Two days before the matric farewell ball, I was stabbed in my head. It put me into a coma for 3 days. When I woke up, I did not know my family and I did not recognise anybody besides my one brother. I did not even recognise my friends, I knew nobody.
I was so sad and angry and hated the person who did this to me. All I wanted was revenge. But my mother was a prayerful woman. So I decided to forgive that boy who stabbed me.
I eventually found myself at Macassar Pottery because a friend told me that they helped young people who did not finish school. As my work there progressed I found myself learning how to think in a new way. I learnt how to be responsible.
McKay works in the Macassar Pottery workshop with Johan and his team of ceramicists. One December, Johan took McKay and his team to a theme park because they had never been to one before. “Johan the thing I’m grateful for is a space where I get to be human. Where I’m not labelled. I’m not pushed into any kind of pre-designed mode. I can just be me.”
By McKay