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A Beautiful Soul Named Mary

A victim of the epidemic raging in South Africa and no, it is not Coronavirus

By Yana BostongirlPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Image by Dan Fador from Pixabay

The history of apartheid-era South Africa is incredibly sad and at times infuriatingly incomprehensible” — Henry Rollins

I grew up in South Africa during apartheid. The house I lived in was situated on the outskirts of a small town with the beautiful Maluti Mountains as a backdrop. It had a nice backyard with lemon and peach trees, a serene space where our six dogs could roam freely. My backyard was a good vantage point for the unpaved, dirt road that snaked up to Location, the walled town atop a barren hill a few miles out.

Location is the name for the walled town where the Black South Africans were made to live. At that time, they weren’t allowed to buy homes in predominantly white towns. Many of the residents of Location were poor. Among those who had jobs, some were taxi drivers while the majority made the daily trek into town each morning to do menial jobs which mostly consisted of house work. At the end of the work day, they returned back to their walled town.

Mary was my friend. She was a kind and gentle person despite all the hardships she had to undergo. Our conversations made me fluent in Sotho which is a native dialect.

She had her first child in high school which is sadly the case with many school going girls in Location. Because of that she had to quit school and marry her boyfriend, Khosi. After getting married, they moved into an unheated shack made of zinc which had no running water.

Her husband, a taxi driver, was also a wife beating drunk. Since good jobs were scarce, Mary had to make ends meet by becoming a cleaning lady for the residents of the town that nestled at the bottom of Location.

Once I remember her coming to our home with a scarf covering her face. She was too ashamed to look anyone in the eye. When my mother noticed that Mary had a black eye and that her jaw was swollen to grotesque proportions, she hurried to fetch my father who is a doctor. Together they took care of Mary that day.

My father, also known as Ntate Doctor (Mr. Doctor in Sotho), decided it was time to have a talk with Mary’s husband, Khosi.

After that conversation, Mary was not beaten by her husband again. But Khosi went on to do something far, far worse.

Raising six kids in a zinc shack is unimaginable. Yet, Mary did it through sheer hard work and grit. She would collect used blankets in the summer so her kids stayed warm in winter. She would collect hand me downs from the houses she cleaned to provide her kids with clothing.

Often the people with the most beautiful heart are the ones who have endured the greatest pain.”

And then one day, she found out that she was HIV positive.

If you didn’t know, there is a HIV epidemic raging in South Africa. According to CSIS “The reasons are both biological and social, including high rates of teenage pregnancy, an epidemic of gender-based and interpersonal violence; lack of quality education; and widespread poverty and unemployment.”

An article in Verywell Health estimates that around 7.7 million South Africans (nearly one in seven citizens) live with Aids and there are 600,000 children orphaned as a result of Aids.

Strength is not how much you can handle before you break. It’s how much you can handle after you break.”

Even though I was too young to comprehend the nature and magnitude of this epidemic, I understood that it was a very serious disease. Today, I can’t help wondering what might have gone through Mary’s mind at the moment she received the dreaded news? Her thoughts must have immediately been about her kids. I imagine she felt the walls closing in on her with no hope in sight.

Yet, she found the strength to take this devastating blow in her stride. She must have drawn deeply from the well of fortitude within her to have been able to keep going because she felt she had no other choice.

Mary still continued to come to our house till the day we left the country. My parents had made the difficult decision to relocate having been the victims of several armed robberies. I still remember crying so hard and being comforted by sweet Mary. I think, at some level my child’s mind knew I would never see her again.

I wonder if the lemon and peach trees are blooming there this year and whether I could still catch a glimpse of Location in the distance, this time without its walls?

Originally published in Medium

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About the Creator

Yana Bostongirl

Top writer in This Happened to Me on Medium and avid follower of Thich Nhat Hanh. Yana loves to write about life, relationships, mental health and all things she has a passion for.

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