Tsogo High School Campus from the Mountain

As I left Johannesburg I put my ipod on shuffle. When I got onto the M1 going towards Pretoria the Superman Theme by John Williams started playing. When I got into Pretoria at around 5:45 AM “Drink up me Hearties” from Pirates of the Caribbean was playing. Both songs summed it up for me. The end of an era had come, a new age was beginning, but it was time to go back to yesterday so as to be able to look beyond. Goitseona, through his untimely death brought back together my High School graduating class of 2003. First lets go back to the very very past.

I started my Primary school a long time ago. I attended Morekolodi Primary school in Mmakau. A fine establishment and a place where I learnt to day dream to my hearts content. The school at the time was built around mountain, old houses and veld in a small village. When the grass got too tall we used to run in between it playing silly games. Here is where I met Mohau(Moriri) Monyanyedi, Ben(3pac) Sekati, Goitseone(Zichi) Molefe, Kau Mokgoko,Alfred Masemene and I think Ofentse (Kwena). There are others (part of the large gang), Phenyo Letsholo, Tlotlego Boikanyo, Thapelo Mokgoko (list is endless, still filling in some gaps myself), I still remember a guy named Steve who left our school in grade 7. Anyway primary school was full of frivalous play and just me trying to stay in front (Thats the school part). The rest was just play. High school though (Tsogo starts at grade 7) was just full of insanity. Here the gang increased with the edition of Macdonald Pale, Lesole Makgabutlane, Tumelo Moeketsane and even more guys.

The Posts

We used to play soccer everyday, I mean like everyday. I used to bring the ball to school in the morning. My Grandfather used to drop me off at school in the morning so always got there early before assembly. The other guys would get into school and find us who where already there on the field already playing. This way in grade 7. We took over that field for years to come. The soccer field was ours and all we did was play at every chance we got. The only time we did not play was when “SMASH” or hand tennis became popular. To illustrate some insanity here. Hand tennis is simple, has simple rules. Players stand in squares normally a game is made up 4 or more squares (we had gone up to a 10 square court – insane). The top player is normally at the last square (King), players play to eliminate the player in front of them (configurations are grids 6 (3×2)).

Well this became very popular and we had guys like Thapelo Mofzoa (Haha) who could do things with the ball that I still cannot do today. Anyway as a way to stay out of class we petitioned to get “SMASH” to be an official school sport. This meant that during Tuesday and Thursday we could spend out study period playing. Sad to say it didn’t work but there was trying and Goitseona had been one of the leaders trying to get this through. Lots of people got into trouble for bunking because of playing smash in places like the old Stone church on the Catholic premises. I remember times when we had to sneak back to school because we had not heard the bell and had continued playing through class.  As an aside some of you might know of my email addresses that have Vima and Rambo in them. Let me explain how I got these nicknames. My name is Vukosi Marivate, through and evolution of names such as VMan and amalgamations that were supposed to be Vuma, Vima seems to have stuck on a lot of peoples minds so I am Vima. This website is hosted on www.vima.co.za

The Dusty Field of Dreams

Rambo will take a little bit of explaining. During the smash playing hype in grade 8 or 9 I think, we had a lot of tennis balls go missing or get confiscated. When we ran out I raided one of my dads closets at home. He used to play a lot of tennis during his varsity days and I stumbled upon an old Tennis ball canister. I mean very old. The balls had been in that vacuum can forever. Anyway I swiped a ball and took it to school with me to let the good SMASH times roll. Well I found out that the old balls were useless when I stepped on one of the balls at the courts and it blew to pieces. Ben then laughed and then said I killed the ball like Rambo. The joke went on for a couple of weeks. People did not call me by that nickname but it held significance for me. It signified the spirit we had during those times. We were all inseparable and even though we made fun of each other, a lot. Someone was always a butt of a joke, but it was in good fun and the guys to this day still make those jokes like “When Friends are dark, days are few”.

For my last little memory, I present to you the cherry on top. In grade 7, I think, Goitseona and Alfred were in the bus home from school. The story goes that Goitseona, being Mr. restless ended up in a tussle with Alfred about the seats. Anyway Alfred was pushed against the window and it was an emergency one, so it popped out and Alfred fell out while the bus was moving and the windows smashed into a 1000 pieces. Alfred was unharmed. The story spread like wildfire the next day. The bonds became stronger after this and not weaker. This was a serious incident but we all learned from it and I think tried to keep from harming each other from then. Except when the DomKop association formed in 2000 in grade 9. We used to go around and laugh at funny hairstyles of learners around the school. We even got some peeps to remove those hairdos because of out antics. I am remorseful about this specific act as I now know how things like this could mess peoples lives up. To all those who were affected, you deserved it at the time, but I do apologise.

That was my snippet of the past, its very brief. There is so much I could say, so much I also cannot recall. I just needed to write this as some therapy. It was fun. Dont take life too seriously, laugh with friends, cry with those who are hurt and appreciate those around you. Vukosi Vima Rambo Vuksoi Vukoski Marivate. Thanks for reading this far. Was a rant. I left Pretoria with “Optimus vs. Megatron” from Transformers as the soundtrack, arrived back in johannesburg with “Arrival to Earth” also from Transformers, signalling a new beginning. There its done.