It was during the apartheid years when I started teaching at Moduopo Senior Primary in Tembisa on the East Rand.
To my surprise, I found that Afrikaans was the language that all school circulars were written in. I was okay at writing Afrikaans but in speech I was poor.
Although I started in early February, it was not until mid-April when I was told my first pay cheque had arrived.
The principal brought my cheque to me at my home. It was only for R210, but he promised to search for the other cheque.
The following day the principal told me that he couldn’t find the cheque, and so I promised to search for it myself after school. But at about 9am a Hippo — the armoured vehicles of the military — came roaring up to the school gate. Two tall, bearded Afrikaaner soldiers marched to the principal’s office. They were looking for a posted cheque. They said there had been a computer error, and the cheque had been made out for the amount of R21 000. They thought that I had already cashed it.
The principal came to my class and explained the story. He warned me that I should try to speak in Afrikaans, but that he would help by being the interpreter.
I was trembling so much that I couldn’t trust my legs as I walked to the table. The soldiers stared at me with all their concentration; two pairs of eyes were fixed on me. I didn’t greet them because there was not even one Afrikaans word in my mind. The headmaster answered everything while I just stood there, and then I was given a form to sign. I didn’t read it — I may as well have been committing suicide by signing that I had taken the cheque that I had never even seen.
That very night a convoy of Hippos arrived at my house. The heavy knock on the door was so rough I thought the door would be uprooted. This time 12 pairs of eyes were on me. I tried to explain that I was only told about the cheque and had never actually received it. I was left with a harsh instruction to call at the head office the following day at 8am.
As the soldiers drove off, memories of my peaceful homeland, the Transkei, appeared in my mind. I had a terrible sleepless night, and woke up the next day not even knowing how to get to the head office. With the help of a lot of kind people, I arrived safely in Brakpan where I found the principal. He told me that the cheque had already been cashed — but fortunately for me, it had been cashed by a male teacher.
Never a word of thanks was ever said to me, even though none of it was my fault. My principal got a promotion, though, because of his fluency in Afrikaans.