THINGS BECAME DIFFICULT YET AGAIN when my mother lost her job. But by then, we had grown so used to poverty that it did not send us into a deep state of depression. I was completing my final year at Florida Park High School, where I was still on the Academic Honours roll and had been elected into the Representative Council of Learners (RCL) and Disciplinary Committee. I joined the Debating Society for a brief period before having a major fight with the debating coach, Mrs E, a racist white teacher who had an exaggerated sense of importance. She hated the fact that I refused to polish my views on any political question. This made her believe I was ‘pompous’. Our relationship soured to the point where we couldn’t work together and I made the conscious decision to leave her society. I didn’t need her and I certainly had no desire to subject myself to the shallow topics she liked to pick for debate. Typical of liberals, she shied away from real debates and opted for tame ones that didn’t demand too much critical thinking. It was easier for her to have us debate whether euthanasia should be legalised or about the relationship between rap music and teen violence—things I have come to regard as first world problems—than it was for her to have us debating about the race question or property relations in South Africa. I was getting tired of the whole affair.
My matric year was difficult. The last few years were taking their toll on me both academically and emotionally. A few months into the year, I was demoted from the RCL and Disciplinary Committee after I put the school into disrepute by smoking dagga mixed with what I now think may have been benzene, although I didn’t know it at the time. I had smoked dagga before but because this time around it had been made impure with other substances, it created a serious imbalance in my body. After a large overdose of the substance, I walked into my first class of the day, Life Sciences, feeling nauseous and out of sorts. Suddenly I woke up that night at Helen Joseph Hospital with a drip attached to my right arm and an absolutely terrible headache. My close friend, Thato Tshabalala, who was standing beside me at the hospital, explained that I had injured myself badly. I’d broken the window of my Life Sciences class and cut my hand open.
Some teachers had tried to restrain me but I’d fought all of them off and injured one, Mrs G, whom I had apparently kicked in the lower abdomen. The tragedy in all this was that Mrs G was one of my favourite teachers. I was dismayed. When I eventually returned to school a few days later, I had to field questions from curious students and angry teachers. Rumour had it that I had had a ‘demon attack’. Some people claimed I’d overdosed on crystal meth, a dangerous and highly addictive drug that I’d once been rumoured to have been taking due to my high energy levels.
The school didn’t hesitate to haul me before a disciplinary committee and I was demoted from the RCL with immediate effect. I was asked to remove the colourful and prestigious ribbons from my blazer. I was stripped of the privilege to even have my Academic Colours and scrolls on my blazer. Everything I’d worked for was taken away from me and everyone who had once believed in me looked at me with disgust and disappointment in their eyes. I was in a steady relationship with the head boy, Daniel Phiri, who, like I’d been at one point, was an outstanding academic achiever. My demotion affected him badly and our relationship hit a rough patch. But, like a dedicated soldier, he never left my side even when everyone around us, including our teachers, was advising him to do so.
I was performing awfully in most of my subjects, including History and Physical Science, which I had breezed through in previous years. I went from being an A student to being a student who struggled with almost everything. In the first term of matric, I managed to make it into the top five at number three. In the second term, I dropped to number seven and in the third term, I didn’t even make the top twenty in the grade. History, for which I’d previously averaged over 90 per cent, plummeted to a shocking 50 per cent. I didn’t write four prelim exam papers because there had been no money for me to go to school on the days I was writing the papers and I was at a point where I didn’t even care enough to want to make a plan, let alone to tell my best friends about the situation. Because it was exam time, I also couldn’t make any money from selling assignments or sweets. I failed Mathematics, Physical Science and Life Sciences. I scraped through History and Life Orientation, the easiest subjects I took, with 50 per cent. The only subjects I did well in were the languages, English and Setswana, which I passed with 89 per cent and 84 per cent respectively.
All my teachers were panicking. No one had any idea what my problem was. I had no idea myself. We were all spectators of Malaika’s demise and none of us knew what to do. Eventually, I had to make the very difficult decision to go back to therapy. I’d been in therapy for many years but had thought I would be fine without it. Therapy was still a very foreign concept to black people. I had been uncomfortable going to a therapist to begin with and now, as an older teenager, I felt more resentful about the idea of sitting on a couch talking about my problems. Everyone had problems. Merely by being born black in this country you had problems. I didn’t think I’d need therapy to cope with my own circumstances.
