Question: What was I thinking? Answer: I wasn’t thinking.

It’s only half an hour since I got the WhatsApp notification that Unandi had added me to a group called ‘The Naked Farmer’. I was like, what the actual, because Unandi and I are so not sistrens.

Then I saw it, and understood. She wanted me to see. The photo. That photo.

My first instinct was to leave the group, but ‘tap here for group info’ it said at the top of the screen, so I did, and checked out the members. Not just Unandi and her friends. My friends too: Shiluva and Jasmine. Other people I like and respect. Ramano and his group. Plus that quiet, clever girl who came to live with her gogo here in Simile last year. The one who’s going to get distinctions in every subject when we soon write matric.

Then I left the group. Now some stupid part of me is wishing I hadn’t. I don’t know why.

My phone goes; a WhatsApp notification, and for a few seconds I’m too scared to look at it. Then I do. Relief. It’s Shiluva.

Girl, tell me that’s not you???

Then Jasmine. Wtf?

How do I answer them?

And how did Unandi get that photo? Dambisa? What has he done?

More messages.

‘Ho’ and ‘nice boobs’ and ‘slut’.

I switch off my phone – properly off, not just on silent. The first time ever.

“What’s wrong, Lamulile child?” Ma looks up from her ironing that she always does in front of the TV, so she can watch eTV’s Scandal!

“Nothing, Ma. Just people being stupid.”

I can’t tell her, and not only because I’m too ashamed. Ma is a worrier, stresses big time over just about everything. She’s got enough to deal with: Pa being on the road so much driving a timber truck for the forestry people, and my brother Nathi down in Tshwane working as a security guard. It’s the only job he could get, even after TVET college.

Shit, shit, shit. I’m the great hope of the family now, supposed to be starting an agricultural degree at the University of Mpumalanga next year. Because our Mathebula clan is part of a land claim, we want to be ready. Okay, people say it will take decades to be granted, so maybe I’ll end up on one of the big commercial farms, gaining experience. Either way, the degree will be my pass out of Simile and Sabie. Livestock and crops, I love them both. And when people say a girl can’t be a farmer, it just makes me promise myself fierce-hard that I’ll prove them wrong.

But now! How can I go to UMP when half the people in the group are hoping, planning, to go there too? People who have seen that photo. It’s a small university, not like Wits or Tuks where you can be anonymous.

“Where are you going?” Ma asks when I jerk myself out of my chair and head out of the room.

“Prelims are getting close.” I can’t look at her. “I need to study.”

“We’re proud of you, child.” Ma puts down the iron. “The whole family. You know that, don’t you?”

I press my lips together, hard. I want to cry. How proud will they be if they find out what I did?

 ***

Tell us: WhatsApp groups are mostly useful, but sometimes they’re used to bully or shame a person. What should Lamulile do?