11/06/2025
Born of Two Worlds: Such Is Life
Chapter 1: Between Two Worlds
I was born under the blazing sun of a small town called Zwelaniâa place tucked between dry mountains and long-forgotten roads. The date was the 24th of February, 1996, but the day itself didnât feel special to anyone except the old woman who caught me with bare hands and prayer-stained lips. My name? Malakai M. Leburuâa name that carried both the heartbeat of a Venda drum and the fire of Coloured resilience.
My mother, Naledi, was young and fierce, with eyes that held both storms and secrets. My father, a man named Thabo who vanished before I could speak, was more myth than memory. They say he played guitar in a jazz band and had a charm that could bend the will of any woman. But to me, he was just a shadow in a creased photograph, long gone by the time my feet touched the dust of our front yard.
I was the second-born of eight siblings and the first son. Being âthe oldest boyâ in our home meant everything and nothing. I was a bridgeâexpected to carry the weight of siblings, history, and dreams that werenât mine.
School came easy. Too easy. I would finish lessons before the teacher had wiped the board clean. At first, I went just to escape home and play football in the dirt fields with barefoot boys who, like me, pretended the world outside didnât exist. That all changed when Miss Zola arrivedâa teacher with a voice like thunder and books that smelled of faraway lands. She pulled me aside one afternoon and handed me a storybook three grades above mine. âYou donât belong in this slow lane,â she said. âSo donât pretend you do.â
With her guidance, I soared. By Grade 6, I was top of the class and elected head boy at Lethabo Primary. The village spoke of me with pride, but I carried a loneliness few could see. I was celebrated in school and invisible at home.
My mother did what she could, but her heart had been bruised too many times. The men she brought into our house left trails of broken promises and whispers behind closed doors. I never told her, but I hated themâeach one more than the last. Not because they were strangers, but because none of them stayed long enough to become anything more.
My sanctuary was my grandmother, Ma Rosina. She was a medicine woman, known across Zwelani for curing fevers with pots of roots and murmured songs. âDrink this and donât fear,â sheâd say. I believed her. I always did. With her, I felt seen. Whole.
But outside our home, the streets raised me. I never ran with kids my age. I was always pulled toward the older boys, the ones who whispered stories about fast money and risk. We started smallâswiping guavas from a neighborâs tree, laughing as we ran. Then came the corner shops, then the back windows of quiet houses. I knew it was wrong, but back then, wrong felt a lot like survival.
Even as I walked dangerous paths, my mind stayed sharp. Teachers called me âthe boy who writes like a grown man.â They didnât know I was already living like one.
By the time I turned 13, I had seen more chaos than most men twice my ageâbut I had also tasted the sweet fruit of being gifted. I was different. And deep down, I knew I was born for something greater, even if the world around me tried every day to convince me otherwise.
Chapter 2: The Fire That Grew Inside
2010 arrived like a whisper and a slap. My body grew taller, my voice deeper, but the world didnât get any easier. That was the year I left Zwelani behind and stepped into the gates of Motswedi Highâan iron jungle where boys became men or were eaten alive by the ones who already thought they were.
Everything was louderâvoices, footsteps, ambition. I didnât know if I was ready, but ready or not, life kept pushing.
High school wasnât just about textbooks. It was about territory, status, and survival. Every hallway had kings and every courtyard had watchers. I found my place, not by force, but by mind. I could speak, read people, and make them laugh without trying too hard. The older students called me âProfââhalf teasing, half respect. I wore it like a badge.
But home? Home was war. My mother, still dancing with disappointment, brought in another manâthis one quieter, but with fists that spoke. I watched her shrink daily. My siblings leaned on me. I leaned on silence.
To stay sane, I worked. After school, I washed cars under the bridge near Market Street. I swept hair at a barbershop where old men debated politics and gave unsolicited advice. âThe world wonât wait for you, boy,â one of them said. âSo run faster than it.â
And I did. At school, I dominated science and math. I joined the rugby team, then track. On weekends, I studied, trained, and hustled. My life was a loop of purpose and pressure. And somewhere in that storm, I met her.
