Given's Story
My name is Given Sandamela. I was born and live in a small black township Schoemansadal, Mpumalanga, South Africa. My father, Sam Sandamela, and mother, Laurin Magagula, met and conceived me in their junior years of high school. My mother never went back to school, and my father finished high school but could not study any further due to lack of tuition. Both had to gain financial independence and were urged out of their families to start and build their own. Luckily, my father was a photographer in high school, and he made more than enough money to build a warm beautiful home. Two years after my birth, my sister was born. Our father had a baby boy with someone else 6 years later.
As a child, I remember looking out the window with my sister around my arm waiting to see our father horn at us to open the gate for him, but fell asleep with our eyes wide open, waiting for him to come back. One day he came back to us. Regardless of nearly breaking our family, mom forgave him and through time we all learned to trust him again. I Remember witnessing them physically and verbally fight in front of our innocent faces, and as a kid, I contemplated if loving someone meant to fight with them too frequently.
Even after the cursing, fighting, and nights staring out at the stars waiting for father to return home ended, the scars and memories of everything are still spread all over my memory. I will always wonder how much of what we experienced still haunts my sister in her sleep. But I know every night I would think of how long he would stay before he felt an urge to leave without saying goodbye. Soon he would.
Attending a United World College has been a dream of mine since I knew enough about the program to apply. Attaining a seat at UWC made both my parents happy and excited for me. I remember receiving the call from my national committee to announce the results. My mother had my left hand buttered inside her balled warm hands. She danced with me after the call and requested we celebrate. Later in the night, I told my father the news, and he quietly congratulated me on sitting on the chair in the living room. I remember on the last day we were together, I took a taxi to Johannesburg International airport but before I got on my shuttle, we did not even hug. Although we didn’t hug so much at home, I wished I had received a goodbye see you later hug from both of them but I didn’t.
The first two weeks for orientation at UWC were magic. I loved everything about UWC from the campus culture to the food and when finally we were officially admitted to UWC during matriculation, I was already ready to start a journey I had planned for so long. Matriculation was on August 30th, 2019. The mood was set to high standards, and I was excited that I called my friend from back home to talk about excitement for finally starting UWC officially. Matriculation ended at 7 pm, so I went straight to my room because I was exhausted. I did nothing with my time but talk to people from back home and my roommate. After a while of media hypnosis, I turned off the lights on my side of the room. My roommate was already asleep.
At the moment just before closing my phone, I received a notification on messenger. I opened it, and my former teacher told me something bad happened at home. My heart started to kick. At that moment, a text came from my aunt. "Your father is no more," she said. "What do you mean," replied. "He got in a car accident. He's dead." I turned off my phone and went to sleep praying to myself hoping this was all a bad bad dream. I woke up to a wet pillow, a heavy-tea coated face and a broken heart. I woke up, checked my texts, and my father had left us, only this time he was never coming back.
I remember crying on my first Environmental Systems class. I remember locking myself inside my room hoping to heal just in time to start UWC as I had planned. Ironically, all the hours spent planning my time at UWC were in vain and useless. Losing my father changed so many aspects of my life at UWC and privately. It changed me as a person. By losing him I lost some parts of me. But from the pain, I grew remarkable resilience, strength, friendships, new perspectives, and attitudes. I was told by numerous people to quit UWC and finish high school at home. For a while, I thought about it, but I had worked hard to get where I was, and quitting wasn't an option for me. I learned to love myself in the presence of loss, pain and grieving. I met people who supported and gave me the strength to be who I wanted despite the change in the scene. I realize now that I am a completely different person to the boy who left to go to UWC in early August.
Being home since my father’s death has been completely different. Sitting together in the table that once had four chairs and occupants is not the same anymore. One person is missing, and that’s him. Sometimes I cry to my mom about it. Sometimes I sit with my sister outside to look at the bright stars waiting for him to wave back and let us know he's fine. Sometimes I cry by myself when I look at his lonely motorcycle of which he promised to teach me how to drive in the summer of 2020. Although his death was brutal, he left all of us with something greater than his death; hope and unwavering determination. Ultimately, I learned to cope with change no matter what it brings. Of all the pain I’ve endured, this was the biggest, but I can never cease hoping for a better day. Perhaps I will always look at the sky and wonder what life would have been like if he was still alive, but with my power, I can only hope he is in a better place, and that he knows I am doing well.