Author: Dr Z Lidzhegu

Looking back at the last few posts, one question keeps coming back to me.

What actually changed?

During my matric year, I had reached rock bottom in terms of family support. My school fees were unpaid, resources were almost nonexistent, and much of what I needed simply could not be provided.

Yet shortly afterwards, when I went to university, the picture changed.

My second uncle paid my first-year registration fees. My grandmother started using part of her pension to help with registration and my daily transport from the village to university and back home. My mother took odd jobs and assisted whenever she could.

Suddenly, everyone was chipping in.

So, was this really a change of heart?

I am beginning to think that perhaps“change of heart” is too simple an explanation.

Could it be that the care had always been there, but the means were not?

Could my family also have been overwhelmed by circumstances during those earlier years?

Or did something change when I matriculated, received a scholarship, and actually enrolled at university?

Perhaps what changed was hope.

What Was Happening on the Other Side?

There is something about my second uncle’s story that I keep returning to.

He was the security guard who paid my first-year university registration fees. He was also the uncle who would later confide in a family friend that it was not that he did not want to help me. He simply could not afford to do as much as he wanted.

That account becomes even more interesting when I connect it with something my cousin has maintained about an earlier incident.

My cousin’s view was that my uncle had to get drunk before he could come and deliver discouraging news to me.

Could that situation have been eating him inside more deeply than I understood at the time?

Could alcohol have been his way of summoning the courage to tell me something that he knew would hurt me?

I cannot know.

But when I put that account alongside what he later reportedly told the family friend, another picture begins to emerge.

Perhaps while I was struggling with the pain of not receiving the help I needed, he was struggling with the pain of not being able to provide it.

Could both of us have been suffering from the same situation, only from opposite sides?

I could see my unpaid school fees.

I could see that I did not have the resources I needed.

But could I see what it was doing to the people who could not provide those things?

I don’t think I could.

Perhaps that is the limitation of judging human behaviour only from where we are standing.

Could Hope Have Changed Everything?

There is another possibility that fascinates me.

Once I matriculated, received the scholarship and actually entered university, perhaps something that had previously looked uncertain suddenly became possible.

Maybe my progress restored hope.

And hope is a strange thing in the human condition.

Throughout history, people have endured extraordinary suffering because they believed that the future they were working towards was possible.

Steve Biko is widely credited with the words:

“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.”

Whatever one’s interpretation of Biko’s broader political philosophy, there is something profound in that statement about human beings and hope.

Patrice Lumumba expressed something similar under very different circumstances. In his final letter, he maintained his belief in the eventual triumph of Congo’s cause despite facing the possibility that he might not live to witness it. He wrote of his confidence in the destiny of his country and of a future that remained worth struggling for.

Their circumstances were obviously vastly different from my family’s circumstances, and I am not comparing my struggle with theirs.

What interests me is the human mechanism underneath.

What does hope do to people’s willingness to sacrifice?

Perhaps people can endure enormous hardship when they believe that something meaningful lies on the other side.

Could that have happened within my own family on a much smaller and more ordinary scale?

During matric, perhaps they saw an endless problem that they did not have the resources to solve.

But once I was at university, perhaps they saw a destination.

A degree.

A future.

A possibility.

And once tuition was covered by the scholarship, nobody had to solve the entire problem either. My second uncle could pay the first registration. My grandmother could help with later registration and daily transport. My mother could contribute whenever she found work.

Maybe the burden had become divisible.

Maybe hope had become believable.

And perhaps my perseverance had something to do with it too.

By continuing despite everything, matriculating, obtaining the scholarship, and actually reaching university, had I demonstrated that whatever little assistance they could provide might make a difference?

But that introduces another uncomfortable question.

Do people sometimes become more willing to support us once they can see evidence that we might succeed?

And if they do, is that really a change of heart?

Or is that simply another part of the human condition?

I don’t know.

Perhaps nothing fundamental changed in their hearts.

Perhaps circumstances changed.

Perhaps hope changed.

Perhaps what seemed possible changed.

Or perhaps all these things were happening simultaneously.

I can only speculate.

But the more I revisit these events, the more difficult it becomes for me to maintain the simple conclusion that people did not care.

There is an important difference between someone being unwilling to help you and someone desperately wanting to help you but being unable to do so.

The difficulty is that when you are the person who needs the help, the two can look the same.

Sometimes it takes years, and information you did not have at the time, before you begin to see the difference.

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Have you ever looked back at someone’s failure to help you and realised that you may not have understood what was happening on their side?

Continuation from Post 10.

There was another piece of the story that eventually forced me to reconsider how I understood those difficult years.

My second uncle, my grandmother’s middle child, worked as a security guard.

