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In a small township of Gauteng, in Ivory Park, it’s where I found myself settling my heart and future. This was once an immaculate and peaceful settlement in South Africa. As I said before, Ivory Park was fairly typical as far as southern towns went, though it did have an interesting history.
The first black president of South Africa walked down these roads during his election campaign. The most famous businessman, Ishmael Lambert is buried somewhere in this soil. Ivory come a long way since the 1950s, but it barely warranted a place on the map. It had population of not more than 20 thousand folks. It had long gazing nature that attracted the eyes of none settlers. For many people in this small settlement, humanity was our strongest ground. The youth behaved like youths and adults set good example of standard living.
The cheers coming from men gathered to watch soccer united them, and by them, more unity was formed. The beating of hearts from your favourite team scoring an important goal danced the men’s inner confidence to reside their thoughts for a better tomorrow. Though by which, only three channels came in on the television, which by default were created to distract men from their troubled lives. For most of us, the coming of age group, television wasn’t significant to us. Our lives were centred around playing jumpy rope and hide-and-seek. And for women, their lives revolved around opening church’s locks in their fancy white garments. Growing up I had this idea that the Lord God was centre of our lives, until I grew a bit old and learned that man creates his god and his devil in his own image. His god is himself at his best, and his devil himself at his worst. I know the devil is beating his chest right now thinking he’s got me, well, he can’t get anywhere near me when I’ve a mother who hates him from head to toe. My mum shouts the name of Jesus from dawn till dusk. She often tells me that the devil is liar and a manipulator. I’ve grown to accept and follow in her teachings. She told me I should make prayer part of my daily routine and that’s what I did, I prayed every time I remembered. I prayed when I walked to school, though I don’t remember doing it much coz of the traffic of learners traveling with me to school that disturbed my thoughts.
The schools in Ivory Park were situated almost five feet apart. With each school having trouble in accepting its rivals victory. My school, Ponelopele was situated not far from Tembisa’s number one, Umqhele, which was also closer to the most gangster school, Kaalfontein High. All these three schools were just an arm apart from each other. The idea of me going to Ponelopele came with my mum. She believed in the school, and promised all her children would end up there. Maybe she loved its red and white uniform that matched the colours of love. From her history that I was told by my late aunt, the colour red and white represented the union between her family and my dad’s family. They married in them colours.
It all began in the year 1997 when I was in class day-dreaming about the perfect life I wished to have. Back then, girls my age dreamt of having a perfect marriage with a handsome man in the far east of Jo’burg, but my dreams were far distant from theirs. Every day they painted pictures of their wedding in their minds of how they should be. In my mind I was living in a castle somewhere in Ireland. After apartheid, I never wished to live in South Africa. Apartheid left a wound in many of us. It left many black people in hopeless situations. My late father used to say, either you win big or lose big, don’t settle for in between because that’s when you get comfortable.
“Aona! Aona! Aona!” the voice of my teacher, Miss Phongolo, reverberated from my brain through my dream and I knew my trip in the dreamland was over. I quickly moved my head up from the desk and looked around the class to check if they noticed me sleeping and damn, all eyes were on me. They all looked at me like I was lost. Some of them were even shaking their heads, for what reason I don’t know. Some laughed, even the class’s dumbest ones, they showed their yellow teeth laughing in agony. (Come on, folks, I can sleep all day and still get good grades than you fools). ‘Uh-uh, you’re lying. You are not that smart.’ The voice in my head said. I know it’s you Amogelang and fuck it. I am smart. ‘No you’re not.’ I am smart. We’ve only been friends for like – three minutes and already you think you know me. What’s my favourite colour then? ‘Blue…” Lol, okay, that’s lucky guess. Can you guess who my boyfriend is…? “I don’t have to guess anything Aona. I am your subconscious. I live inside of you to know everything about you, Aona. You’re dating no one. You broke up with him last month.” Okay, you think I’m that easy to read. Do I love him? “I do not know what’s in your heart. I’m only interested in what’s in your mind. No matter what lies comes to your mouth, you can’t fool your heart. Bare that in mind. You said I should be completely honest with you and that’s what I’m doing. Unless you don’t want my council anymore.’ Yes, shut up! Shut up! You don’t know me. You know nothing about me. You only know things I want you to know.
