Sad Post

I'm sad today. The girl next door called me a witch.

My favourite child, Vhitomi had her birthday on the 17th and even though I didn't have much I had ice cream and cones and pop corn kernels and those small bags of ready mix cake dough. So I called her and the very very littles to celebrate her birthday after school. I made a large bowl of pop corn, laid out a small carpet and had a platter of sweets and sherbets that were saved over from other parties. It was so cute. I made the birthday girl mixher own batter and put it in a tin loaf. We had pop corn and ice cream.

Her mother hovered the whole time. I didn't really try to interfere. The cake was baked but by the time it was ready it was still too hot to serve so I told her she could carry it for lunch the next morning.The next morning she came to collect the cake - we'd already had some slices,my grand-u cle and I and I wrapped it in some plastic for her to share with her family.

Now our homes are in close proximity and if someone talks loud enough outside you can audibly hear them. The child Brough the cake and immediately I heard the mother throwing slurs. “Why are you acting like dogs…going to people's houses asking for food…this is exactly how they bewitch us…Sesi Zamo Sesi Zamo this and that…next thing you'll be sick and that witch won't be taking you to the clinic…I will. I heard this slur from my open window. She was loud, she screamed it loud enough for me to hear. “ That witch will make you eat her food and bewitch you and you'll be sorry”…Moloi!!! I heard these slurs and as with everything I let it slide. But it sunk in. She had called me the witch trying to steal her children's luck and I had heard it. And only today, I wept.

I wept because I had to come home and I saw the girl,Vhitomi,and I couldn't even say Hi to her. I just waves. What could I say. Ours was a forbidden love. I just waves Andi drove in the back of the Uber watching her wearing the t-shirt I had bought her on out trip to Wits. She was saying sorry. Sorry for everything and all I could do was stare.

Being called a witch in those parts is the greatest sin. The mother had took it there, and I knew the implications. She didn't stop there, she sent a bunch of boys to my yard…her druggie friends to come “greet” me, a threat. And she had coyly asked that Saturday if I'd seen my “ghosts”. It's not so much that I fear for y safety but it's the stigma she has attached to my relationship with the children. The community, seeing my success as a single woman with no husband or children will not easily associate my good fortune with hard work, even I they saw me at the crack of dawn journeying to Johannesburg to irk out a living. It's easier to believe that I come by my good tidings not from sheer brain brawn and hard work, but by bewitching children and usurping their luck.

As it may be, I will not be deterd. This is not the first time they have been an obstacle, but never had they stooped as low as witchery…for even they know the implications. So I'm sad and I'm crying non stop.If they are to say I am a witch, so be it. If the children will come, I will love and hugs and kiss them anyway.

And oh…my mother called me selfish from her hospital bed today…also. I did nothing but tell her the truth. That I will no longer be the anchor she had groomed me to be….and she said I'm SELFISH.

Oh well….tears, just tears today. Sobbing tears.