At some point, he confided in a family friend about his inability to assist me as much as he would have wanted.

His explanation, as it was later related to me, was simple:

“It is not like I don’t want to assist my nephew. I just can’t afford to.”

What apparently made the situation even more painful for him was the way I responded to my circumstances.

I was not demanding.

I did not constantly ask people for help.

I simply kept going and tried to do whatever I could with whatever was available to me.

Seeing that, while knowing that he could not do more, apparently troubled him deeply.

When I eventually learnt about this conversation, something shifted in my understanding.

When you are the person experiencing hardship, you naturally see the situation from where you are standing.

You know that your school fees have not been paid.

You know that you do not have a scientific calculator.

You know that you do not have the study materials you need.

You know what it feels like to watch others have things that would make your own journey easier.

Those experiences are real.

But there is something you may not know.

You may not know what is happening on the other side.

For years, I could have looked back at that period and concluded that the adults around me simply did not care enough.

It would have been an understandable conclusion.

But would it have been the correct one?

My second uncle’s words complicated that interpretation.

Then there was my eldest uncle, who quietly wrote “Well done and keep it up” on my school report years earlier and second uncle who later paid my first university registration fee.

There was my grandmother, stretching her pension to help with registration and the money I needed to travel from the village to university every day.

And there was my mother, taking whatever work she could find and eventually refusing money from me while seriously ill because she feared that giving it to her could interfere with my studies.

Perhaps what I had experienced as abandonment was, at least in part, helplessness on the other side.

That does not change what happened.

The school fees were still unpaid.

The resources were still absent.

The difficulties were real.

Understanding something differently does not require pretending that it never happened.

Perhaps maturity sometimes means being able to hold two truths at the same time:

I needed more than they were able to give.

And:

They may have wanted to give more than they had.

Today, I cannot honestly say that I would have achieved what I did without my family’s assistance.

My mother, my grandmother and my uncles helped me in different ways and at different stages of the journey.

Looking back now, I wonder whether some of them were judging themselves just as easily as I could have judged them.

Maybe they believed they should have done more.

Maybe they wanted to do more.

Perhaps their circumstances simply did not allow them to.

And this has left me with one of the most important lessons I have learnt about the human condition:

What looks like indifference from one side may sometimes be helplessness on the other.

We rarely know the full story while we are living through it.

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Have you ever reached a point in life where you had to reconsider something you had long believed about the people who raised you?

Continuation from Post 9.

My mother’s efforts to support my studies eventually took her to Gauteng, where she worked briefly as a domestic worker.

While there, she became seriously ill.

She told me that she was sick and wanted to come home, but she did not have money for transport.

I told her that I would send her the money I had for transport to university. At the time, I was travelling from the village to university to attend classes and back home every day. That money was what allowed me to get to class.

I told her I would send it to her and somehow I can make another plan.

She refused.

She told me that she had a job lined up for the weekend and that she would use the money from that job to come home.

After that weekend, she became unreachable.

Then, one night, in the dark hours of the early morning, I heard the sound of a car parking in the driveway behind the house.

I could hear faint voices approaching the house. As they came closer, I could make out three people speaking. Two of the voices were familiar. One belonged to my eldest uncle, who lived next door. The other was my mother’s. The third belonged to a distant relative from Gauteng who had brought my mother home.

I woke up and went outside.

Before stepping out of the house, I switched on the outside light.

Three figures emerged from the darkness.

And then I saw my mother.

She smiled.

It was the same smile she used to give me even when she was teasing me or making fun of me.

But this time, the words that accompanied the smile were not funny.

She said:

“Zwidofhela nwananga, ndi khou fa, nwananga.”

Loosely translated into English:

“Zwidofhela, my son, I am dying, my son.”

Exactly a month later, she passed away.

But before she passed on, I had an opportunity to ask her something that had been troubling me.

Why had she refused my help when I offered to send her the money I depended on to travel to university every day?

She told me that she had lied.

There had been no job lined up for that weekend.

Her condition was already serious.

She simply did not want me to give up the money I needed to attend classes. She did not want to take the risk that I might struggle to get to the university to attend class.

She wanted me to stay at university.

She wanted me to complete my studies.

I have thought about that decision many times since.

I cannot say what would have happened had she accepted the money and returned home earlier. I cannot know whether anything would have been different.

But I know why she refused it.

Even while seriously ill, she was thinking about my education.

This was the same person who had been there when my school fees went unpaid. At the time, I could easily have asked why she had not done something about it.

Now, circumstances were different, and she was willing to make sacrifices that I still struggle to comprehend.

That contradiction forced me to reconsider many things I thought I understood about the human condition.

How could someone appear unable to help at one point, and later be prepared to sacrifice so much?

