Volskrust is a place with a small town between Mpumalanga Province and Kwazulu Natal. Most businesses owners rely on people coming to work at Majuba Eskom Power Station which is situated about twenty five kilometres from the town. It is common that most of these businesses provide accommodation for workers. It is also not unusual that you are most likely to come across people from different places. People from Nelspruit, Newcastle, Witbank, Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg and even as far as Eastern Cape. There is also a township not far from Volksrust town and the rest is a mixture of suburban, smaller townships, rural and farming areas.

Jacob Sibisi came from a place called Dundee which is on the Northern part of KwaZulu Natal. Like many other people he was on a sojourn in Volksrust working as a general project manager forThandolwethu Projects. He has had his share of uneven life. He started as a general worker at Thandolwethu Projects, after a year, he was appointed as one of ten boilermakers. Within five years he was promoted to a supervisor, a site manager and eventually, general operations manager. He had seen the company he works for going through tough times, he had also witnessed its growth. He was part of both. Jacob was born and raised in Dundee. He and his twin brothers were born and raised by both their parents until untimely death of their father. Jacob had just finished his matric and was in a process of doing a certificate in industrial boilermaking when the tradegy striked. Being the eldest meant that he had to halt his training and looked after his family. His father had worked on farm as farm foreman for many years and had managed to save enough money to buy a car after his retirement. The car was used by his father to go to town, buy vegetables and other things that would be sold to their community. That was the family’s only source of income since their mother was also not working. After their father’s death, Jacob’s main responsibility was to make sure that there was food on the table and also that his brothers who were in Grade 10 finished their matric. Life had not been an easy ride for him, but due to his mother’s strength and support, things became easier than how they seemed to look. After a while the twins passed their matric with very good results and Mr Viljoen, who was their father’s ex-employer offered to fund their tertiary fees. That was the least he could do, he had said. Mr Viljoen had been very supportive to the family ever since their father’s death. Jacob decided to sell his father’s car in order to pursue his boilermaking dream. His mother agreed. The training took almost a year to complete, eight months theory, three months practicals and two weeks trade testing.

Eight years have passed since his father ‘s funeral. It is a warm Saturday morning, a beautiful summer day, with cool breeze carrying a sweet flowerish aroma. Jacob is resting in his company rented house, he is just watching news on TV about a young man who killed his girlfriend and himself. Sad. “There is no exciting news nowadays.” He laments, to no one. It’s a five roomed suburban house which he shares with two of his colleagues. Both his roomates have gone to their respective homes for a weekend. Jacob has been working for Thandolwethu Projects for almost six years now. His colleagues have became his second family. Today he is thinking a lot about his home. He hasn’t visited home for almost two months due to amount of work that has piled up abruptly. He is thinking about his mother, how supportive and powerful she has been for all these years. A strong pillar of strength, he thinks. Both his twin brothers got their tertiary degrees but none of them managed to get any job. Unemployment is a national crisis, everybody keeps saying. They managed to revive their father’s business, made some modifications and the business is going well. It’s very confusing, this issue of his brothers’ unemployment even though one has a law degree and the other, a degree in teaching. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” He murmurs. The government says that education is important. “Education is the key.” They say. What is the point of having a key but no door to open? What would have happened if he, himself was not employed? He thought again about his parents. How they raised him and his siblings. Respect had been an emphasized principle. “Respect,” his father had said to them on numerous occasions, ” is the basic living requirement for every human being.” It is a source of discipline, he had said. Respect is earned like earning life points, you cannot buy it. Inorder to earn respect you need to respect others, irrespective of who, what and how they are. Jacob did not notice anything special then about his father’s teachings but followed them anyway. He did not fathom most of them, until few years later. Through his father’s teachings, he managed to learn other new things, by simply asking for advices from other people, understanding other people and mostly appreciating what others give to him, no matter how small. It is through that, that he is now a general operations manager for Thandolwethu Projects and has gained respect not only from his colleagues, clients and employers, but has also gained much respect from his community back home. This is very important to him. He is still swimming on his thoughts when he is painfully interrupted by a bang on a door. Someone is knocking.

Jacob jumps and dashes to the door. He is somehow not really astonished by who the visitor is. It is Brian Banda. “Hey JC!” He shouts, with a smile as if showing off his gold decorated teeth. “I thought you would fancy me coming to check you uninvited.” Brian is a very short guy within extremely light complexion. His mother was born from a Coloured family, so clearly, Brian took a lot from his mother’s genes. Besides his many gold plated teeth, Brian is wearing a visible gold necklace and an expensive silver Tag Heuer watch. He is also wearing a black and red Borgat track suit. Brian is the kind of a man who likes his fashion. Even though they are best friends, Jacob appears to be a big contrast to Brian by almost everything, except for respect and benign nature. Jacob is dark and tall and doesn’t care much about what he wears. Brian was born in Volksrust township. His family moved to Amersfoort but he remained in the township. He is married and has two children, a boy who is sixteen years old and a fourteen year old daughter. He had met Jacob during training in Johannesburg few years earlier. They have been friends ever since then. Brian is employed by Eskom as a senior engineer. He is a perky guy with a squealing voice and a left lazy eye. He has quite a lot of money too. ” Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Brian enquires and doesn’t wait for an answer to the question. He gives a small hug to Jacob and enters the room. He leaves behind a smell of expensive perfume and whiskey. Jacob just shruggs his shoulders and follows. Brian may be some sort of a fashion guru but there is one thing that has always puzzled Jacob about his friend and his fashion. Jacob has always noticed something out of place regarding his friend’s clothes matching. Take today for instance, Brian is wearing a matching track suit but he is also wearing Casey Jones formal brown shoes. He once came to work very tidy except for his old unpolished safety boots. Curious and concerned about this, Jacob had asked for explanation from his friend. The answer was remarkably stunning.

