Knock knock who’s there….

BY: Gogo Lwandle

Every year on my birthday I start receiving telephone calls at 09:00 am – if not earlier from my mom. Her first words would be “at this time I was starting to have labour pains, it was raining so much in Kimberley cars were struggling to drive” she would hang up the phone. Next call would come in at 10:00 am “I was rushed to hospital nge moto by your grandparents”. Next call would be at 11:am “I got to hospital, I was in labour but you just would not come”. Next call would be around 15:00pm “ I could hear your father pacing up and down the passage wanting to get doctors in from Bloemfontein, so frustrated he could have brought down walls that day”. Next call would be around 17:00pm “a good friend of ours walked in with the husband and asked your grandmother, why they are not making a plan, I’ve been in labour too long. Your grandmother then responded by saying, but what can they do. She mentioned to them that there is a healer she knows, if they agree she can take them to him. They quickly drove, walked in jumped the queue because they were expected somehow. Given a small bottle with water and told to give to me. I do believe I was half dead, because I could no longer feel anything. Upon their return I heard your grandmother say, Nozizwe vul’u mlomo, I opened my mouth and felt cold water down my throat, it wasn’t much. As soon as I swallowed, I came alive. Now you were on your way again”. Her last call will then be at 21:00pm”At this hour you were born, happy birthday my baby”.

This happened religiously every year as she was in Rusternburg working and my siblings and I were left in the care of my grandparents in Kimberley. She would continue to tell me about the difficulties I had breathing, feeding, I was a sickly child at infancy, right through to my Technikon years when I had my 2nd hernia operation. I had tonsillitis, ear infections, asthma, a lump on my breast removed while I was pregnant, I had flue every season in and season out with lots of fever blisters even on my eyes…go figure. Little did I know that was the beginning of my journey..

Knock knock, who’s there, it’s me, me who, me the calling. In one of my previous articles I mentioned that we are born with the gift and it manifests over the years. Sometimes it is kind and sometimes very brutal. The signs are there for those with eyes to see, only challenge is also with eyes to see knowledge must be present. My mom has the calling and headed it but did not complete, because back then my grandmother thought she was too young and had kids to take care of. She requested that she be given a chance to raise her kids being a single parent and all. The idea was that she’ll comeback and finish, but unfortunately life happened, people forgot, some left this world and chaos prevailed.

Having the gift yo bu Ngoma is somewhat of a complicated thing, sometimes I think it is more a curse than it is a gift. Your life is never easy, you’re constantly looking for answers through challenges in your path. My introduction was rough, how I came into this world set the tone of my warriorship. I pierced through izibopho and the many life-threatening instances growing up. One would think that would have gotten the alarm bells flickering . Instead like most out there, I concentrated on the hardships and failed to hear the knocks, sabela uyabizwa !

One day I was so sick, ended up in hospital for three weeks. I remember hearing the doctors trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with me, almost as if they were out of ideas. I had a 4-year-old baby girl, no employment, single mother and had just moved back home, again. I lay on that bed and thought to myself, I am so sick of being sick. This is the last time I am here; I will never come back to this hospital again, that’s it. The next day Dr Kassumba figured out what was wrong, I went to theater and within 3 days I was going home. It was indeed my last visit to the hospital. Still, I never stopped to inquire how that happened, who heard me and stopped the getting sick. Knock knock who’s there, “It’s me, can you see the power in you.”

When that hurdle of getting sick stopped, started the hardships of heartbreaks, money problems, umvandendwa as my grandfather would call it – ukunethelwa yimvula. I was forever searching for something, I felt incomplete, empty, lonely.

I felt like no one understands me, it made me feel so ugly and unattractive. I would always see the imperfection in me, I went to gym 2 times a day because I thought if I am not beautiful, then at least my body will be. Knock knock, who’s there, “it’s me, your inner self is calling”.

I studied Public Relations, Project Management, Business Administration, on the background of Information Technology at Vaal Tech and still I didn’t feel enough. Knock knock, who’s there, “it’s us with knowledge”. Sad thing is I was convinced that this knowledge was in the books.

