She was born in a family of six, 
Her father a retrenched derelict,
Her mother an ailing goddess whose eyes were scorched by the wind, 
Her back broken by the wood she carried from the mountains. 

She dropped out of school, to take over from her fatigued mother- working fields from sunrise to subset, like serviced machinery. 
Coming home to a cow-dung glazed clay hut, to nights that cannot provide evening meals and sleep that refuses to come.

In a new born democracy, 
Things remain the same. 
The taps are waterless.

Dikeledi walks the distance her mother walked, to rivers that are too dry to quench. Yet she joined Letsema a year ago- a project aimed to bring water closer to the people.

Dikeledi’s children were born to a promise of a better life for all. Her school going children were turned away from the nearest school eight kilometres away.

They keep the street corners company, because their mother cannot afford school uniforms and school fees.

Her disillusioned matriculated daughter cannot afford the sky- rocketing cost of higher education. She resolved to do the occupation of child bearing, where she receives one-thousand five-hundred per month.

On her recent pregnancy, she was showered with HIV/Aids.

They live in a village where the only health-care facility is a clinic whose shelves are decorated with expired Panados and cough mixtures. The nearest hospital resides thirty- seven (37) kilometers away.

Dikeledi cries the tears her mother cried, for a future too bleak and a past equally distressing.

Dikeledi’s tears flow over the social injustice and a 22yr democracy too painful to celebrate.

Who’s fooling Who?