My name is Lumka but it was Hurt. I lived a horrible life filled with pain and suffering. In the land of the living, I felt like the walking dead. I was 16 years of age and living a horrifying, impossible life. I lost my parents when I was 10 and ended up living on the streets. This is my story.

“Shhh, ngizokubulala wena!” (I’m going to kill you) my uncle would often say to me.

After the first time he raped me I woke up the next morning with blood stains next to me. I cried all night, nobody heard me. I couldn’t do anything, not even walk myself to the toilet. This was not life. Mom couldn’t do anything to stop him either because we depended on Uncle Lunga. Even when I told her he came every night in my bed, she would say, “Lumka, don’t you dare say those things in his house, he will kick us out. Just keep it low until we are good.”

Uncle Lunga did every bad thing that you can imagine to my mom and me because he knew we couldn’t live without him.

Once on a night when Uncle Lunga tried raping my mom, my mom did not let him do it. She slept with a knife under her pillow and when Lunga came, she stabbed him to death.

A few days later I went to school and the class lesson was about how HIV and AIDS infects a person. Yhoo! The lesson got me thinking and asking myself what if I was infected?

After class I asked my teacher about the lesson and got some tips.

We both did not know that Lunga had HIV. He never used protection when he raped us and we were also infected with it, but we did not know. We found out later. It was too late though.

Time passed and one day when I got home Mom was sick and about to die.

“Lumka my child, Mom loves you so much, take care of yourself. I left you R50 000 under the mattress,” she said.

It wasn’t enough to survive on and I ended up on the streets. Now here I am on the streets trying to make the best of it. But after some time things changed for me in the blink of an eye.

“Hey wena what are you doing here? This is my place go and get yours!” I yelled. Little did I know that the man I was yelling at would be the man who got me off the streets.

I now live a nice life in his mansion. All thanks to Mr Kalvin, may his soul rest in peace. I inherited most of his assets. I now work in a big company in Johannesburg where I moved. Now my life is not so hard anymore, but the memories will never leave me.

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