I still do not have a complete answer.

Maybe there are forms of human sacrifice that cannot be neatly explained.

They can only be witnessed.

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What does sacrifice mean when someone gives not because they have plenty, but from the very little they have?

Continuation from post 6.

I matriculated and went to university, as you know, but the challenges remained.

The Vice-Chancellor’s scholarship covered my tuition fees, but I still had other expenses to cover. There were registration fees, study-related expenses, and, importantly, transport. I was living at home and travelling from the village to the university to attend classes and back to the village every day.

My uncle, the middle child of my grandparents, took care of my first-year registration fees. This was the same uncle who, years earlier, had asked to see my primary school report. After looking at it, he smiled, went into his house looking for a pen, and wrote under the parent’s comments:

“Well done and keep it up.”

Those few words had stayed with me.

In the following years, my grandmother managed to save from her pension to pay my registration fees. She also helped with the money I needed to travel to university every day and continued supporting me until I completed my first degree.

My mother also started taking odd jobs to assist whenever she could.

Whenever she managed to get work and was paid, there were times when she would want to give me everything she had earned. If I suggested that she should keep some of the money for herself, she would become angry.

She wanted me to stay at university. She did not want to take chances with my education.

Suddenly, everyone was chipping in.

And that left me with a question that I have never completely answered:

What had changed?

Was it a change of heart?

Or had I misunderstood what was happening during those earlier years?

Could it be that my guardians had also been overwhelmed when I reached rock bottom in matric?

Perhaps after carrying family responsibilities for many years, my grandmother had simply reached the limit of what she could manage at the time. Or perhaps seeing me matriculate and actually make it to university restored hope.

Maybe what had previously appeared uncertain now seemed possible.

I can only speculate.

What I know is that the same family that had been unable to provide some of the things I desperately needed during matric was now doing everything within its means to help keep me at university.

It made me reconsider something about human nature.

It is easy to judge people’s intentions by what they fail to do for us, particularly when we are the ones suffering the consequences. But sometimes we do not know what is happening on the other side.

Perhaps lack of help does not always mean lack of care.

Sometimes people may simply have nothing more to give.

Join the conversation

Have you ever looked back at someone’s actions and realised that what you once interpreted as not caring may have been something more complicated?

In an earlier post, I suggested that there might be a pattern emerging from these stories:

A difficult situation arises. I cannot see how it will be resolved. Eventually, I recognise what is beyond my control and focus on the small part that remains within it.

Then I carry on.

What happens afterwards is not always something I could have predicted.

The stories I have just shared about my uncle, my school fees, and simply continuing to go to school are examples of this.

I am still not suggesting that everything happens for a reason, or that doing what is within your control guarantees that things will work out.

But perhaps the philosophy is becoming clearer:

Do what is within your control, even when you cannot see how circumstances will resolve themselves.

And then allow the unknown to unfold.

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Is this pattern becoming apparent to you too, or do you interpret these events differently?

Continuing from Post 5, where my uncle had told me that “the situation is now in your hands,” the situation was about to become even more difficult.

The following year, I was in matric.

Until then, there was at least one thing I had always been able to depend on. My grandmother had taken us to school and paid our school fees from primary school through secondary school. She had also provided us with lunch money.

But during my matric year, my grandmother decided that she was no longer responsible for paying my school fees.

Once again, I accepted the situation.

And it was during this period that I remembered the words of my late grandfather. May his soul rest in peace.

“U Do Vhona Iwe”

Growing up, whenever I felt that I was being excluded or unfairly treated, I would go to my grandfather. I would report the injustice to him and cry.

He would almost always respond with the same words.

In Tshivenda, he would say:

“Fhumula uri hwi iwe, u litshe heya manwe mamange heya, u do vhona iwe.”

Loosely translated into English:

“You just stop crying and stop fussing about these people. You will see.”

Those words comforted me because of the sincerity with which he said them. He spoke almost as though he knew something I did not, as though he knew what the future held and that, somehow, everything would eventually be okay.

I did not necessarily understand what he wanted me to “see.”

But I trusted his words.

So when my grandmother decided not to pay my school fees, I remained composed and focused on my path. I did not use it as an excuse to quit school. I did not quarrel with my uncle or my grandmother.

I accepted that these people did not owe me the future I wanted.

And at that particular moment, there was still one thing I could do.

I could go to school.

So I went to school, even though my school fees had not been paid.

The Unpaid School Fees

Early in the second quarter of my matric year, one of the teachers came to my classroom and called me outside.

He reminded me that I had not paid that year’s school fees.

I acknowledged the fact and assured him that I would get the matter sorted out as a matter of urgency.

But I knew very well that I was unlikely to follow through with that promise.

