One last chance

chapter 1

12 years later

[Mbalenhle]
'Welcome to south africa' the huge board reads , i sigh in relief closing my eyes ,the south african air hits my face , the whether is quite different, it is warmer ,i let the reality sink in i was home ,in south africa yet again , my feet shakingly take me to the booming sunlight outside ,there she stood with her face filled wrinkles and lost a lot of kilograms since i saw her , the last time i saw her she had hips and huge breast but now it was different, she looked different in her leopard dress and leopard scarf  wrapped in her head, as soon as her eyes landed on me i expected dissappointed but that wasn't my mother , her kind heart was exactly what people took advantage of , the last time i saw her was 9 years ago yet it felt like thousand decade,every minute spent away from her was torture,she opens her arms widely for me and i drop the bag on the floor launching myself in her arms ,i plaster my head into her chest as i let out a gut wrenching sob probably capturing the half of OR Tambo international airport attention.

"Ngiyaxolisa ma ,am sorry"(am sorry) i say my sobs preventing me from talking properly , she brushes my back hushing my sobs ,her cries are muffled by my shoulders.

"Its okay "she keeps repeating but its not ,deep down i know its not this is just the beginning of my missery. Eventually when i feel my eyelids inchy we pull apart when i think the are no tears left in me , she puts me at arms length inspecting me from down until up ,her lower lip trembles , 9 years is a lot ,i had lost the once chubby body i had ,i remember properly what they called me at school, 'sdudla'(fat) 'chubby' the names i lived with my whole life ,i even tried losing weight but my father would feed me saying i should eat whatever i want but now,my bones were quite visible,our moment is disturbed by a man ,i recognize him even after 9 years bra Soli who owns the tarven down the road in Alex.

"Mbali" he says i wipe my tears that were silently streaming down my face before giving him a forced smile ,he grabs my bags putting them in his old Toyota Mom leads me to the car, before Bra Soli drives away ,OR Tambo dissappearing behing us ,i close my eyes pushing my head on the window,if this was a movie am sure 'see you again' by wiz khalifa would be playing now , my heart beats erratically as we enter the dusty roads of Alex ,the street lights making it better to see , not far the are boys surrounding the fire am probably sure thats where they sleep, the loud music from Bra Soli's tarven booming loudly for the whole of Alex, the car comes to halt ,i close my eyes taking a deep breath the last time i was in this old Toyota owned by Bra Soli was when i had contractions in the middle of the night, he is the only person we knew had a car ,so mom rushed to him and asked him to take  me to hospital ,mom takes out a hundred note out of her bra and hands it to bra Soli, my legs buckle up not wanting to step out ,i swear am five too having a heart attack the way my heart is beating, he gives us a smile as mom takes my bag , she rushes inside and i follow her long strides ,the closer i get the more my heart leaps up , the blood it is pumping i could taste it on my throat, i choke on the lump forming on my throat.

"Lwethu " she screams loudly after opening the door and we walk inside, the house hadn't changed not even a bit ,just the way i left it ,the way i last saw it 9 years ago.

"Ma" she screams back emerging to the kitchen ,unable to hold my tears they roll down immediately she had grown so much hadly unrecognizable, she was exactly the splitting image of me ,not even a tiny bit of her father ,i still remember properly the night she was conceived, the most beautiful night, maybe had i not sneaked out things would be different, i missed 9 whole years of my daughters life ,the last time i saw her was when she was just 3 years of age , i was a stranger towards her ,my daughter was now in her preteen years and i haven't been there for her, not even a moment went by without me questioning my decisions, me questioning myself how she was , what she was eating or what she was wearing, i went from being the apple of my father's eye to being their worst nightmare, i can't began to imagine half the things I've put them through but the most was this young women standing right apart from me Thandolwethu, i named her that because she represented the love i had for her father ,even though it was just one night he left memories.

"Oh hi" she says lowely am sure Ma had already informed her , she stood there blinking a couple of times awkwardly,i wanted to open my arms and hug her but i didn't wanna come out too strong ,she turned away and left us standing in the exact position, i wiped my tears settling on the old worn out couch ,my legs took a breather from trembling ,finally i was home the place i had been yearning for ,for the past 9 years ,I've never been a spiritual person but life there forced me too, i kept praying asking protection from God,asking just one more chance to change my life for the better, had i been given a chance i would have done things differently, i would have made better choices but life forced me ,life forced me to sell my soul to survive ,then i had already a responsibility to take care of,the was no more daddy who would take care of me ,my mother was unemployed ,then Mom had always spent her life as a house wife while my father was a teacher, he made sure that we ,me and my sister had everything we needed ,he spoiled us rotten but Sindiswa grew up,she discovered life and made wrong choices which made my father disown her , then she was just 18 years of age yet she had already had 2 children a year apart, she would leave her children and follow her friends she hanged out with wrong friends, but i swore to never be like that,i swore to work hard and be a businesswomen and i did exactly that, at 17 years of age i passed my matric with 6 distinctions and level 5 in Mathematics, i was immediately offered a bursary and accepted at UP ,i studied Economist but along the way things changed ,days after my graduation life made the worst turn for me.

"Are you hungry"Mom asked i nodded as she went to dish out for me,while out there i wished to go home but now, now i was home finally the place i belonged , I've been cooped in a room not seeing the beautiful sunny days , the last time I've seen the sun dancing beautifully in the valley as it was setting was 9 years ago,and now i was free,i was finally here and life begins, where do i start, do i look for a job , but who would hire me.

"Don't worry she will come around , Lwethu is like you ,has a big forgiving heart just be patient, when i told her you coming home she was so excited to meet you" she said i looked down as tears burn my eyelids i thought i had no more tears but i lied. "Do you still remember this place "she asked i nodded.

"I wouldn't forget this place my problem was just money ,i don't know what would have happened had you changed your numbers , i took a risk, had i not been deported i don't know how i would had came home, i didn't even have a place to sleep for the night" i said thinking back to 9 years ago, more tears streamed down my face , when i remember the threat of that man i still remember his exact words even today 'here you alone if you dare try anything funny, am connected I'll kill you before you even open your mouth' his exact words,the words that made me spend 9 years away from my daughter,the words that made my mother ,mother a child that was my own,the words that made my daughter an orphan if her parents being away qualifies as Orphan, the simple words that took me away from south africa forcefully for 9 years, i met him through a person i thought was a friend, but i don't blame her though, i took that choice soley for fast cash and i got the results, i needed money, i remember  knowing soon i would be graduating i kept saying i would quit even though my friends kept saying otherwise i still said that but then Lwethu had Plague infection because of Alexandria's rats ,the one time that i thought was the last time had results,results of losing my life for 9 years, the tattoo on my chest resemble what i am,even though when i did it,it was just for fun but now lion resemble the person i am, a fighter , everything that happened for the past 9 years make my stomach twist and puke my utensils out.