Little Rose Centre // Hopolang

“Mind torch, please!”

The sun would set just before dinner was prepared, making the entire neighborhood eerily dark. All of the houses/shacks in Kliptown were connected through a single wire for access through electricity. Shortages or outages were a nightly occurrence. The electricity would flicker on for 15 minutes at most and then shut down for another 15 minutes up to hours at a time. The only source of light would be the stars and moon.

Our first night, I wore my head lamp down to the kitchen and Hopolang, an elderly woman that cooked dinner for everyone each night, stretched her finger towards my forehead and said, “MIND TORCH” before giggling and going back to work. I took the mind torch off and offered it to her to use in the pitch-black kitchen. We stretched it over her long braids and headscarf, and then tilted the angle of the light to point downwards to the pots on the stove. This became a nightly ritual, and occasionally we put on the strobe light mode when we wanted to spice things up, to which the kids waiting for food would go into a fit of laughter. Thus, everyone in the kitchen coined my headlamp as the “mind torch”.

Every morning Hopolang would greet me with a big smile and a hug, rocking back-and-forth with an occasional motherly kiss on the cheek before we parted ways. I would immediately get a huge smile on my face from the moment that I spotted her across the dirt pathway towards the kitchen.

One of our weekends, Em and I rented a car and drove four hours to Drakensburg to hike around and enjoy the scenery. After enduring the chaos of driving on the opposite side of the road, getting lost, and almost running out of gas, we finally drove back to home base towards Soweto. Em had passed out for a quick nap and I felt my mind drift to the thought of my grandmother who had passed away to years ago. Though I think about her almost every day, she was constantly on my mind for the entire week. It was different. It was like this strange feeling that I had seen her or dreamed about her or felt her presence.

Finally, I put two-and-two together that Hopolang reminded me so much of her. It was in her laugh. The way she cooked. Her hugs and grandmotherly kisses. It was in Hopolang’s mannerisms and the way that she expressed affection towards me. How mind blowing to have a woman from the other side of the world and an entirely different culture than you were raised from remind you so much of someone who was such a huge part of your day-to-day life.

On our last day at Little Rose, she came over to say goodbye just as I was leaving. She grabbed both of my hands and said some of the kindest, most heartfelt words. I finally told her how much she reminded me of my own grandmother and how much I appreciated her kindness and love during my time there. I saw her eyes fill with tears and we just looked at each other in a moment of mutual understanding and silence. She gave me one more big hug, said “God bless you,” and we parted ways.

It’s incredible how your home can follow you to the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways.