BY THE TIME I WAS close to my seventeenth birthday, I had become more focused. I knew that if I behaved well, I would be able to stay in the shelter for the year after I turned eighteen.
I went to school. I went to the tutoring sessions. I went to all the sessions with the shelter’s volunteers and funder. I did all my duties. I didn’t go out much. I was still with Freckles, but he was in jail again by then, and so even he wasn’t a distraction – in fact, after that, I never saw him again.
In 1997, Michael Jackson arranged for the Ons Plek kids to see his show at Green Point Stadium.
It was an incredible night. We were so well behaved because we felt really important and respected. To get ready, we had done our hair, used all our hairclips, put on lip gloss and worn our most fashionable crop tops. We were very prepared because we thought we were going to meet Michael Jackson as we had uTata.
In the stadium, we were given great seats right at the front, and although we never met him it was a great night. When he sang ‘I believe the children are our future’, this spotlight lit up our row – and there were all these Cape Town street children. We were all so excited that Michael Jackson had seen us, and when he threw a kiss we all claimed it was aimed at us.
We really felt like he knew us. Ons Plek did have its benefits – it made some great memories for me.
One day, when I was at Siviwe, someone told me my dad had been found dead on the street. It was a terrible shock, and I had sudden fits of crying at the loss of another loved one; first my two great-grandparents, and now my dad. I was in standard 8 at Batavia Secondary School, but I left after that year because I felt so lost after my dad died.
I missed him so much.
My social worker and I thought that if I attended his funeral and met his mother and other relatives, that might be an opportunity for me to join their family. I thought it was a nice plan, because I remembered staying at my dad’s mother’s house on a farm way out of Cape Town when I was five years old.
She was called Auntie Em. I remembered quite a lot about my visit, even though I was so young. I had made friends with a white boy, Japie, the son of the white farmer. Japie was a boer boy with yellow hair. The water at the farm was salty, so we had to go to Japie’s well for fresh water. And when we went to town, we had to take a donkey to the bus stop. There were a lot of beautiful tall trees and I’d had fun there, although I hadn’t stayed long.
I was excited about meeting my dad’s family, and that maybe I could go to live with them. But at the funeral, nobody knew who I was. Nobody even said hello. My social worker told my granny Em who I was, but she didn’t recognise me, and she said she was too old to take care of more children.
I went back to the city even though I wanted to leave, to get out. It’s amazing how your life can be happy and then go backwards again, and then again. From Michael Jackson nights to something like this.
One day, somebody came to me while I was sitting outside.
‘Did you hear? Lea is dead.’
Apparently she had been walking on the mountainside at Lion’s Head, which I found strange since she didn’t like to leave the shelter. She came across a group of men. They raped her, and then stoned her to death.
I had lost yet another person.
I made plans to run out. I had to go to that spot to see for myself. I went looking for something; I wasn’t sure what. The walk was long. When I got to the spot, I just sat and sat and sat. While I was sitting there, I was thinking of ways of getting out of the city. My dad, who hadn’t want me, was gone; my best friend was gone …
I thought: So, just go.
One thing about being at the shelter was that the gates were closed at 9pm. I sat there until 8pm. When I got back down the mountain, the gates were closed, and so instead I went to the bridge. I went there and smoked weed.
I just wanted to smoke as much as I could. I needed to.
Lea was somebody I could talk to. Her loss made me feel so emotional; her death upset and angered me so much that I didn’t want to stay in the shelter any more. But at almost eighteen, I was experiencing an emotional breakdown.
After Lea died, I remained under the bridge for a whole week. I was thinking how I had to get out of this life in Cape Town; I had to find something better.
While I was there, I met this nice girl called Ntombi. She was an educated girl with a family, but she hung out with us under the bridge that week, smoking with us and telling stories.
Ntombi knew our ways, even though she had never had to enter our world. She brought us old clothes, and if she went to a party, she brought us the leftover food.
She was so nice to us. We hung out at the bridge together, and that’s how Ntombi and I became friends. Ntombi told me she was going to Joburg, and I told her I was thinking of leaving too. I asked her for her number there, so we could stay in contact. I said I was going to call her the minute I was released from the shelter.
I kept that number as if it was the most important thing in the world to me, because while we were smoking she was describing this great life in Joburg. Everything about it sounded so amazing. And I thought that was what I wanted.
So one day I stood at the robot at the V&A Waterfront, close to the bridge where we’d been staying, and I gave two men blow jobs. That gave me enough money to pay for the train to Joburg.
I went back to the shelter, and I kept checking on my money, which I kept hidden in a takkie. After that I called her every now and again, to keep checking that she was expecting me.