CHAPTER 10Endleleni
On the road
I’ve never been on a bus trip before that lasted the whole night. Although you can’t see much outside because it’s so dark, I couldn’t sleep anyway, and try to decipher the big blue signboards that appear for only a few seconds along the side of the road as they are caught in the beam of the headlights. The names of the towns are mostly signposted in English: East London, Port Elizabeth, George, Riversdale and then, over and over again, always Cape Town – iKapa – where Mama is, without any idea that we are on our way to her.
Nomtha fell asleep soon after our departure from Mthata on the big bus. Whenever she wakes up during the night or if she’s woken by a particularly loud rumbling sound from the bus, she asks through bleary eyes, “How far is it, Themba?
