The desire to see her again turned into an obsession and I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to the local college to see if I could find her there. But after days of searching and asking I couldn’t find her. I saw an article in the newspaper later that week, about students who were looking for financial assistance in a private college and among those students photographed, was Zandile.

I went to the college the next day and waited outside for her. As she came out of the campus with her friends she noticed me and stopped.

“This is not faith, this is stalking,” she said as she stood still. I walked to her with a smile and asked if I could speak to her. I told her that I saw her in the newspaper and that maybe I could help.

I was working at a local power station and sometimes travelled to other power stations. I was a supervisor so I knew that my company helped students with financial difficulties. All I needed to do was to put in a good word for her and put her application on top of the others as she had already applied. That stroke of genius or luck got me her numbers and I got in contact with her.

On one rainy day she sent me an SMS while I was at work, asking me if I could fetch her from school. I was busy but I had to make an impression. So I called in a favour and asked a friend to fetch her and he did.

Later that day I met up with my friends at a local sports bar and the topic about Zandile came up. I was advised to sleep with her and get a move on. The urgency was driven by the fact that she was a virgin. We all knew because we were players and we could spot “potential” from a distance. But somehow my other side didn’t want to hurt her but I didn’t tell my friends that.

We had been players for years and we believed that love was over-rated. We learnt from a young age that women can’t be trusted and they wanted everything that a guy can’t give them. They didn’t know what monogamy was about anymore. Throw material things in their way and you had them like putty in your hands. Well that was our opinion and reasons for playing them and we felt no remorse for that.

As we were still sitting and chatting at the bar, I received an SMS from Zandile. She was asking me to accompany her to school the next day if it was still raining. I agreed. The next day I fetched her from her house. When we got to the campus parking the students were on strike because they couldn’t write exams without the full tuition being paid. Instead of letting her go and strike in the rain, I decided to go with her to work. That day I was going to just sign off on some machinery that was going to be delivered and leave for the day.

On our way to the power station we talked and I learnt a lot about her. She was doing Electrical Engineering and lived with her aunt and younger brother. Her mother passed away when she was seven and she didn’t know her father. Her aunt was working in a bar around the corner from her house and her salary could only afford groceries and transport money for her little brother.

Her mother left them some money from a policy but it was only enough to pay their school fees. But now she was two years away from getting her diploma and her brother was soon starting high school. She walked 45 minutes from home to campus every day. She couldn’t get a part-time job because she spent most of her time at school studying. I knew from that point she was a straight A student, so I had to help her.

***

Tell us what you think: Is what Kamu is thinking of doing right? How do you feel about nepotism?