Chapter 1

PEOPLE LOVED HEARING our band play, and I was not exactly sure why. It could have been the good jam sessions wed had for two years at the talent shows hosted by our community hall every Sunday that made us great and lovable musicians, or it couldve been something else, like our passion when we played. I bet if you asked each one of us when the music began, wed all have different answers. For me, music started with a guitar. I was fascinated by instruments actually, but the guitar was a personal extension of myself, and it made me feel like more than a hopeless orphan. The reason I got to own one was because of a guy called Rob.
I met Rob when I arrived at the Onverwacht Foster Home for Orphans. I was only four years old, or maybe three, because I was told that I was found strapped inside a baby pushcart near a levee, just a tiny boy who couldnt speak properly and I did not know what was happening. The most important thing I remember from that day was seeing Rob, the only black kid in that assembly hall. He was playing a piano while the rest of the white kids sung along in Afrikaans as I walked through the doors for the first time with the caretaker, Patricia More, holding my hand. She was an old black woman with scary eyes and slightly grey hair. She spoke swift, fluent Afrikaans and her light caramel skin and greyish or blueish eyes made me think she was coloured. I sensed the fear she gave foster kids and caretakers from the first moment the music stopped, and the room was tense. She quickly introduced me to the hall, but she called me Levi instead of Levy and then left, telling the caretakers in the hall to lead us to the playground. That is when Rob walked up to me and said, Welcome to the OFH, your new home.
I spent days thinking that the white lady who dropped me off was going to come back to get me, but it never happened. I was told that she had brought me to the Onverwacht Foster Home after finding me near a levee where she jogged past every, which I always presumed that was how I got the name Levy. When days became weeks, it was obvious I was not getting out, and the mysterious white lady was never coming back and there was a time I remembered her worried face when she found that afternoon. I stayed for 15 consecutive months out of 22 before Total Physical Response proceedings could beginmeaning I had to sit in a foster home for over a year before I could get adopted; which was a new procedure specially for black children to stay longer in foster home, Rob told me about his proceedings and how where he nearly got adopted while he was on his 10th month. Rob was right when he said by the time my 15 months came to pass, my thoughts of leaving will fade and it did. The OFH became my home, and Rob became my only brother amongst all the white kids.
When Rob found out I had a fascination for the guitar, I was 7 years old after seeing him perform for the first time, and Rob was 13. A white man called Mr Van Rustenburg was Robs piano teacher who used to be the foster home piano player and Rob took over his duties when he left the foster home to teach Arts and Culture in high school. He arranged Rob to perform with his 17 years old son Timothy, they were the last performers that night which started with Timothy strumming his guitar, and after a cheer, Rob joined him on the piano. When they stopped playing, every parent in that hall got up and gave them the greatest applause I have ever seen. After that day, I nagged Rob to take me with him to Van Rustenburgs house when he had to rehearse, but Patricia More was strict about kids younger than 13 years old going out of the house without adult supervision but that did not stop me; I followed Rob one day without telling anyone. I thought I was going to be in trouble when I got caught by Mr Van Rustenburg sneaking into the garage where all the instruments were kept. Timothys father had to take me back, and told the caretaker they caught me attempting to play a guitar in the garage and suggested Timothy to teach me.
I suppose, somehow the strict Patricia More saw it as me going after what I wanted, and she actually allowed it. So I learned and practised for months with every chance I got and the first song I learned was We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which I got to play for the OFH group with a borrowed guitar on Christmas Eve.
And then, a few days after New Years Day, Timothys father left the country to teach music at a university in America, taking Timothy with him. They left me with a Maxwell guitar, and that was the last time I saw Timothy and his father. Rob was devastated, even though he hated to admit it. He slowly stopped playing the house piano because he was coming back home later than the house curfew. Patricia More got worried that Rob might be doing some bad stuff.
I continued learning new songs on the guitar. Thanks to my consistency, I improved every day. By the time I was 10 years old, I was becoming a delight in the foster home and popular among the community. My basic guitar skills placed me in school shows around town; they even had a stage name for meLevy the foster home prodigy. I always wished Rob was there after every show, because he would play the piano when I asked him to help me prepare a rehearsed piece for a show, but he never showed up for a performance. He always used his pizza delivery job as an excuse and made it sound like he was forced to get the job.
However, he was really proud of me. He said, Levy, you are the greatest guitarist in the world; dont ever stop playing, and imagine what will happen when you get to be my age. But I didnt feel great anymore. I started to feel predictable, and I was running out of things to teach myself.
When I was 13, everything changed. I got adopted into a loving family, and my adoptive parents taught me what family really meant. Their love was so great that even though they were white, I felt like they had been my parents all my life. My mother was from Mozambique, she was a retired music teacher, a singer and My mother was from Mozambique, she was a retired music teacher, a singer and a great pianist with a beautiful soul, and she always had a smile even those times the cancer was slowly killing her. She was 30 when she found out she couldnt have babies, because of cancer. This was the reason why she called me the missing piece in their lives. We played and sung together all the time, she even taught me how to play the piano, it took me six months to play Beethoven's Fur Elsie with my eyes closed.
My father was Afrikaans and had a really passion for Rugby. Back in his high school days he played the best winger; he had cups and medals for it which was a generation thing backtracking from his Grand Father. Somehow I developed an interest for it, and always wanted to be better than him every time we played at our backyard which was bigger than the backyard we had at the foster home.
Getting out of foster home really open new paths for me, like going to high school where I met my friends Miles, Ignatius, and Justin who loved music as much as I did. We even started our own band called the Zero55; which was the Zip code of our town 055, but the fun died out when we reached 11th Grade. We were becoming jogs more than musicians; my friends played soccer and I played Rugby, that was the one thing we did not have in common.
The first time I made the rugby A-team was in 10th Grade, my father was so happy. He was really glad that I made the A-team with the colour of my skin which never happened before because of the racial background the town came from, he warned me that I would always be chosen over a white player even if I was good, and that I would have to prove myself. And in Grade 11 all his dedication as my private coach paid off when I got to picked to play provincials, only to get disqualified; which literally killed him. He collapsed after a heart attack when he heard the news over the phone from my coach. It was the worst day of my life, I never played Rugby again.
Right after my Grade 12, my mothers cancer became terminal. I had to put varsity on hold because she needed me and I needed her to get better, really did. But she passed away which made my whole world came to a halt, it made me anti-social, and started ignoring my only friends checking up on me from the city. I started doing drugs, sold my guitar, lost my grip on life, and I never even went to varsity to pursue a career in Architecture or Civil engineer.