My name is Onesimo Dokolwana a resident, or rather a citizen, of South Africa from a well-recognized township in Gugulethu, Cape Town called KTC (Nyanga). This is where I was born, bred and buttered. Where I had planned my future with a crazy huge house, a stethoscope and had imaginary kids with no sperm donor in the picture. I still am striving towards those dreams.

Living in a shack was actually something I never detested, but the poverty behind those closed doors was the enemy. Sleeping on an empty stomach, going to school with torn clothes and umphokoqo ne drink ‘o’ pop as lunch. I can never get over that, even though I’m now fully clothed with a sesame crusted, buttermilk chicken burger near me, in a five roomed RDP house in Philippi.

Visiting the place brings a lot of emotions upfront. Anger and sadness being the cheerleaders. Taking me back to the night I lost my best friend in a fire. That was a winter night in 2011, but it still feels like yesterday, a flash of how their house burned down. It’s like I can still sense the smell of the cremated body. But I guess it was God’s plan, right?

I never knew life was cruel until that incident occurred. I was a happy child with no care in the world, but now being a sad teen in Cape Town, South Africa is a norm, something that shouldn’t be.

And I can slowly see my dream of having kids with an imaginary sperm donor fading. Who’s to bring a child into an unstable world. It’s not the crime, the femicide, global warming, climate change, it’s just God’s plan, right? It’s messed up. Shame!

Nonetheless I have my very own sanctuary. Even though Academic depression has me by my collar, it’s me, myself, my classmates, my diary and not these dagga-filled streets.