A week into the second semester, when Joe was still mourning his father while he was sitting alone, Clara met him. Clara was the only surviving-child of Dr Agbabiaka who was a cabinet member of President Shagari in the second republic in Nigeria.

He was among those that were charged for corruption by the military government and he was found guilty of corruption before he escaped, entering self-exile in England and later moving his family to South Africa after apartheid had ended in 1994. Clara was born in South Africa.

Joe was studying biochemistry. Clara gave Joe succour and they later started a relationship. Joe found a new love. He had forgotten all the promises he made to Angela, hence didn’t really care about her anymore.

Gradually, Joe drifted away from Angela and they completely lost contact. Even when he visited Mangweni to see his uncle, Angela would only hear it from friends that Joe was home and he had left. She felt rejected and useless when Joe stopped answering her calls.

Her life turned upside-down, became shrouded in cloudiness. She was saturated and obsessed with the thought of Joke’s act of betrayal, thus unable to sleep. She thought the sun was no-more cheerful in its shine and it was as cold as ice, hence she couldn’t concentrate on her studies, and as a result she failed her matric examination. Because Angela had been one of the best students since grade 8, the school management was worried about her failure. The management then called her teacher and told her to find out why she failed. Although Mrs Smith had noticed behavioural changes wasn’t for nearly six months, wasn’t really worried until Angela failed her examination.

When the school visited Angela at home, they were directed to Mrs Smith’s place and they found Angela there with Janet. They talked extensively about Angela’s well-being and in the end Mrs Smith decided that Angela and Jane should finally move in with her. She cared for them as though they were her own.

About a year later, Angela matriculated with seven distinctions. She was the best student in the whole of Mpumalanga province, and nearly all the universities competed for her attention. They all offered her bursary. The premier and the provincial government authority sent a delegation to her at home and awarded her for academic excellence.
Angela decided to take the University of Cape Town’s offer to study nuclear medicine. When Angela arrived at the University of Cape Town, she was informed that there was a University’s exchange programme with Harvard University in the United States of America, and that only first year students with outstanding results at the end of the session would be selected for the programme.

Angela became more studious; her mates considered her as a nerd, and she was loved by nearly all her lecturers. At the end of the first session she made it, hence she became one of the students who were selected from the university to be part of the programme.

Tell us: What do you think of Angela?