A thousand kilometers for you

Life in Jo-hustle-burg, as I like to call it, is always bustling. I’m not even sure what day of the week it is. Luckily for me, my mother calls on Wednesdays to discuss lotto numbers. How I love Wednesdays, also because I don’t have those dreadful early morning classes. We have done this for as long as I can remember, and of course discuss ideas of what we would do with the winnings. My mother would finally retire, open a children’s home and improve our poor community. I’d start a family business, and we would live in a nice suburb happily ever after. Silly dreams, right? Not to us, these dreams represent hope and a way out of poverty. I mean I had been an unemployed graduate for years now and going back to study has not been the easiest of transition especially at my age.

This year I almost dropped out due to finances. I couldn’t register because I had historical debt. Fortunately, I had made friends the previous year, so I had a few places to squat for a few days. Did I mention food and taxi fare to move around? No use in complaining so I went knocking on doors and offices seeking assistance, waiting on long queues hoping for favorable outcomes. No other option but to sign the Acknowledgement of Debt document and apply for hardship fund then cross my fingers. After eight hours of changing different queues, I get to the front and speak to the consultant. 

“Do you have any collateral or proof that you can pay off this debt?” asked the lady from the Fees Office.

“Yes, we can make a plan.” I respond softly with no clue where I will get it.

“You must call your mother to confirm that she confirms to pay at least 50% of this amount by month end, is that clear?” she almost snaps my head off!

“Yes,” I pretend to call my mother and come back, “she agrees that she can pay ma’am.” I assure her with a white lie, why is it called a white lie anyway I have never thought about that before today.

“Okay” she glares at me with piercing eyes over her horned rimmed glasses, “sign these documents and bring them back!”

All I can do now is hope for the best. As luck would have it, here I am back in the system I call the matrix after my favorite movie. I am plugged in again. But why me? I mean I see students driving BMWs and Mini Coopers, why do I have to walk, and does my family have to struggle so much? I mean I can blame apartheid or systematic racism for keeping my people oppressed but how would that help me? I can blame my father for walking out on us, but that will not change my situation. I have always asked the difficult questions since I was young like religious questions which made me agnostic. I had considered using the digital revolution to make a plea by starting a social media ‘go fund me’ campaign or standing at the traffic lights with a big poster asking for donations. Luckily, my application got approved. Yes, good news for a change. I mean I am in more debt, but good news is good news, right? I need this degree to be financially stable enough to pay back the system, right? Anyways, its back to campus where social class inequalities could be seen by a blind man, South Africa is the most lopsided country in the world socio-economically after all.

There are more pressing matters than that, right? Like the breaking news about a new virus that is gaining traction on social media. No one really knows what it is, viruses come and go look at Ebola or Swine Flu. So, it is back to knocking on doors and offices again. After weeks of the same cycle finally, “Mr. Yonela Maphisa (211170860) your accommodation has been approved. Please come to Accommodation Office tomorrow at 09h00.” I get the SMS. I can finally move into my own room after moving around from place to place. Turns out, I must share with three other students. I mean, it is better than sleeping in the streets, right? I will be closer to campus so I should be grateful, right? I get over it and I go meet my roommates.

“Hey gents, my name is Yonela and it means ‘be content’ my mother always says my arrival brought contentment in her life. I am from Port Elizabeth doing my second year in Education.” I introduce myself and the guys do the same. 

After a week passes by, remember the virus that gained traction online? It just gets out of hand and quickly becomes a global pandemic. The government proposes a national lockdown and universities decide to shut down and vacate all residences. My roommates all move out and I am left alone. I cannot afford to travel it is mid-month. Security has no clue I am still there, so I lay low for the week as I wait to receive money from home. This virus spreads quickly, it is airborne and sticks on surfaces so being in confined spaces or touching things can spread it. People are advised to wash their hands and wear face masks. A week later I finally receive enough money to travel back home but all bus tickets are sold out. It is the day before the national lock down and plane tickets are expensive. I get a cheap agency online and buy a plane ticket last minute. I pack my stuff and get ready to go. Soon as I get to the ground floor the security loses it.

“You have been here all this time?” he asks.

“Yes, I did not have means to go home uncle” I try to explain myself.

