Amahle Thabethe was eight years old when she was seduced by an unidentified man while playing with friends outside her home in Tsakane, a working-class town in South Africa. Amahle has been missing for more than two years. Every day her mother, Nokulunga Nkosi, wears a T-shirt with her face in the hope that someone will recognize her little girl, whom she believes is still alive.
Dear Beloved,
I have not been able to tell you the date on the calendar today, but I do know that 1,032 days have passed since your last visit.
My heart has been on my neck since the horrible afternoon of April 6, 2019, when you were robbed of me. It was a day when I was compelled to make a painful statement to strangers, police and the media about my desire to find you.
I will never forget it.
It was a Saturday like any other and it was exactly where everyone would expect you to be on the weekend – playing outside with your friends. Just before 1:30 pm my friends came to see me. As they struggled to overcome their fears in their words, I realized that you were not.
He said that a stranger came to you all, and after selecting you, he took you away from everyone else and pretended to need your help.
I stopped what I was doing and ran outside. I looked at you with difficulty. Our family and some neighbors came to help. We searched every corner, every hole and every house on our stone path. I was sure we would find you, that there must be something wrong and it would all go away.
But as the sun began to set, I was terrified. It was getting dark and I was not with you.
The journey to Tsakane Police Station sounded like a permanent one. The words of a male police officer were heard in my head, almost removing me from the darkness of my mind. “What was the baby wearing?” he asked.
The answer to that question will be etched in my memory forever. I will always remember you wearing blue jeans and silver hearts on your right thigh and a white long-sleeved t-shirt with black stripes.
It impressed me that the things they did not ask about the needy were small things that made them special to those who needed them. I wanted to tell them that the color you like is yellow, that you are the sunshine, that you have many friends, and that what you like is dancing.
I handed the police the rest of your description and burst into tears: “Eight years, brown dreadlocks, brown eyes, small frame, medium height, piercing ears only”.
With all that I realized I was indeed in the police to report that my only child was missing.
That was the time my country was ruined. I couldn’t believe how we were living together from the thrill of life to all of a sudden weirdness.
For eight years I watched her grow into a girl with great dreams and aspirations to become a doctor. You are a smart, talented girl, Beautiful. You did so well in school that I always forgive you for your love for watching art all day.
When I close my eyes, I still remember the day you were born – November 25, 2010. Your eyes appeared, you were perfect to me but above all I was glad you were in good health.
When the truth begins and I open my eyes to a world where I do not know if you are scared or safe, if you are being fed, if you remember how much you love me and if you are well, I cannot bear it.
Shortly after being removed from us, I was found to be very depressed and anxious. It has been difficult to continue my welding career because I have been in and out of the psychiatric hospital.
Don’t worry; even though I sometimes feel discouraged and hopeless and the pain I have been feeling from inside my gut since the day I came home without you, I want you to know that your mother never stops hunting.
I spend every minute thinking about you. I have put up tracts all over the place, talking to a lot of people and wearing a T-shirt with your face every day so that I can keep telling people about you even in those days when it is hard to talk.
On April 16, 2019, your classmates decided to go to school and passed through Tsakane to find out about you. The next day, hundreds of people – our neighbors, our friends and others from the surrounding area — marched in honor of you.
Every year on your birthday, people come to our home from different places to pray for you to come back to us. Every now and then I call someone I have never met encouraging me not to give up.
Amahle, you have a group of people watching over you, begging you to come back and have hope.
The police did not tell our family much about their investigation, but I often phoned them, hoping that one day they would call me and say, “We found him, come and get him.”
I wish that day. I miss your laughter – so do your relatives, aunts and friends. You were always a quiet child but your laughter sounds far away.
I pray for you constantly. Pray that God will put our tears in the hearts of those who are with you to bring them back to us. I know you are alive, I can’t explain but I can hear you. I promise we will find you.
I love you and I will never stop hunting.
He sold Thabi Myeni.
