A 27-year-old Limpopo woman has published a TshiVenda book on relationships between older men and young girls and hopes that the book will be prescribed for primary school children. Hulisani Netshifhefhe of Tshifulani outside Thohoyandou says seeing young people in her community being involved with what is commonly known as blessers, encouraged her to write.
She says the book titled “Zwe Nde Ndi Ite” or “What have I done” focuses on a young girl whose dreams are not realised after being in such a relationship.
“I specifically talk about the life of blessers; we just go with anyone as long that person has money. That person we think can take care of us and we forget about the consequences of sicknesses, we forget about the consequences of having unplanned children. It’s for everyone, whoever they are in primary school. The reason why I targeted those ones; who don’t know anything about growing up, don’t know anything about blessers; they will now know that this is the life not to take. At least they will learn it from the early age.”
Netshifhefhe says it took her almost ten years to publish the book because most people did not believe a TshiVenda language book could sell.
“The challenges that I passed through are financial challenges and also people that do not believe in you, do not believe in your dreams. That one it drags you down because there is no one who is able to help you out so that you can become what you want to be. If you don’t have the strategy of people that are pushing you to go to where you want to be, it’s a struggle, it’s an obstacle in life.”
