Situated in a small city in Cape Town in the year 2023 Faritha was a young,lone and introverted girl,working as a bar attendant for a 3 star hotel in capetown.From a family of 7 with 4 younger siblings,as an eldest daughter Faritha has never felt the pressure to provide for family or support family, it's always been everyone for themselves while still loving and supporting eachother at their means and capabilities.
She had worked in that bar for over 2 years, surviving from paycheck to paycheck,taking loans when funds were insufficient and asking people for money when it got overwhelming.The initial plan was to get a job to support herself before going to school but that plan had long fallen apart in the past 2 years. Suddenly one cold evening it dawned on her that this wasn't the life she wanted or even planned for,being very ambitious from a young age but raised in a family where dreams and desires are killed,she said to herself "I'm tired of this,my age is declining and it's time to put myself first" because what do you mean at 23 I still don't have a steady income, it's time to wake up.
It was an overwhelming series of tears, patience, indecisiveness and fear that has kept Faritha in the position she was in. Faritha woke up on a Tuesday morning, showered and went straight to the education office to enroll in school with the last money sitting in her account and that was all that was left of her monthly salary and it was just the 20th of that month. Being someone who had struggled with depression and battled anxiety on so many occasions, Faritha questioned herself whether or not she could pull through with this,she has always believed that in life the first step is always the most crucial but she just took that first step knowing that her educational foundation was unstable. Faritha went online, bought textbook and started passive reading all while alternating with her work shifts. Some days the study would sit in, on other days it would just seem like wasted effort but that wasn't enough to break Faritha's spirit was it.?
During the time, Faritha was in a committed relationship with a 30 year old man named Simon, he loved her and swore that he wanted the best for her. They had been together since February of 2022,Simon had talked to Faritha on several occasions about her education and how he was willing to financially support her. Simon was an engineer at a steel company and earned a decent amount every 2 weeks, he has a teenage daughter with another woman years ago Faritha was well aware of that and was willing to cope with it because she loved him enough. Faritha's parents were aware she was in a relationship and knew his name but had never met him in person because according to Faritha he wasn't ready. The days continued with Faritha living a life of study hard and work hard too ,day in day out it was Faritha convincing herself that she could handle everything, on a Saturday she decided to scroll through the education portal and saw that her exam date had been fixed,it was just 5 days from that Saturday her heart skipped because she didn't expect it to be so soon ,she barely had less than a month to prepare for it but she still sobered up and acted like it was nothing, made a phone call to her boyfriend Simon and informed him of the progression of things Simon simply let out a sigh and asked if she was prepared, Faritha's reply was "barely" he then assured her that she could do it because she knew she had something to lose.
5 days later,it was the D-day Faritha woke up trying to be as positive as she could, prepared herself and went to the hall,there were at least 100 other candidates .She still walked into that hall with confidence and to her surprise,out of 25 questions,she barely knew 5...