It was midyear, June, and winter was at its best. The sky was covered by clouds, the trees were chucking their leaves and some had done that before winter started. Schools were closed and we had the whole day to go wherever we wanted. We were always tied up in a group and had a habit of drinking umqombothi. Not that it was the nicest drink to sip, but because it was the cheapest one. Once the drink had made everybody a bit tipsy, they would start making silly jokes and laughing out loud, and louder. It felt good; like we were a family, where you would find yourself in trouble if you took a chance of attacking one of members.

Teasing and having that broad smile was a daily thing. There had been that connection which one would take a million years to break. None of the members were lazy to date the ugliest girl. They would make a good topic and every one would laugh.

Those girls were quite ugly, they hardly bathed, they were smelly and out of fashion. One would swear they were homeless orphans. They proudly circulated the news that they have a “lover boy”, whilst the lover boys would deny it. Though they were dating, the so called “Lover boy” prefered it to be kept a secret. It annoyed the girls and their faces altered and would look like those scary killers you would see in horror movies.

It was no fair, but no one would be proud of a scorn. The love of girls was at helm and high priority. You would be surprised that some of the members had more than three girls at a time. The “I DON’T CARE” was the motivator to achieve that.

Usually during holidays, there would be new arrivals. The trend continued as there were new arrivals like the past years. The area we were living in was small enough to know that somebody had arrived before he or she had reached home from the bus stop. No one was able to wait to see new faces ekasi. Expectations were always high. Everybody wanted to see those rosy lips, neat and beautiful fresh girls, which had been out of sight for quite a while.

The chilly weather threatened to keep those new faces indoors. It was every guy’s wish to date one. All the boys began wearing those clothes that were kept for special events. You could see the competition without asking and wonder how much pain it will cause if one failed. The charmie-charmie thing never stopped until five days passed, and none of the boys got the target.

The girls seemed not to notice what was going on. They were strolling to a nearby shop looking all around as they were new in the area. They were definitely matching the images we had about them on our minds. It felt like a dream come true. When we saw them we would rush as if we were in a hurry, pretending as if we wanted to buy something. The three of us managed to sneak away from the group.

We had to slow the pace as there were elders around; two steps behind the girls. The chase was unsuccessful as we were not allowed to have girls amongst elders. That was against our culture. Disappointment and anger was written boldly on our faces. We lazily moved back to the group.

Our minds were still on those girls. The conversation with other boys became boring. All we needed was a quiet place and time to think about the princesses.

We started to hardly spend time with the boys. Then, suddenly, we were dating the trio of girls. We wanted to spend as much time with them as they had about two weeks left before heading to Joburg.

We all fell in love. We would move along the streets, each of us holding the hand of his girl, just strolling and showing off. That, was just a pleasant feeling we all had never had before.

The girls quickly acted strange. They were on their way to Joburg before the two weeks came to an end. They were also having an affair with some of the three boys from the group. And that caused our little family to be covered by bitterness. How quickly they turned us to hate each other.

[The End]