence & communication. Lava rocks, formed through intense pressure & carrying the memory of fire, represent all we carry, being fully present with collective pain. Water-droplet-like fishbowl beads speak to the various identities we carry, reflected in each other.
