The Missing Link

CW: violence

I shouldn't be here, at least not without my dad.

I stand outside the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto's Khumalo Street and try to recall the events of 16 June 1976 and the ensuing Soweto uprising.

I look around people,journalists,students and historians taking a look around,taking pictures,making sketches or scribbling in their notebooks funny how we love a tragedy.

I look around and notice one odd character,she looks around my age ,she's wearing a knee-length floral dress, her shoulder length auburn brown hair floating all over her face,but what grabbed my attention is the badge on her hand,it is the badge my father had that he relinquished to me on his dying bed .

This badge was written ikusasa lesizwe which can be translated as "nation's future" it was given to the young members of the mother group Umkhonto wesizwe "Spear of the nation".According to my dad only five members had these badge ,the Chairperson, the Secretary,the Facilitator,the Speaker and the Watchman."At the beginning we knew what was our adjective but somewhere in the middle we wanted to be exactly like what we were fighting son" My dad will always give his cryptic answers anytime I questioned the vision behind their league.

I looked around the streets finding the various smells unbelievably settling ,it seemed as if being here somehow cleansed my soul.I felt tears streaming down my face to think that my dad was denied the one thing he ever desired in life which is to be buried home, in South Africa.

I remember that he almost gotten into a fight with Petrov, my proud neighbor who believed that South Africa is a lowly country decades away from technology let alone electricity but my dad finally won him and over and he relocated to South Africa indefinitely .

I must have walked over to the girl because I feel her hands shoving me to the bench besides her.

" You look like him ,you know?" she said and returned to staring at the ground

I acted nonchalantly . " Him who?"

" My father or better said ,our father, he disappeared on that fateful day not knowing my mom was pregnant with myself" . She pointed to the photo mounted outside the museum where my dad carried Hector Pieterson.

"I don't know what to say, dad only told me one gibberish line on his death bed the man spoke in codes till his dying day". I smiled thinking of all the fond memories of my father

" My mum taught me some growing up, so what did he say?" She looked up at me expectantly

" You have his eyes,he said the sun has a son or a flower, under your roof it must remain or where your eyes can reach it must be placed and he gave me this " I removed the badge from my breast pocket and show it to her .

" That means he suspected that my mother was pregnant that is why he wanted you take me under your care, I wish I had known him all I had growing up was this one picture where he was placed under the spotlight " She folded her arms and cried silently, you could tell by the shocks in her tiny body that she hasn't been grieving for a long time

I massaged her back and offered her my handkerchief "Don't be sad ,tell me about yourself sister".

" I have no one , I can't answer my mother's name because I will be killed just like my mum,it happened when I was only ten years old , after giving birth to me my mom handed me over to her cousin who was married at a tender age for she feared I wasn't safe I rarely saw my mum and when I did I had to call her aunt, luckily I only inherited her spirit and no physical attributes that is why her story checked out .It was the 10th of December when we visited mum,my aunt wanted to go to the tap and fetch water ,I remember seeing two vans with members of the Spear heading to my mum's place I knew a shortcut so I made it home before but remained out of sight I could hear the quarrel inside"

Who killed Comrade Hector ,Comrade Nomthandazo? the man asked

A spear which bears the mark of the mother league Comrade President Gandela,what was it ? You gave us the name,offered us the position, taught us the beliefs ,sworn us to the stupid badge not realizing we are sheep led to the slaughter house,what did we do that you felt the right to hold our fate in your hands ? all those killings that we were made to believe was done by them it was you all along ? How many more must die for your thirsty for power to be quenched?Do you even remember what the objective was? You used our lack of understanding to change us to weapons,weapons that killed your opposition,weapons you now want to destroy,how many more Comrade President?. My mom spat on the man's shoe and and dropped on her knees and hurried said the Lord's prayer.

"Retract your statement Comrade Nomthandazo,immediately" .The man said ignoring my mom's prayer, he reached inside his trench coat and retrieved a short spear which was covered in black,yellow and green the traditional and prestigious colors of the Mother League , the Nation's Spear ,he walked over to my mom and stabbed her once,he reached on his pants pocket retrieved a gun a shot my mom twice it was evident in his precision that he had done this before and he started grabbing stuff,throwing the furniture around and set her body ablaze.

I don't know what happened after or five years later but I only know that I died with those flames that engulfed my whole world in a second.Times have changed but the power hasn't, the Mother League now hold the ultimate power and their connections are visible for all to see.

An irony lies in the fact that they have hired actors who are supposed to be my family who will make these absurd speeches thanking the killers for the freedom that costed us our vibrant youth.

She was crying heavily by the time she finished telling me her life story and I knew right there and then that she was coming with me as soon as I could get her documentation sorted , which was going to be relatively easy since I work there and was willing to throw my weight in order to get the flower in my garden.

I allowed her to stop crying and wiped her face , plastered a wobbly smile on her face.

'Let's go inside and you can allow me see the place, after this we head for lunch and you'll chat to my mum.' I grabbed her by the arm and we entered the museum and sat at group of students before the Soweto Uprising section and listened to the narrator

and dropped on her knees and hurried said the Lord's prayer.

"Retract your statement Comrade Nomthandazo,immediately" .The man said ignoring my mom's prayer, he reached inside his trench coat and retrieved a short spear which was covered in black,yellow and green the traditional and prestigious colors of the Mother League , the Nation's Spear ,he walked over to my mom and stabbed her once,he reached on his pants pocket retrieved a gun a shot my mom twice it was evident in his precision that he had done this before and he started grabbing stuff,throwing the furniture around and set her body ablaze.

I don't know what happened after or five years later but I only know that I died with those flames that engulfed my whole world in a second.Times have changed but the power hasn't, the Mother League now hold the ultimate power and their connections are visible for all to see.

An irony lies in the fact that they have hired actors who are supposed to be my family who will make these absurd speeches thanking the killers for the freedom that costed us our vibrant youth.

She was crying heavily by the time she finished telling me her life story and I knew right there and then that she was coming with me as soon as I could get her documentation sorted , which was going to be relatively easy since I work there and was willing to throw my weight in order to get the flower in my garden.

I allowed her to stop crying and wiped her face , plastered a wobbly smile on her face.

'Let's go inside and you can allow me see the place, after this we head for lunch and you'll chat to my mum.' I grabbed her by the arm and we entered the museum and sat at group of students before the Soweto Uprising section and listened to the narrator

"Thabo unfortunately no one knows what happened to the older boy in the picture who has Hector in his arms..."

I looked up at my brand new older sister and smiled ,at last I have found the missing link