Portraying a false image

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo

The story of the NSFAS girl is in actual fact a microscopic look at the South African condition. A young woman in South Africa who lives a life she cannot afford, on credit, because Instagram is watching.

Peruvian wigs were worn, baby showers were thrown, photos were taken and pouts showing off expensive lips.

For a moment, she looked like a cover girl on a glossy read. But now, she cannot exchange the number of likes to help recoup the money needed to settle the R800 000-odd bill.

This was surely one expensive party, and unfortunately its hangover is no computer error!

Now the young lady’s grandmother has come out to say “if she had at least built me a house” ...

You see, the queen of bling forgot to take care of home, like many other South Africans, from celebrities to the person on the street.

She forgot to make sure that, when all is said and done, she still had a place to call home.

We can all sit in judgment and declare that we would have done better under the same circumstances, but we have never been under the same temptation … so let’s not even hop on that bus.

Having seen the conditions that her grandmother lived in, if that were me it would have been the very first thing I would have taken care of.

At the least I would have been paying back the money from an erected and sturdy home.

Three months down the line, the weave is itchy and the party confetti is gone with the wind.

Gogo’s house is still dilapidated and she is living with neighbours because of the poverty back home.

This is the norm in South African society.

What do I mean? I mean, remember the skhothane phrase they shouted from Quantum taxis, dressed in expensive Italian clothing with Ultra Mel dripping from their barely legal mouths. But they slept on a three-quarter sponge mattress at home, right next to their expensive shoes, right after a pap and cabbage meal.

All so that we can present glitz and glam to people who can do nothing for us.