“I have to call the building manager and let him know.” 

So, I speak to the building manager and he understands. I am running against time, so I quickly sign out and hand in my room keys. I leave for the airport, very cautious not to catch the virus because public transport is one of the easiest ways of transmission. The airport is the worst place to be at a time like this. I get there and rush to departures. I get there and it turns out the travel agency was a scam and I bought a fraudulent ticket. I call my bank and they cannot help. Just like that, I do not have money anymore. The travel agency does not exist, and their number is not going through. I was in such a rush I did not check everything properly, and I start crying.

My cellphone dies, I check for my charger frantically and I cannot find anything. Time runs out and the last flight departs. Then it is final, I am stuck in Johannesburg. I am forced to sleep at the airport during a pandemic, unbelievable. Naturally, I just cannot sleep until the morning and I start walking. I had never seen Emperors Palace before that day, I walk down Jet Park road with no cars in sight like a dystopian fictional movie. I walk all day through Primrose, Germiston and many places I do not even know past Vereeniging to the Gauteng and Free State toll gates. It is crawling with police and traffic officers. I spot a huge truck next to the road. I quickly climb up and there are huge lumps of soil in the back and lie flat on my back with my eyes to the sky. The truck driver starts driving across the toll gates.

Hunger and exhaustion get the better of me, so I pass out on top of the soil. The cold midnight breeze and the hunger pains wake me up abruptly in the wee hours of the night. The truck stops at what looks like a fuel station and I see a sea of trucks around me, the driver gets out to and heads to what seems like a bar. There is a Sodom and Gomorrah vibe about this place; bright lights, a buzzing atmosphere with tons of truck drivers and fancy dressed women. Alcohol and drugs are always a bad combination and a recipe for disaster. I climb down and head to the bathroom and it dawned on me that this was a brothel. One of the women came up to me asking if I want a good time. I ask her if she has a charger I can borrow, at this point all I want to do is phone home.

We start talking and she tells me her name is Zani. I tell her my predicament and she how she became a prostitute. Though she knows it is during a pandemic, she needs the money and we both agree that no good decisions are ever made out of desperation. Then suddenly pandemonium breaks out. Blue lights and police sirens everywhere. There are screams and shot fired between drug dealers and the police. I duck for cover and the dirt from the truck give me camouflage. It’s a blood bath and as I look over, I see Zani’s lifeless body. I get arrested. Turns out police has been running a sting operation on this place for months and because of the pandemic this had become a high-risk area, so they had to shut it down.

It seems like we were somewhere near Bloemfontein and we are taken to Heidedal Police Station. Interrogations begin and I tell them I do not know anything. I share my story and they say they will investigate if my story checks out. Fortunately, I still had my backpack with me upon my arrest, so they go through it and find my identification documents with my student card. They check my fingerprints and I have no criminal record. One of the detectives says that there is a missing person report filed for me in Port Elizabeth. They give me some food, a shower and a change of clothes. I finally get to call home.

“I am okay mom; I will be home safely soon” I reassure her. 

“Thank God my son, your sister is also here” she gives the phone to my sister.

“Are you okay Mayonnaise?” she asks knowing good and well that I hated that nickname.

“Yes sisi, see you all soon.”

The police agree to drive me across the Free State and Eastern Cape border to a Police Station in Cradock. I immediately take a nap in the backseat of the police sedan with the two officers in front. While on the road I must have been sleeping when a car rammed into us from the rear. The officer tries to regain control of the car, but we are rammed off the Norvalspont Bridge near the provincial border into the river below. I woke up to a loud splash into the water, the river takes me away. I hear gunshots being fired from top of the bridge and I do not see the two officers anymore. The river sweeps me downstream I almost drown but I hold on for dear life. I hit a rock and pass out. When I opened my eyes the following morning, I am washed up under another bridge. I struggle to regain consciousness but manage to get to safety. I see those big green road signs; I am on the N1 and I continue walk towards Colesberg in the Northern Cape.

Eventually I get to a sheep farm somewhere and by then I am starving. I walk towards the farmhouse and the next thing I know I hear a loud gunshot and I dive to the ground in shock. Dogs come barking and growling, I start running as they gain on me, I climb up a big tree, I have no choice I am not the fastest of runners. An old white man aims to shoot again, and I scream, “please do not shoot!” with my arms up. They probably think I am a thief or worse an animal.

