Thandi and I have always been like life and consciousness – inseparable, to the point that members of the community and our peers at school would always call us “ama twins”. We would always have on the same outfits, do the same hairstyle and paint our fingers and toes the same colour. We embraced the attention with open arms and indulged in our chuckles and giggles as we walked with our hands clinched together downhill the rural dusty road of Kwa-Ntuka. But like anywhere, there would always be one of the “cool kids” who would dive at any opportunity to turn Thandi into a laughing stock just so it would boost their image.

I would feel my blood boiling from my toes to my head. And Thandi’s eyes would sparkle with tears ready to flow out of her roundish-almond shaped eyes. I guess, us going out of our way to look like the twins we were at heart accentuated Thandi’s abject predicament that had become her shadow and her identity.

But when we got to class Thandi would switch off and be all there, listening to the teacher. I don’t know how she did it. We were always distracted by the boisterous noise that made its way through our poorly built classroom walls. It was a competition between the teacher teaching and the banal Brenda Fassie CD that Bra Biza’s customers lived for, including Mam’Thandi. Bra Biza’s tavern was like a five minute walk from our school, but it always sounded like it was right next door.

After school, Thandi being the responsible sister that she was, would always ask me if we could wait for her brother Mathata so that we could all walk back home together. That was until a day came, when Mathata and his friends decided that they would put school on hold so they could nurture their “hustle”. Unaware of this, myself and Thandi stood outside the school gate in hopes that Mathata would run towards us from class and apologise for being the reason the sun feasted on us that afternoon – and thanks to him our hopes of being “yellow bones” went straight down the drain.

That afternoon we got to Thandi’s house and strangely the door was wide open and murmurs came from inside the house. It looked like the house was turned upside down. It reeked of alcohol and a whiff of nyaope lingered around our nostrils. Thandi quickly cast her bag besides me on the bedraggled kitchen floor and ran straight to the crooked draw where she kept her money – but it was gone.

The money she had worked her hands to the bone for, from making and selling ginger beer while children her age were caught up in exploring their own interests, making friends and taking delight in unwinding in the hot sun of Kwa- Ntuka had disappeared. I remember Thandi fleeting through to the small, congested and dark sitting room so certain that Nandi was responsible for her money disappearing – for all the mess. It wouldn’t have been the first time. It was just like her, she messed up and Thandi was left to clean up after her.

When she got to the dining room, Thandi was speechless.

She stood there overflowing with rage and overwhelmed by an agonizing feeling of disappointment. She looked over her shoulder at me and looked back at the stranger she once knew. This is the same person she would take a bullet for, the same person she put her childhood life on hold for, the only person, besides me, she had learned to invest her trust in. How could he do this to her?

After the storms they’ve weathered together, the hard knocks they’ve conquered and the sacrifices she’s had to make to ensure him clothes on his back and food on the table. This was the thanks she got from her brother. Not only did she have to deal with an alcoholic mother, now she had to deal with a nyaope user too!

I always knew there was more to Mathata than meets the eye; I mean vele which mom gives their child the name Mathata. People will tell you here in the village that choose the names you give to your children wisely, because that name will be your child’s shadow. Mathata means trouble and evidently that is exactly what he was turning out to be.

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Tell us what you think: How do you think this will affect Thandi’s work at school? Can her brother be saved or should focus on herself now?