It is a Wednesday morning and it is damn dusty outside. Circumstances force me to leave my house and go work from the coffee shop. You would think I would choose to rest seeing I am on leave, but instead I choose to spend my holidays curating for an international film festival. Lord knows I need some inspiration and creativity in my life.
I decide to drive with my partner as he leaves for work. A part of me longs for the warmth of my bed, but another is happy because I know being away from bed will get me to be my most productive.
My partner opens the door for me and there it is, carefully placed on my seat. It is the book he has been searching for, the Holy Quran. I get lost in my thoughts and I don’t realize that he has moved the book. We drive off and suddenly I am reminded of it.
“Can I see the book please” I ask. At first he didn’t understand but eventually caught up.
“You must pray before you open it” he says.
“To whom? I mean I usually pray to Jesus and Jehovah”
“Who said they are not the same as the God in the Holy Quran?”
I laugh. I laugh because I realize what I just did. Once again, I referred to myself as a Christian. Nothing wrong with that, it is just the feeling I get every time I do that. I automatically think I am lying. I cannot understand how and why I keep identifying as someone I do not understand. One has to believe in Christ in order to say they are Christian, but God knows how many doubts I have.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous chapter(s)…..I kind of stopped believing when He took people away from me, when misery followed me. It is amazing how many triumphs He brought into my life, but also the pain that He put me through.
So, I get to the coffee shop and I start watching and rating the films. Suddenly there is a short-film about a young girl making a 1000 crates for her dying father. I then go back to the 17-year-old me that lost both her parents to HIV, the 25-year-old me that lost her sister and her husband to a horrific femicide/suicide accident, a 33-year-old me that lost her brother to chronic diseases accompanied by alcohol and gambling addiction. In case you haven’t noticed, the entire trauma happened 8 years apart of each other. I subconsciously hope nothing bad happens in the next 8 years, that my prayers were enough to break the curse.
I find myself crying and trying so hard to hold back the tears, but the snot keeps coming out and making it obvious. I immediately take deep breaths, hoping it would help.
“I don’t want to seem like a typical woman who cries over movies. This is neither the time nor the place” I think to myself.
“I am broken and haven’t dealt with the death of my brother” I text a friend.
I think about death each day, so much so that I forget to live.
I pray to God every day, the same God whose presence I sometimes doubt. I am soooo broken.
Jane Mpholo is a multi-award winning theatre Practitioner and an Audience Development Specialist at the Performing Arts Centre of the Free State (PACOFS) . She has been active on both the national and international platforms with collaborations with practitioners from the Netherlands, USA and Australia, to name a few. Jane is a senior judge for the World Monologue Games and World Monologue Film Festival. Her highlights as a writer include being chosen as one of the 5 top playwrights for the NATi Yong Sterre program for her script "The Dawn", making it to the top 20 playwrights list for the African Women Playwrights Festival of Plays for her script "The Naked Truth" (which she later turned into a short film) and having her script "Fragmented" on the program for Teksmark 2022. Her autobiographical show "Psalm 69" has proved to be timeless and has showcased on both the national and international platforms such as the Global leadership summit 2018. Jane is a panel member for the National Arts Council and is a former FS Provincial Liaison for the BASA Debut Program. She is a recent graduate for the BASA Cultural Producers Program, an initiative between British Council; BASA, Common Purpose and the Manchester International Festival. Her short film "Cleanse" which looks at the life of a woman under oppression as a domestic worker has won multiple international awards and aired on DSTV pop up channel 150 (Woordfees TV 2022). Jane is also one of the contributors for the Stemme/Voices monologues 2022, an initiative by the Suidoosterfees.
Jane practices as a professional actor (has over 40 theatrical shows under her belt), playwright, producer, dramaturge, facilitator, arts coach , speaker and mentor. She is passionate about inclusive education and creating a safe space for audiences to engage in discussions pertaining to the social ills of the world. She is a true advocate for human rights.
Amongst the many awards and recognitions....she is a three times Kyknet Fiesta Nominated artist and made it to the lists "Mail and Guardian Women Changing South Africa" and the "Sunday World Unsung Heroes 2022".