I fell into a Telecommunications career that was never even something I pursued. After being discharged at the hospital from the 3 weeks stay, I received a call from he he he an ex-boyfriend asking me for my CV. I could not understand how come, even more surprised that he even remembered me, wait I do believe he even visited me in hospital. I broke-up with him, I just left him no explanation, no nothing, I disappeared from his life, how was he still thinking about me. I later that very day, received a call from Telkom’s HR to say I have an interview. I knew absolutely nothing about Telkom systems and didn’t really qualify, the white gentleman interviewing me said that himself, “but there’s something about you, he said. Maybe it is the Project Management and IT, I don’t know. But I think this is your job”. I was hired. knock knock ,who’s there, “It’s me get connected please, can you just get connected! “.

Why me, why is my life so hard, is there anything that will come easy. My relationships don’t work I always seem to attract people who are unavailable emotionally, broken somehow. Every job I get yes is a level up, but is something completely new and I must fight and work hard to get things in order and I do. Knock knock, who’s there, “it’s me, you’re a healer.”

The blinkers on our eyes; why me, pushing us further and further away from learning the truth. From listening to the voices that come from the situations in our lives. They speak from the other side with no physical body and a voice audible only if your vibrations are high. Your vibrations can’t be high if you’re swimming in the why me, you are sad, incomplete, hurting, depressed. On the rare occasions you hear voices, you definitely are going crazy is the popular believe. Anxiety takes over, your heartbeat is racing, you’re scared. It is a pain that can push you to suicidal thoughts.

With no knowledge of the ancestral calling, you internalise this, it becomes a sore that just never heals because it is a build up of pain on top of pain on top of pain. This is what you carry everyday of your life, some days are better than others. Wanting to fill this lonely in me to heal my pain, I dedicated my life to church. I did youth ministry, and was ordained as a Lay Minister of the Anglican church – Rosettenville. Something happened when I was on that pulpit, I could sing, I could pray, I could preach, the congregation would come to say, “you bless us when you are up there”. My week would start on a high and end on a low…church did not sustain me, still something was missing. Knock knock, who’s there, “it’s me, you’re chosen.”

I come from a past of a broken family, my parents got divorced and my father was absent until his death. It took me forever to come to terms with that. I could not speak about my father without crying and the feeling of resentment and anger. I loved him so much and could not understand why his love for me could not make him stay, even more so that he gave up and died without fixing things. My grandmother passed on, who was my rock my life educator, she passes on a few days before my holidays at Vaal Tech when I had told myself I am going to spend time with her, she had been ill for a while. She left, didn’t wait for me, she didn’t fix things. It took me a while to get over these deaths. They had to find a way to make it right, to fix things, and like idlozi always does they did. They visited me in my dreams to say, “it’s ohkay, it is not your fault, we haven’t really left you, we are here.” I would have visits from them from time to time, my dad when I am really hurt and discouraged and my grandmother when I am in a dilemma and confused.

Still none of these knocks had me say come in to the knocks I’ve been having. I just drifted from myself and continued to look for fulfilment in romantic relationships and challenging jobs, needless to say I got disappointed because the answer was never there. At least I got tired of studying and stopped, also mainly because I had no funds anymore…hint hint. I would be on my own for longer periods than I am in a relationship, three years would pass and it would be normal. I began to enjoy being alone with my depressive thoughts and the bible.

It had to take me completely losing everything, my business – I was a subcontractor in the telecoms infrastructure, my job at Ericcson , the man I was getting married to, the biggest car I had driven thus far – a Toyota Fortuner, A double story home in Weltevreeden park. I lost all of this and had to go back home with the kids and all that furniture. There is no room for me any more at home, no space. My furniture was packed in the laundry shed with no 4 walls. I would lay awake at night through rainy days wondering what is getting ruined. I slept in my mom’s catering equipment room, that I later turned into my ndumba at home, and the kids thank the heavens they were warm next to my mom.

Unfortunately, life does not stop to say, let’s give her a break, she’s been through enough, it is a constant battle. There are demons to fight continuously so, the battle just changes coarse.

The rest as they say is history….Knock knock, who’s there, it’s me, me who, “ sabela Mgoma, uyabizwa !”