Jacob is happy that Brian is paying him a visit on account he (Jacob ) is going to be spared Saturday boredom. Brian sits on the couch while Jacob proceeds to his bedroom. He quickly comes back with a Johnnie Walker bottle under his arm, two glasses and a one litre Schweppes Soda Water. He sits down next to Brian, pours a “two fingers” and swallows it in one gulp. The whiskey gulp causes a sudden warm and satisfying feeling to Jacob. Luckly for him, he had already covered his standby duties during early hours of that morning. “I bought this bottle yesterday.” He proclaims to his friend, Brian, who seems to be already on the early stage of intoxication.

Saturday vibes are now getting to both gentlemen, with their whiskey which is about to wave goodbye to them. They both unanimously agree to go to town to buy few beers. It is a less than ten minutes drive from where they are. They return with twenty four cans of beer. The voices are now high, there is a lot of laughter in the room. Everything is fine until Jacob asks, “how is your family by the way?” Brian looks at his friend with some sad expression. Jacob suddenly feels a little embarassed for asking. ” It’s funny you asked this question because I was going to ask an advice regarding my son, Siyanda.” Brian responds. According to him, his son has been behaving in a very unusual way for the past two months or so. “He has been more unrespectful,” Brain says. “He had came home drunk on few occasions.” Yesterday they had a serious altercation and Siyanda left and has not came back home. His cellphone is off. “It all started about three months ago,” Brain says. He had tried speaking to his son but it all fell on deaf ears. The principal at Siyanda’s school had summoned them for few meetings and complained timeously about Siyanda’s sudden change in behaviour. He cited involvement with wrong friends. They (Brian and his wife) even tried taking him to counseling sessions, all but fruitless. After that bitter conversation, Brian bids farewell to his friend and assures him that he will be able to drive safely.

After few minutes Jacob phones his friend to check on him. “Hey! I am home now, thank you for calling.” Brian shouts from the other side. He tells Jacob that Siyanda has not come back yet. Jacob tells his friend not to throw in a towel about his son. Brian promises not to and drops the call. Brian’s story left his friend more perturbed. He sits down on the couch and sighs. There is a couple of beer cans left, he pulls one, opens it and finds himself thinking again. Thinking about respect. How he had respected everyone and how he became a well respected person. His father had told him many things about respect and life and he had made sure that he passed that to his brothers. His brothers have grown to be very respectful men and are highly disciplined. Brian is also a respectful man and a very responsible father. Why has his son gone rogue? Jacob does not have a child of his own, but his love for children is undeniable. What is happening to his friend’s son is also worrying him. He had recently saw news on TV about children that are going rogue. Some have gone as far as to attacking theirteachers at schools. As an adult you cannot stop to wonder. “Where did we go wrong?” Jacob murmured. He knew that whenever there is a deficiency in respect, it usually results to bad decision-making, bad behaviour, confusion and all forms of social ills. Most young people are victims to this, not because their parents hate them or do not care. Most young people are victims because they are gullible. They believe that their parents are “old school” and that their parents are ignorant or are resilient to change, which is not true. Their definition of democracy is that they are entitled to everything, wrong things, even worse. They forget about more important things like, education, sports, and any other forms of recreational and self developmental activities. This leads to false expectations and falls beliefs, like: life is easy, life is about money, it’s about fancy cars and alcohol. The end results to these pseudobeliefs are usually: violence, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, disregarding life and even death. According to Jacob, this is a very risky, hocus-pocus path for young people, but even more stressful for parents, since they are always the ones to “pay the piper” in the end. Every child’s behaviour is mostly a reflection of that child’s background, whether it is a family or a community background. In life, Jacob has learnt that every act has it’s consequences, good or bad, depending on levels of respect a person has about life. Jacob’s thoughts had made him forget about time. He looks at his watch and it is already 00:45! He gets up from the couch and goes to his bedroom. Just as he is preparing to sleep, his cellphone rings. Its Brian.

Brian sounds very unsettled. He tells Jacob that he is in hospital. “Wait! What happened?” Jacob exclaims. Brian tells him that Siyanda was involved in an grisly car accident, they were coming from a party with his friends. Siyanda is the only person who survived that crash.