My name doesn’t matter. What matters is what happened, because it happens to many of us. I grew up in a small village, thinking I’d marry young, have kids, and farm the land like my mother and her mother before her. It was the only life I knew then.
Then…
I became my mother’s caregiver when I was just four years old.
My mother was from Opuwo, in the Kunene region of Namibia. When I was four, she became very ill. In our area, people strongly believed in witchcraft. They thought her sickness was caused by something supernatural, something that…
This voice of mine,
this prayer born of my tongue,
I will never let it fade away.
In celebration, I will stomp through the open fields,
my heart bursting with a joy so deep,
wrapped in the quiet embrace of my faith.
Oh, I will pray and praise,
the ancient thanksgiving prayers and songs
my mother hummed…
It’s past midnight.
I’m on the edge of my bed.
The only sounds…
my pounding heart
and my grandmother’s
ancient clock.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
It’s almost deafening.
Maybe I should sleep.
But what if I don’t wake up?
I can’t close my eyes.
My mind is just dancing to fear.
I’ve given myself a racing heart
just by thinking.
I wish I’d said nothing
when…
My Dearest Scars
You were an uninvited guest,
but you made a home in my skin.
A silent story of a battle that found me.
First, you were nothing but pain:
the surgeon’s cut, the chemo’s fever,
a landscape of loss drawn on my body.
But now?
You’re the measure of
How I refused to disappear.
Every mark is…
We all made mistakes
We are human
We are of flash
People made of soil
God, the Almighty, is the creator
But to what do we owe this world
To what should we give to show gratitude?
To what depth can the remembrance prove how proud we are to be his own.
We all made mistakes because…
My name is Thandi Promise Mashaba, I am 31 years old, a phenomenal woman and the founder of Focus Mamelodi Community NPO—a certified life coach and life coach for kids. I am fearfully and wonderfully made – a truth. I didn’t always believe in myself.
Growing up, life was not…