FELICIA
JUNE
"Mama, why are we in Jan Kemp?" She asks me when we reach the narrow streets of the place I grew up in. I'm surprised my car can fit.
Weh! They don't know their grandmother and it's all because of me.
See, my mother didn't like the Kunupis at all. She never heard anything because they were all the way on the other side of the Northern Cape, but she just didn't like them.
She didn't like Itumeleng. It left me confused because as a Christian, how do you immediately dislike someone you don't even know? Unless she had a history that I don't even know about.
She didn't want me to marry Itumeleng, but I went against her wishes, simply because I loved that man.
She didn't attend my wedding. My brother, Afrika did, but that was the only Mothupi that attended my wedding.
I was disappointed, but it's been 13 years since we tied the knot so...
Why am I here? Good question, Tiyane.
Reality hit me that these kids don't know their maternal side, the Mothupis. I want them to know this side of the family and for my mother to know that she has grandkids.
"Are we already here?" Tumelo asks as I park by the gate.
The house looks different. It used to be a brick house, but now it's painted in a peach colour. The gate is open so we walk in.
Tiyane: "Why are you walking into people's houses Ma, it's rude."
I've just realised I'm raising a coconut child.
Sigh.
I knock at the front door.
"Ko morago!" A voice says.
Right. The kitchen door.
Felicia: "Ko-ko."
A girl comes with an icey in her mouth. Her hair is untidy and she's wearing a colourful striped dress.
After an exchange of greetings, I ask her--
Felicia: "A Lillian o teng?"
"Hm-mm, she's at the tuckshop."
Felicia: "What is she doing there?"
"Wile go betcha Mo'China."
My mother is a gambler now?
Felicia: "What time did she leave?"
"Not too long ago."
Felicia: "What's your name?"
"My name is Omolemo."
Felicia: "O ngwana ga Afrika?"
Omolemo: "Ee."
Damnit!
I don't know my own niece?
And why didn't Afrika tell me he has a child? I haven't been home in 13 years. Oh my word.
And the thing is, I came here even though Itumeleng didn't want me to because today we're introducing Kgomotso to the parents and he thought it was a bad time. I love Kgomotso, but honestly, I have to put my family first and Itumeleng or Kgomotso weren't going to stop me.
I want my kids to spend these June holidays here at knowing this side, so that when it's December, they can come here knowing this place.
I'm not going to ask this child if she knows me because clearly she doesn't. I'm not going to be those aunties.
Felicia: "Can we come in?"
She makes way for us to enter.
The kitchen still looks the same with the fruit magnets on the fridge, the cupboards are still the same, the kitchen counter is still the same. The table and chairs are still the same. There are two steps that lead to the living room and it's a bit the different; the sofas are different and are covered in plastic and it's a plasma and not that box TV we used to have. There's a whole lot of plants here and I see pictures of my grandparents and Omolemo's school photo.
YOU ARE READING
LESEGO: HER TRAP
Romance"Now I'm here, 9 months later from the day we met, in Mpumalanga, with bruises that aren't as painful anymore, with six children calling me Ma and the seventh one that's also going to call me Ma when he's old enough to speak, with experience in a ja...