I did not have a solution.

I returned home later that day and told nobody about the conversation. My grandmother had already made her position clear. There was no reason to disturb her peace by reopening a matter she had already decided.

So once again, I accepted the situation.

And I went back to school.

That was the only part that remained within my control.

As you may probably have guessed by now, like some of the other hopeless situations I had encountered, this one eventually took an unexpected turn.

A few months later, one of the teachers was accused of misappropriating school funds. The matter became an issue involving the School Governing Body and parents.

After that, nobody followed up with me about my outstanding school fees.

The reminders simply disappeared.

I was spared the embarrassment of repeatedly being called aside to explain why the fees had not been paid when I already knew that I had no means of paying them.

I had not solved the problem.

My grandmother had not changed her position. My uncle had not suddenly found the money.

And yet, the immediate problem disappeared without anything I had done to resolve it.

It had never really been within my control.

What Was Actually in My Hands?

Looking back, I do not tell this story to suggest that people should simply ignore their problems and expect those problems to disappear.

That would be the wrong lesson.

What interests me is the pattern.

I could not control what my uncle could afford.

I could not control my grandmother’s decision.

I could not control whether the school demanded its fees.

But I could control whether I continued going to school.

And I did.

Perhaps that is why my grandfather’s words remained with me:

“U do vhona iwe.”
“You will see.”

Perhaps he was telling me not to allow what other people did, or failed to do, to determine what I did next. Perhaps he was simply teaching me patience. Or perhaps there was something more in those words that I still do not fully understand.

Some people might call what happened chance. Others might call it luck. Others might attribute it to God, ancestors, destiny or other supernatural forces.

I cannot prove which explanation is correct.

But looking back, I can now see the irony in my uncle’s words from the previous story:

“The situation is now in your hands.”

Having your life in your hands does not mean having the power to control everything that happens to you.

Sometimes it means something much smaller.

You identify whatever remains within your control, however insignificant it may appear, and you do that.

For me, it was going to school.

I did not know how the school fees would be resolved. I did not know how I would get to university. I did not even know whether university would eventually become possible.

I only knew that the next morning I could wake up and go to school.

So I did.

And perhaps sometimes that is enough.

Do what is within your control, even when you cannot see how circumstances will resolve themselves.

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Have you ever reached a point where an important situation was completely beyond your control, and the only thing left was to keep doing the small part that remained within your hands?

Looking back at some of the issues I have written about so far, I have started noticing a pattern.

A problem appears and, at times, the situation feels uncertain, difficult, or even unfair. I try to reason through it, understand what is happening, worry about the possible outcomes, and search for a way forward. Often, I still cannot see one.

Eventually, I reach the boundary of my control. I realise that there are things I can do, and a large part of the situation that I simply cannot control.

But I do not quit. I focus on the positive decisions still available to me. I continue studying, working, applying, researching, building, moving, or simply carrying on.

Then, somewhere along the way, something happens. Circumstances change, often in a way I could not have planned or even imagined when the problem first appeared.

Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

It would be easy to look back at these experiences and conclude that everything happens for a reason. But I am not sure that is something I can prove.

Perhaps something more useful is emerging from these experiences: you do not need to know how the whole journey will unfold before taking the next reasonable step.

A person starting from a village does not necessarily see the entire chain connecting where he is standing to becoming a GISc Professional, researcher, writer, or whatever comes afterwards. Only much later do the pieces begin to look like a path.

The trick may simply be not to give up. Resolve one issue at a time, make the decisions that are available to you, and keep moving.

What I Am Learning

If there is a philosophical takeaway from what I have posted so far, for me it is this:

Uncertainty is not necessarily evidence that there is no path ahead. I may simply be standing at a point from which the next part of the path cannot yet be seen.

My responsibility, therefore, is not to control the whole outcome, but to act responsibly on what is within my reach and allow the rest to unfold.

This does not mean that this way of thinking will solve every problem. Nor does a good outcome prove that everything was destined to happen.

Interestingly, someone who had been reading the blog recently summarised their takeaway as:

“Do what is within your control and let the unknown unfold.”

They went further and said:

“This will be one of the rules I live by.”

Perhaps that captures the philosophy better than saying that everything happens for a reason. I do not have to know what lies around the corner. I just have to deal responsibly with what is in front of me and keep going.

And if this pattern has not been apparent in the stories I have shared so far, then perhaps keep it in mind as you read the ones that are still to come. Consider it a simple schema: a problem arises, the way forward is unclear, I eventually identify what is within my control and act on it, and then I allow circumstances beyond my control to unfold. The interesting question is what happens next.

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When you look back at difficult periods in your own life, do you think things happened for a reason, or did the path only become visible after you kept moving?