“What the hell are you doing on my farm?” he shouts angrily.

“I’m sorry please I’m lost,” my backpack is with me so I toss it to him so he can see my documents. He tells me to get down from the tree before he shoots me and tells me to get off his property. I tell him my story and plead with him to help me call home. 

“All you blacks are the same.” I can hear the K-word in his breath, this is a lost cause. 

As I start to walk away his wife had witnessed all this, shouts at him, and she has a motherly aura about her which reminds me of my mother. She asks one of the workers on the farm to help me with food and a warm fireplace.

I spend the night on the farm with the other farm workers. I am too tired to speak. I doze off soon as I get warm. I wake up early in the morning and I work with them on the farm. They tell me I am in Colesberg. After I tell them my story, they believe me because they heard about a missing student on the radio. Then I see her, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life. She stays on the farm with her parents and she is a student like me, but she goes to the University of Free State.

“I’m Yonela” I try to shake her hand.

“No shaking of hands or touching remember?” she chuckles, “I’m Dineo.”

I have heard of finding beauty in chaos and that flowers spring in September, but this here was something out of a novel. For the first time in my thousand-kilometer journey, I felt at ease and found some hope in this God forsaken place. Farm life was different to what I was used to that was for sure. Dineo helped me find a map to figure out how to get home from there, even though interprovincial travel was not permitted. 

The days spent on the farm are the most memorable, but I had to leave and get to my family.

“I will not forget your hospitality and kindness. One day I will come back to find you again.” We hugged and that was it. I got my bag and left on an old bicycle this time. It was early in the morning and I must say the countryside provided aesthetic scenery across the Northern-Eastern Cape boundary. The downward slopes were helpful, but the upward slopes were heavy on the legs. It takes me two days to get to Cradock and by that point I had run out of food and water. I had never prayed so hard in my life and this journey helped me get closer to God. 

After days of traveling, I finally make it to the Windy City; worn out but euphoria pushes me through. When I get closer to home, I see maelstrom as an inferno rages through the densely populated informal settlement. I look on in horror at the scenes and firemen try their best to douse the flames. I collapse and lose all consciousness at the sight of our blazing shack. I wake up at the hospital and a sense of hopelessness overwhelms me. I test negative fir the virus. I am just fatigued and dehydrated. I step out for some fresh air the next day and I hear a familiar voice shouting.

“Mayo!” it’s my sister! I have never been so relieved to see her.

“Wait, how did you get here?”

“It’s a long story sis but I’m home.” I ask assuming the worst, “And mom?”

“She is going to be okay, but she has been sedated.”

We go to her room and she is sleeping so peacefully I do not want to wake her she looks like an angel.

She suffocated from the engulfing flames but was pulled out just in time. She needs oxygen and she will be fine and that is all that matters. I realize that I have been through all four elements: earth in the truck, water in the river, fire and now air. It cannot be a coincidence, thank God I made it home alive. The next day my mother regains her consciousness and sees me for the first time in months, it is a very emotional moment. She tries to speak but it turns into a cough. She signals to her pocket and I tell her to not worry about it. She pulls out a piece of paper and I look at it. 

“Mom, it’s a lotto ticket.” I tell her to rest. We get hospital food, and food taste good when you are starving. We get today’s newspaper to pass time. There are lotto results from last night’s draw, “02-04-05-06-10 11,” I read them out.

“Wait… the lotto ticket” my sister says. “Check the lotto ticket!”

As luck would have it, jackpot R250 Million! I cannot believe it! 

We start screaming at the hospital people think someone died!

Mom recovers and we buy a new home for her. We buy houses for the fire victims and open an education trust for all the children. We create jobs for the community and build a new school named after my mother. And of course, the children’s home like she always dreamed of. We invest the rest and a large portion goes towards finding a cure for the pandemic.

I like Wednesdays, they are my favorite day of the week. Mostly because now it is our wedding day, Dineo and I. I never believed in fairytales, but I think I am living in one because this is what happily ever after looks like. It might take you a thousand kilometers to get there, but God will take you. One step at a time.