Broken dreams are like broken strings of the guitar. Who ever said life was fair? Life was never fair and things do not always go as planned. As a teenage you always have dreams about bigger things that you wish to have. It was my dream to be a doctor or businesswoman. I always had plans about the kind of business I wanted to run, or the kind of female doctor I would become. My parents liked my ideas and they supported me.

It all happened and changed so suddenly.

I was staying in the hood, (yes I am a kasi chick), and I used to visit my mother in the village. It was the December holidays, Christmas was just around the corner. There was this handsome looking guy by the name of Sboniso. He was good looking, dark in complexion and he was not that tall. I liked his eyelashes, his soft lips and sexy big eyes. He was the tough guy; the kind I like.

Sboniso took me to different places in the village, he even showed me the places that I never thought existed in the village. He showed me this beautiful dam. The water was too cold and the sun was too hot; it was the best day ever to be with someone I really loved. He found this special place in my heart, from then on I knew he was the love of my life. Our families were not rich but not poor either. Things started getting serious between us and I decided not to stay in the village and go to school there; I wasn’t going back to kasi.

My father was not happy about our relationship, he wanted nothing to do with Sboniso. And when I was doing grade 11 I fell pregnant. My father was retrenched from his job and life was not going to be easy for us, but we all had hope that everything was going to work out. Sboniso was just finishing matric and luckily one of the schools was being renovated so he started working there. I gave birth to my first handsome boy and we named him Ayabongwa.

The first year was really tougher than I expected. There was no food at home there was nothing I can do. Sboniso was nowhere to be found; he was always drunk. He was drunk when I gave birth to Ayabongwa and didn’t even know what was happening. There was a time when I thought my child and I would not survive.

One day I was laying under the tree with the baby. The baby was crying because he was hungry and I didn’t have power to attend to him because I was also hungry. Sizwe, a guy from the neighbourhood, found us. When he asked me what was wrong I was not proud to tell him. But for my baby’s sake, I had to. He went back to his house and brought me a healthy meal and I was able to save my baby boy.

Getting pregnant at the age of sixteen was the worst mistake I ever made. But giving birth to Ayabongwa was never a mistake. I love him more than anything. Sboniso came to me and asked for forgiveness for not being there for his child. He was the father and had every right to play his role in his child’s life. I was happy about that.

When Ayabongwa turned three he got sick. He was so sick, that we went to different hospitals but he was never healed. All they said was that he had nothing and he would be fine. But he didn’t stop crying and he saw things that we couldn’t explain. It was like he was talking with ghosts.

An old lady named Zinzile told us to visit the traditional healer. I never believed in those people, remember I came from Kasi. I told her there was no way I was taking my child to those witches. She was sad and said she thought she was helping. Sboniso took him to the private doctor but nothing helped. It seemed like we were paying for nothing. The baby didn’t get any better and the doctor advised us to go see the healer.

I never thought that doctors believed in those people, but my boy was not fine at all. It was now the only option I had. It was late at night, by half past ten, we couldn’t get any sleep, the boy was crying, speaking with people we never saw. That’s when we decide to go see the healer.

When we got to the healer he told us everything about us; even that we didn’t believe in traditional healers. There was this black bird that spoke for the healer and the bird said that our child was bewitched. The things that we couldn’t see, the things he talked to, wanted to take him away from us and give him to their monster who was the biggest witch in the whole village. He told us he can’t heal our boy because the witch used strong muti to bewitch him. He said he would ask the master, politely, to heal the little boy. He then gave us something to cheer him up and he was not crying anymore.

It was early in the morning when we got home and Ayabongwa didn’t cry the whole night that night. There was a tall and ugly man waiting for us by the gate. He said he came to heal Ayabongwa; he was sent by the greatest healer.

The End

Dedicated to all South African young mothers.