PROJECT LIFE - The journal of a street kid

Hidden pain

It all started in the year 2000 – I can still recall every single memory vividly.

How could I not! to me, it was like my life just started, I was only 10 years old when I left my home, my mama's house.

I loved my mother and all I wanted was for her to love me back but I knew she couldn't because "I wasn't her child" as she would say, or at least the child she wanted!

To her I was the result of the mistake she made when she met my father, a man that made her pregnant and left her.

She hated my father a lot.

As a little boy, growing up without a father, my deepest desire was to know who my father was and what he was like.

The only thing I knew about him was, he was not a good man. I would hear stories about how he left my mother alone while she was pregnant! Taking off and never came back.

Personally I never believed that my father was a bad person, somehow I believed that he left because of my mother!

The reality is, my mother was not an easy person to live with. Maybe my father got the only chance to break free from her and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands and never looked back.

I know it wasn't a good thing to do and certainly not fair to me, his unborn child.

But being with my mother all these years, I understand why he left, or maybe I'm just comforting myself – I mean who would blame me that?

I always had hope that one day I'd hear a knock on the door and when I opened the door I'd see him,

my father, standing in front of me and I would recognize him on a first glance as if it was a reflection of me on the mirror.

I imagine him giving me a big hug and telling me how he loved me. This thought always puts a smile on my face.

I had such a deep desire to know more about my father but I couldn't dare to ask my mother about him, as she would get upset every time I brought up the subject.

See every time my mother got angry wasn't a good thing, especially for me. She would wait until I went to bed and as soon as I fell into a deep sleep, she would hit me!

I will never forget when this happened to me one evening. I can still recall every second of that event.

It all started here, on a cold afternoon on 04'July 1998 - I will never forget this day! as my sister Cindy and I arrived home back from school, there was not much food in house  for lunch, so our mother, Suzanna Sisonke who was physically disable due to a car accident that happened to her years ago while she was working in Cape Town. She only depended on government assistance and her disability grant, being a window with two young kids to take care of, life was very hard for her. She reached deep into her pocket and pulled out a ten rand note. "Sisoke here, quick go buy a loaf of bread and three eggs at uncle Thabo's nearby Tuck Shop" softly she asked. I took the money and off I went.

as I arrived at  Tuck-shop, I stood at the left hand side of the main entrance -giving way to a crowd of people who exiting the shop. I felt a gentle tap on my left shoulder. I turn my head to wards that direction! It was classmate Zandile Sithole,  "king of street fighters" as the kids in my class would call him. it wasn't hard to see why they called him this, I mean he was the champion of Street fight arcade game, no one could beat him.

"hey Sisonke!" he greeted with a  soft smile across his face..."hey! Zandy what are you doing here at the entrance of the shop?" I asked "

"I'm waiting for  my big brother Wandi, he is inside the shop... eyy listen I'm heading to the game-shop! why don't  you come with?.. I have two rand! ..enough to play for the whooole day!