My sister and I were given away by our mother Dudu Mhlongo to Elsina Nomhlangano Ngoasheng with the agreement that she will raise us until our mother was back on her feet, then she will take us back. That agreement was never honored.
Here is my story:
In year 2000 after my adoptive father passed away, I was going through his things and discovered letters that were from a woman claiming to be our mother (I also had a sister who passed away in 2002, her name was Lindiwe). There was about 5 or 6 letter if not more. The last batch of letters became angrier demanding for the kids back as our “adoptive parents” were not responding to the letters nor giving the kids back. In the letters I discovered we were born in Pietermaritzburg and our “adoptive parents were living in Pretoria at a time and they were due to go back when this whole thing took place. Elsina is originally from Pietermaritzburg and was married to Peter Ngoasheng who was originally from Pretoria. So we were taken to Pretoria and not born there as we were made to believe all our lives. The family moved back to Pietermaritzburg mid to late 80s.
My issue started when we sat our “adoptive mother” Elsina down and asked her about the letter and told her we would like to know our mother. Her story was that her sister saved us from the woman when she was trying to drown us, and that she even stabbed us with the hope of killing us because she couldn’t take care of us. My sister and I kind of believed that because we both have the same scars on our chests. She then started shouting and getting angry telling us we are not appreciative of her and things started going south from there. We were never allowed to ask questions regarding the issue and if we did we will get a shouting and made to feel guilty about even wanting to know our mother. She then told us she’s dead anyway!. I recently discovered she got hold of the letters and burned them.
My sister and I started doing our own search and these about re some of the things we found out from some family members who were willing to help:
Our mother was dating a guy called Solo Mngadi who lived in Cramond and worked at Brett’s farm (ka Brett) where they probably met. The farm was dealing or making logs (izingodo). Solo passed away in the 1994.
Dudu our biological mother was from Sweetwaters but the letters were addressed from Richmond. My thinking is that at some point after we left she moved to Richmond.
From the letters she mentioned our names were Thandeka Prudence and Lindiwe Priscilla. She said my sister’s surname was Hadebe but I don’t remember her mentioning mine. We had different fathers from what I gather.
She was also an alcoholic who drank heavily.
When my sister passed away in 2002 I gave up the search and went into a deep depression and even stopped the search. I recently started the search again and this time I need to uncover the truth and hopefully find what happened to our mother.
Two of the family members I spoke to dispute the story about our mother trying to kill us and they say it’s a lie being told by our “adoptive mother” and her sister. And the sad thing is that I spoke to her again about this two weeks ago and 16 years later she is still telling the same story. This makes me think there is more to the story and she is hiding something.
Another sad thing is that our birth dates were given to us by our late “adoptive father” so we can’t even go to the hospital and find records because I’m not sure when I was born. The date on my ID is 1983 January 5 and late sister’s is 1980 August 20. The family members assume we were born in Edendale hospital. I recently went to the birth records department and they were trying to help but lack of define birth dates was a stumbling block.
If you have any information please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
Thandeka
0725020308ii