Her name was Ayanda. She smelled like coconut oil and ambition. A girl who read books by candlelight and could roast you in front of the whole class without breaking a sweat. We flirted between notes and exam timetables. I loved her mind first, then her lips.
We shared dreams, secrets, and eventually a bed. For a moment, I thought I had found something solid in a world of shifting ground. But lifeâlike fireâburns brightest before it consumes.
When Ayanda told me she was pregnant, the silence between us said more than our words ever could. Fear swallowed joy. Plans shattered. And before we could decide what we were, the universe decided for us. She lost the baby. We lost each other.
That moment marked me.
I stopped playing sports. I stopped chasing clout. I sharpened my focus into something dangerous: ambition. I told myself I would make it, no matter how many bridges I had to burn.
I finished high school at the top of my class. When the headmaster called my name that day, my heart didnât race. It whispered: âThis is just the beginning.â
I didnât know where I was going. But I knew Iâd never be forgotten.
Chapter 3: Strangers and Starting Lines
The year was 2015, and it began like a foggy dreamâuncertain, distant, and cold. I had made it to university, a place where destinies are sculpted and broken, but the celebration felt hollow. The joy of being accepted was quickly overshadowed by reality: I had no money, no place to stay, and no plan that didnât involve miracles.
They say opportunity comes to those who wait, but I had never been one for waiting. I needed to survive. My sister, always trying to bridge my broken pieces, called in a favor. She arranged for me to stay with a woman named Auntie Miriamâno relation, just a friend-of-a-friend who had a spare floor.
Not a room. Not a bed. A floor.
Her flat was small and smelled of boiled cabbage and sorrow. A tiny boy named Kabelo already occupied the only extra mattress. He had arrived earlier, so the unwritten rule of the street applied: first come, first sleep. I curled up on a woven mat with my backpack as a pillow and told myself, âThis is temporary.â
But temporary has a way of turning into months.
University was chaos. Lectures started at 7 a.m. sharp. I woke up before dawn, walked 45 minutes, and arrived sweating but ready. I sat in the front row, hungry in my stomach but full in my soul. I devoured knowledge like it was the only meal Iâd get that dayâand some days, it was.
The lecture halls were filled with people who looked polished, confident, and clueless about hunger. Most had parents who sent money, who checked in. I had only my stubbornness and the echo of my grandmotherâs voice: âYou werenât born to follow.â
To eat, I cleaned. I cleaned lecture rooms, library floors, and once, the office of a professor who never acknowledged my existence. I didnât mind. Work made me invisible, and invisibility gave me time to plot.
It was also during this time that I met Musaâa lanky, talkative guy with a laugh like thunder and a hustle stronger than mine. He sold secondhand textbooks and charged first-year students double. I didnât like him at first. Then he handed me half of his sandwich and said, âWe might be broke, but weâre not poor.â
We became brothers. He taught me shortcuts, tricks, even how to borrow laptops from the IT lab without getting caught. Musa didnât believe in limits. And for the first time in a long time, I started to dream again.
But life didnât pause for our friendship. Back at Auntie Miriamâs, tensions grew. The food wasnât enough. The space got tighter. And one night, after a petty argument, she told me, âYou need to find somewhere else.â
I left with a plastic bag of clothes and no plan.
Musa let me crash in his room for a week. That week turned into a month. Then he introduced me to a local pastor who let me sleep in the church store roomâa dusty space filled with broken chairs and hope. I slept among pews and prayed not for miracles, but for the strength to keep going.
One cold night, after a brutal exam and no food all day, I sat on the church steps staring at the stars. I thought of Ayanda. Of my mother. Of Thabo, the father I never knew. I wondered if pain was a price for purpose. I wondered if I was broken beyond repair.
Then a stranger walked past and stopped. He wore a tailored jacket and carried the scent of success. He looked at me and asked, âAre you okay, son?â
I wanted to lie. But my voice cracked: âNot really.â
He didnât offer money. Just words. âPain is a forge. Let it shape you, not shatter you.â
I never saw him again. But that sentence tattooed itself onto my bones.
The next morning, I rose before the sun and walked to class as if I owned the place. Not because I had it all figured out, but because I finally understood: this story wasnât about what I lacked. It was about what I refused to lose.
And I would not lose myself.
To be continuedâŚ
