It’s eight-thirty on a Monday morning. Thandiwe is lying on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her eyes are red and have bags under them. Thandiwe had a lot on her mind the previous night, she hardly slept.

Thandiwe’s cell phone rings when she starts to fall asleep. She picks it up.

“Good morning, you are speaking to Thobekile Dingayo from Ethembeni Primary School. Am I speaking to Thandiwe Velani?” Thobekile says.

“Yes, you’re speaking to Thandiwe,” Thandiwe replies, getting up from her bed.

“I am calling you regarding your job application for teaching at our school. I regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful because you don’t have the experience that we’re looking for. We wish you all the best on your job search,” Thobekile Dingayo says, and puts the phone down.

Receiving such responses doesn’t hurt Thandiwe as much as it used to when she started looking for a teaching job. She has applied to more schools than she can remember but the number of responses that she has received is less than the number of fingers on her hand.

Thandiwe puts her phone on the bedside table and makes her bed. She no longer feels sleepy. She leaves her bedroom and walks slowly to the sitting room. On the coffee table, there’s a R20 that Noma, her mother, left her, to buy something to eat.

Thandiwe is Noma’s only child. Noma’s husband, Sindisizwe, left home while she was pregnant with Thandiwe. He left in pursuit of greener pastures so he could support his wife and daughter. Sindisizwe never set foot back home.

“I have been looking for work for a long time now, Mama. No one is hiring me. Maybe I should look somewhere else, Bhelekazi,” Thandiwe had said to Noma, the previous evening while they were watching TV.

“What do you mean by ‘somewhere else’?” Noma asked, decreasing the volume of the TV.

“You want to leave me too just like your father? He talked like this too and left, never to hear from him again. No, my child. I can’t lose you too,” Noma said, feeling pain in her chest.

“But Mama, how long have we been hopeful? How many times have we been praying but nothing works out? You’re not getting any younger but you’re still cleaning white people’s houses to put food on the table. When will my degree put food on the table? Once I get the job, I’ll take you with me,” Thandiwe pleaded.

“It pains me to hear you talk like this, my child. But it’s fine. If you want to leave me too, you can,” Noma said, tears sliding down to her nose.

“Mama, I’m not leaving you. You’re not listening to me. I will…”

“I said you can leave. Don’t you want to leave? Then leave,” Noma said, not wanting to hear anything else from her daughter. She left Thandiwe in the sitting room and went to her bedroom.

This was the last conversation that Thandiwe had with her mother before she went to sleep. Noma didn’t wake her up this morning before leaving for work as she usually did. She didn’t forget to leave a R20 for her daughter to buy herself something to eat though.

Thandiwe is about to go to the shop when her cell phone rings again.

“Good morning, I’m Principal Zweledinga Jobela from Siyakhula Primary School. Am I speaking to Miss Thandiwe Velani?” Principal Jobela says.

“Yes, Principal. This is she,” Thandiwe says.

“I’m calling you regarding your application for teaching at our school. Are you available for an interview at 11 tomorrow morning?” Principal Jobela asks.

“Yes, sir. I am,” Thandiwe says, excitedly.

Tell us: What do you think of the story so far? Can you, or someone in your family, relate to the difficulty of job hunting?