In one of the busy Sundays, a trending piano song dragged my ears to Mr William’s tavern. Focus vanished from my school assignment as I was dancing to every beat of the song, People shouted with all their heart out, and I remembered that a special guest was invited, DJ Sizwe. I had no plan but to break my mother rules. I threw the books away and disappeared from her house like the water that pretends to be friends with soil.

On my way, my eyes fell on a crowd of people that argued for one tap of water, just for one tap of water. As I came close, mama Lenda’s bucket had full drink of brown water, and a strange man held the pipe, he looked demented and had an unpleasant odour. I wondered why a man like him was given an authority to rule the devastated queue, hunger and anger was written on their faces, but it all made sense when a movie played on my eyes, he had a gun in his white dirty jacket.

For a second my mind was betrayed, I fell on the dusty road, and crawled as my leg shook because of the heartless potholes I told Mr counsellor about. I hid my tears but the sweat that ran over my face told all the story, I was in pain and pretended to be strong, my mother’s best friend saw a statue when I needed help. “I could have continued with my assignment.” I said to myself but it was too late, the world had party on me.

As I tried getting up I giggled a little, I saw a knobkerrie near my hand, I was so sure that someone had come to rescue me. A rock fell again before my face, it changed the world around it, my emotions gave a sign that something terrible was happening. A girl was beaten with a bottle of beer, blood and tears covered her defenceless body. Her hair was all over the ground, instead of helping, everyone rushed to their phones and took pictures of every scene.

My heart crumbled into pieces, I was powerless, we used to say wanthint’ bafazi wanthint’ imbokodo, but that day it was an opposite of any comforting idiom. I had only one way to escape from the situation, not for myself but for everyone, and for our obstacles to perish like they never existed. Praying and voice out for the voiceless souls was the best harmless way bring peace and progress. I was tired of burning wheels and singing music that was silent to our municipality.

I got up heavily and leamped to the tavern, inside I was comforted by a small prayer of courage. The minute I stepped in, I found myself in the spotlight. The DJ stopped the music and everyone layed their eyes on me. With my knees covered with blood, I got all attention, and that’s what I wanted. That was the time for me to renew everyone’s faith. I told the DJ to bring me a mic instead of his hoodie he tried to cover my scars with.

Silently everyone looked at me, I took them different into a different atmosphere. I strongly grabbed the mic a cleared my throat. “Together we conquer and divided we fall!” I raised my right hand, “It’s now the time to forget our differences and teach one another, if our elders fought for freedom then why are we oppressed by our very own people? We need water! Proper infrastructure! Men that take care of our mothers, not those who abuse their power! We need smart leaders! We need a youth that doesn’t gamble with their lives!”

Glassy eyes of everyone rolled up and down, I told myself at least I might have spoken sense to them, maybe our community would change, we do not need the one with empty promises. We need Gobhoza as the village of progress and laughter.