The next move

It was after a week since Cynthia's aunt lost her younger son. She tried to move on but it was difficult to do so, since there had been no leads as to who was responsible for the attack. She kept on wondering what the next move would be and what would happen if the attackers came back. She did not even have clue as to who might be and what they wanted from her. She was just a simple village woman who was living a simple life just like any other villagers. Her husband was working in Cape town and usually came home during holidays. She told him that she did not feel safe living there alone with young children. "What if the attackers came back and do more harm than they did last time", she kept asking herself that question. She had heard stories of bomb attacks that happened in the cities but she never thought she would witness one in her life. The bomb attacks were one of the fighting tectics that were used by the guerrilla fighters and the white supremacy officials. Some of the meeting places of the liberation fighters would have bombs planted on them in an attempt to scare them away. And the guerrilla fighters would plant bombs in the headquarters of the white government.

She and her husband decide that they moved to Cape town to stay with him. So, she started to prepare for the journey she was about to embark on. It was not easy though for the village woman to leave her home and go to another place. This was done on an occasional basis. The wives would visit their husbands who worked in the cities because the husbands took the leave from their jobs only once a year. This meant that they lived most of their time without their families. The wives were expected to be the home keepers and update their men of any new developments that would come when the men were in the cities. Those who were still in the process to extend their families had to go to their husbands so that they could be able to conceive. After they conceived, they would go back to the villages to take care of their homes. The husbands would be informed if their partners had given birth. The only means of communication they used was to write letters and send telegrams incase of emergencies like death in the family. Telegrams were the only kind of mail that took a short time to be delivered and they were costly. The sender had to limit her words when writing because they charged per word. This made telegrams to be the short emergency message when someone had passed away. So, telegrams brought great fear when they arrived and the receiver would anxious the moment they were signing for them when they were delivered.

Cynthia's aunt departed for Cape town few weeks after her son died. She was crying everything she thought about it. She took her older son and baby Rowena with her. She could not risk leaving her only son even though it was in the middle of the year and he had not finished his term for the final academic year. Things were not working in their favour, they had to run for their lives. In Cape town she had to live a life of dodging the police officers. She had to have a permit to live in the city. The police were after those who had no permits. They were deported back to the villages. Sometimes they would be arrested before they were sent back to their villages. Cynthia' aunt decided to leave Cape town and stay with her own family in Mount Fletcher a remote area from where she was living with her husband and family. She stayed there and came back when her husband died. She buried her husband and went back to her home town. The death of her husband revived the wound of her son's death. She became depressed, now that she had no one to take care of her financial needs. She never heard from Cynthia again. Her son and Cynthia's daughter had no one to look after them when her condition became worse. Her mother who was already an elderly woman took care of the children. Unfortunately, her mother died because of her old age illnesses. That too added a pain in her heart. Her situation became worse and another member of her family stepped in to help to take care of the children. It became hard for the children to get all the necessities they were supposed to get because there was no one who brought food on the table. This made things difficult for Themba to carry on with his studies. This too brought so much pain to his mother who could not afford to give him even a normal lifestyle. There were times they would go to bed without food. This made her situation worse and she became very ill. Everyone was fearing for the worst as her condition was deteriorating. People were helping were they can with food and other stuff like clothes, especially for the children. They lived that life of being charity cases. The only thing that people were praying for was her not to leave her children as orphans as the claws of death were clutching her. She became thinner and sicker by the day. Those who were around her were holding their breath as they saw that they could lose her any moment. This affected the children too, especially the younger one who was do close to her granny because she knew no one except her.