Michaelhouse-Impact Report-2023 (for Jan-Dec 2022)

Donors’ Stories

In 2000 I was about 40 kilograms with shoes on. Black shoes from the trade store, a trenchcoat, and a trunk full of uniforms standing at Screens in February: 60 kilograms of nerves, clothes, and hopes. I come from a dot on the map called Melmoth, and before that a township called Ngwelezane. People like me were not meant to be here. A year earlier, my mother, my sister, and I drove five hours - before Google had Maps - to Balgowan in a blue, two-door Fiat Uno that could be heard wheezing up hills from a kilometre away. My teacher from Melmoth, Ms Padachie, insisted on it, she believed that I was somebody and that I deserved this opportunity. When the testing was done on Scholarship day and Mr Pachonick sat me down for an interview, I remember thinking this man was also in on this scheme. He listened to me intently, as if I was somebody. And for five of the best years of my life that idea was grown within me: You are somebody. Grown by the stern, but caring, direction of my housemaster - Mr Esprey; whose voice I can still hear booming in my head whenever I’m up to mischief: Gentleman, you’re not above the law! By the ladies in the laundry, who looked after me as if I was their own. By a hodgepodge of teachers, who at different times had me believing that I was a master mathematician (no!), an unearthed geographer (no, again), and a writer (maybe). And by friendships that have persisted through the years. All of these, and many more, building the idea that has carried me: You are somebody. I am honoured to join a special group of people who give boys like me a sense of belief that makes a life. I can never repay the debt I owe to the Old Boys before me who donated to the UK Trust. On some Sundays I daydream about the little experiences

Michaelhouse gave me: idle moments in freebounds, the way the mist cloaked the valley, the rusty ladders to the top of the Bell tower, the sweetness of the leftover cookies in the Senior Prefect’s room, the dewy grass on a Saturday morning, and so many more. To

the recipients I hope your experience is as rich and fulfilling as mine was: You are somebody. You are capable. And you are only getting started. Gugulethu ‘G’ Hlekwayo (East, 2004) Gugulethu is a technical writer, coder, and editor. He now works for an Amsterdam-based cloud banking platform. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

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