There is one thing I like about being home – you get to be yourself. There is no pressure to pretend to be something that you are not. You don’t have to dress in nice clothes and pretend to speak English better than other blacks. And I get to eat the food my mother makes; no-one cooks better than my mother.

That’s one thing I hate about living at res – cooking. The kitchen is small – and most of the time the stoves are occupied. And by the time the stoves are available you’ve got a class to attend. Sundays are good though; the stoves are available most of the time – as most of the guys go to church and some go out for walks and ice-creams with their girlfriends, around campus.

I hadn’t spoken to Zimasa since she had walked out of my room. If I had had money, I would’ve taken her out for ice-cream and apologised to her for what happened. But I didn’t have money. The only thing I had were three pieces of chicken and a talent for cooking.

I sent her an SMS, telling her to come over, since Peter wouldn’t be there. I overheard him talking about a party that he was going to later that night. Mandela Day had been a success for him. He had made his target so he was going to be in the paper again, because his dad knew one of the journalists who was going to cover the story.

Now Peter was in the shower, singing. His wallet lay open on his bed, a number of R200 notes on display. What if I took one? Would he even notice? I thought to myself, before I went to the kitchen.

“Hola dawg,” I greeted Marnus. He had his earphones on and was washing his dishes so he didn’t hear me. Good, I thought to myself, I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

“Kamo. Wassup dude?” he said finally, when he turned and noticed that I was in the room.

“I’m OK.” I said, hoping to kill the conversation before it even started. Marnus was doing his third year in Law and was a Junior Pastor at his church. He was always in a good mood to talk. Thabiso said he only talked to blacks because he was going to run for SRC at the end of the current SRC’s term. Thabiso liked to stir.

“What’s this I hear about you Kamo?” he said, looking at me like I was a child.

“I don’t know. What have you heard?” I asked, scratching my head.

“What’s this about you not doing anything for Mandela Day?” he said, talking down to me, like he was reprimanding me.

I didn’t know what to say to him. We were not friends. How did he have the nerve to tell me that I was apathetic? “Look,” I eventually said to him in the most polite voice I could manage, although inside I was seething. “You know my name but you don’t know me.”

“You are an African child. Ubuntu should be one of your values. You know what they say about the hand that gives, right? Mandela would …”

***

Tell us: Does Marnus have the right to criticise Kamohelo for not doing charity work?