HOME SOUR HOME
Nomzamo was at the kitchen sitting on the chair with her Business Studies book on top of a small kitchen table. She was with her grandmother together with her two brothers inside a Small shack at the back of an RDP house, her brothers were at the lounge preparing themselves to go to church. While the 64-year-old grandma was still sitting on the couch enjoying her morning drug as she sipped her cup of coffee.
Outside it was a radiant day with an intensifying heat accompanied by howling sincere breeze, clouds were toss and turning on the skies of the unhallowed township, transmitting warm air to the natives of the home-grown neighbourhood like a blossom spreading its uplifting smell into nature.
Nomzamo Dlamini, an eighteen-year-old student studying standard ten at Uxolo senior high school near Nelson Mandela Park. She was staying with her grandmother and two younger brothers, Thandolwethu and Yamkela, in a small three living room shack. A kitchen combined with the dining room but divided by a white curtain interior the trivial hut. A small artificial shack like a small pigsty from a distance exterior the yard.
Small was the shack, they called the shack, ‘home sour home’. Sour was the shack, as a family, it felt like, ‘home sweet home’.
Nomzamo’s grandmother, MaDlamini, was earning a decent wage at a clothing factory that contributed to Nomzamo’s tertiary education fund from the time she was a young courageous newly orphan. A cute nine-year-old with an empty heart that was once filled with her mother’s love and her father’s deep fondness, vanished within thin air through a tragic cold-blooded midnight lane. And left with them a government grant for their survival in this unholy neighbourhood that took her tragic pain with her beneath the ground.
In this unholy district. MaDlamini consistently encouraged her grandchildren to go to church. It was a frequent Sunday alarm they had to rise upon, however, the eldest daughter felt she could take a rope and hang herself as Sunday came to worship the almighty, but her grandmother was behind her like a mosquito waiting to sting.
MaDlamini: (Tempered) You whine habitually about our shack dripping droplets during spring, yet you persist to repudiate on departing to church to worship the name of God. (Harshly) You as lazy as your deceased mother, Nomzamo. (Calmly) Money is a commodity and it shall remain behind to your inheritor. Take this as an enlightenment for change. She sighs briefly. Enrich your mother’s tendency in good spirit and take it as a lesson, her only artefact she bequeathed for you is that necklace on your neck. Let this perish and not be a peril curse. She turns her head with delay. Now, tell me, where is the money?
Nomzamo: (Thoughtfully)… but Gogo, I am busy with my homework, isn’t this important? (Despondently) Yesterday you said, and I quote, ‘Education is the key to success’, or is church the key to success now?
Gogo MaDlamini stood up concerned and went to wash her favourite coffee cup at the kitchen.
MaDlamini: (Spiking) Do not say ‘but’ to me and use that influential quotation against the time of God (Anxious) You just like your mother indeed. Worshiping money more than you praises God.
Nomzamo: (Play – acting) Yes Gogo! I am like her. But in this case, I worship education more than God, because I am certain it will bring food on the table. What will God bring? Love, care, kindness? What? (She giggled).
MaDlamini takes few steps towards Nomzamo with a wet cloth on her hand. Quickly, Nomzamo ran for the door with laugher, still laughing, she stands next to the rusty door that was lacking maintenance, fiddling with her hair.
Nomzamo: Oh! (Regretfully) Sorry Gogo. With that said. She came back frightfully. MaDlamini was now near the sink washing the dishes. You see, Gogo. She stands firmly. One day is one day. My success will be your flight to freedom like Nelson Mandela said, and I quote, ‘’ Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’’.
MaDlamini: (Grumpy). You think that is possible?
Nomzamo: Yes, Gogo. Slowly, she sat down.
MaDlamini: (Decisively) That will not transpire without the Lord’s help. I promise you that my grandchild. She adjusted as she packed the dishes in their accurate positions.
