I remember when I was 5 years old in pre- school we lived in
Arnot with my father and our nanny. my mother would drive to come see us on the weekends,
off days or when she was on leave. All I remember is that Bonolo and I were not
happy about not having mama around, my father either worked night shifts or was
just never around so we basically lived with our nanny Mamsi. She was a darling
who loved to eat soil, so every week she would carry my sister on her back and I
would have to carry my 5 year old legs and trail behind her trying to catch up
to her pace. She really loved us, treated us like her own and tried to fill the
void of missing our mother.
The problem about
leaving in Arnot was my father! I could never really understand that man. I remember
coming back home from school excited about a school trip to Zoo, i showed my
father the newsletter and it read that
the trip was R5 per child meaning that he had to pay R10 for both Bonolo and I.
I couldn’t count money yet, but I knew that the small amounts where in coins
and the big amounts where notes. So my father gave me R5 to pay for the
trip, and I remember asking him twice if he was sure that the money was enough
and he nodded. Next day I get to school I ask all my classmates before class if
they have money for the trip and to my delight Bonolo and I were going to be
amongst the first people to pay. We get into class and after taking the
register our teacher asks “who has money to pay for the trip?” I raise my hand
and walk to the front to pay , I tell her that I am paying for both Bonolo, and
I to my surprise she tells me that the money is only enough for me and that Bonolo still had pay. I slowly turnaround with my
heart on the floor and walked to my desk leaving blood stains as I mope asking
myself why my father did that to me? I never
got the answer but when my mother came I was sure to tell her all about it.
A few months after my parents got divorced, of course they didn’t
tell us ,so we would nag our mother to call our dad and ask where he was ?. Every
now and then we would call him but he never called us back, he forgot our
birthdays so we quickly found out that he wasn’t worth it. This past week I have been asking myself how
life would’ve worked out if my parents never divorced and the story I told
above kept reoccurring in my mind. And I came to the realization that we would’ve
been deprived of so many things. My mother made being a single parent an easy
job while my father escaped and still escapes from his parent duties.
What is alarming is that he is slowing trying to creep into
my life lately, and I was asking myself why now? he cannot possible think that
he is going to take all the credit of having given life to an Economist when he doesn’t even
know how much school fees cost can he ? after 18 years ?? Convenience better be
playing tricks on him. It was his choice to abandon us all those years ago, absent
fathers cannot have life easy, its absolute nonsensical.