I had miscalculated. The vice principal of my school got hold of my former therapist, Dr A, a senior lecturer of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, and arranged an urgent appointment for me. A few days later, I was driven to Braamfontein by one of the school’s drivers, Bab’Vee, to see Dr A. Climbing the stairs and walking through the corridors of the Umthombo Building, I could feel my composure falling apart. I could no longer hold myself together. I walked into Dr A’s office and fell right into her arms and, for the first time in many years, I cried. I cried for the many times I’d had to be strong. I cried for my mother, who was struggling to make ends meet. I cried for the many times the landlord had almost evicted us from the house that we called home. I cried for my family, which had fallen apart. I cried for the many sacrifices I had been forced to make just to survive. I cried for Lumumba, who I could not shield from the cruel humiliation of poverty. I cried for myself: my dismal academic performance, my demotion from the RCL and Disciplinary Committee and, above all, my inability to be strong. I had been so strong for so long and now I was helpless, weak and vulnerable. Now I was sitting in my therapist’s office with a monsoon of tears flooding out of my eyes, unable even to speak. I cried for my naivety, for allowing myself to believe that there is a Rainbow Nation where young people would not have to suffer. I knew then that it was a myth. Young people suffered. Young people did not sleep at night because they had to write assignments to sell so that they could put a meal on the table. Young people had to hustle for money to be able to go to school. Young people were not free, they were chained to a hopeless reality of humiliating poverty and an unbearable heaviness of being.
Hours later, I walked out of Dr A’s office without any answers but with a clearer perspective about what was wrong with me. Dr A told me that I had bottled up my pain and buried my traumatic experiences for a long time. I was now unable to continue to be strong and unaffected by everything that had happened in my personal life.
‘You need to stop trying to be strong, Malaika. You are only seventeen years old. No child your age should have to be this strong. You are allowed to hurt. You must let out all the pain and the hurt that is eating you alive, because if you don’t, you could end up in hospital like your mom, diagnosed with depression. And you might not be as lucky as she was: to come out alive . . .’
A part of me agreed with Dr A but another part could not accept that I, Malaika, a township child, could be depressed. What I had to face was what many other children in the township faced. I felt that I had no right to want an easier life than they had.
I continued to see Dr A from that point and tried very hard to get back into form with my academic work. Daniel created a study schedule that he forced me into. I had gone through the year in a daze and, as a result, I was clueless about even the most basic of things, particularly in Mathematics, Physical Science and Life Sciences. I had also opted to do Additional Mathematics, which was done by only a dozen other students at the school. I had applied for a BSc in Physics at Stellenbosch University and got provisional acceptance—I had applied using my grade 11 final results—which would only be finalised once the institution received my matric results. It was almost exam time and I knew barely anything. With his loving kindness, Daniel pushed me to catch up. Our other friends, Diana Mabunda and her boyfriend Kabelo Mautlwe, also played a part by giving me notes for subjects that I didn’t have in common with Daniel. We studied intensely.
All three of them lived in the suburbs. Daniel lived in Florida Park, a few minutes from the school, Diana lived in Ruimsig on the west rand and Kabelo lived in Melville. So when I couldn’t study with them, I was assisted by my other friends who lived closer to home. Palesa, Mpumi and Kgothatso, my partners in crime, lent a helping hand without complaint. They all wanted me to do well because they all believed in my abilities.
Even though my academic performance was improving, I was stunned when, in late August, I received an invitation to attend the Annual Honours Evening. The ceremony honoured students who had performed exceptionally well throughout the year. I had been attending Honours, as we called it, since my first year of high school. But I didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that in 2009 I would have made it onto the prestigious list. I had not just underperformed, I had failed my preliminary exams dismally.
I attended Honours Evening with a heavy heart. I didn’t feel I belonged there. When the master of ceremonies announced that it was time for the matric awards, I could feel my heart beating two times faster than normal. As fate would have it, the first award given was a huge trophy for the Top English Student of the Year. It was presented by Ms D, one of the best teachers I have ever known in my life.
‘This award goes to a diligent student, one of the best I have ever taught. She is an inquisitive young girl with an unusual love for books. It has been my great pleasure to teach such an inspiring organic intellectual. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause to Malaika Mahlatsi . . .’
I stood up to loud applause, terror gripping me. I kept expecting her to apologise for calling out the wrong name, waiting for that moment when I would be the laughing stock of the ceremony. It didn’t happen. I walked onto the stage and hugged Ms D, one of the few teachers who had continued to believe in me even when I was barely passing anything. We hugged for what felt like hours, tears streaming down both our faces. She handed the huge trophy and certificate to me, as well as a gift bag she had purchased for me personally. The entire hall stood up to clap. I looked into the crowd with tears in my eyes and smiled.
The next trophy was also mine. By this time, I was no longer panicking. I was confident that I was getting what I deserved. I had performed dismally in my preliminary exams but that had been undermined by my year’s average results, which factored in results from all terms. I’d not done too well in the first two terms but I had done well enough to make up for the dismal performance in the prelims. I’d managed to obtain a C+ average, which was boosted greatly by my A+ averages in English and Setswana. I was also awarded the EC Lindeque Trophy, awarded annually to ‘the most promising senior student of the year’.
I knew I’d be alright. I would write my final exams and get into Stellenbosch University. I was going to be a nuclear scientist. I had not had a very easy life but maybe, just maybe, there was hope in the Rainbow Nation after all.