I Gave Myself a Second Chance- Nxilibana Matlala

The biggest blunder we make as individuals is to fire up what we want to do ahead of what we have to do.

It evidently happened to Mampshe Valry Nxilibana Matlala (32) born 06 June 1982, from Naledi Ga-Mashashane.

The whole enchilada started in the year 2000 when she was in grade 10 at the age of (18), when she decided to be one of the statistics of high school dropouts in the Republic of South Africa.

“I was failing so terrible, that I couldn’t stand for the embarrassment anymore, and I then made the rashest decision that nearly ruined my entire life.”

Up until the year 2007 after staying at home for almost six years, she decided to go back to school at the age of (24) to do grade 10.

“It was after I realised that without education I cannot open doors I always dreamed of opening.”

Back to school registration

Woke-up early in the morning to go fetch my remove from Jawe-Jawe high school to Joel Sebasa high school, my reason for changing schools, was that I was shamed to share same class with kids from my community, so I wanted to go where people didn’t know me, but that frame of mind was malformed when one of the teachers from Jawe-Jawe High School, Mr Radebe aka (Fire) advised me to face my fears, that is when I made the decision to go back to Jawe Jawe.

How was your first day at school?

It was the most challenging day ever in my life. As times have transformed so was the uniform at the school, I didn’t have the new uniform, what I did was to rock my old black skirt and a white shirt then off to school.

When I got there it was assembly period, my dissimilar lookcaught the attention all eyes were on me, but I told myself to be strong, and joined the gathering.

After the assembly I had to go to the office to fix my documents, that resulted into me to be late for class, that invited the all eyes on me moment again.

On my way to the classes there were noises coming from my class, but as I enteredthe classroom, went silent. I stood in front of them until one of the boys organised me a place to seat. That is how the story began.

How did you manage to cope with the kids?

I tried all my best to be on their level to eradicate communication breakdowns, as we all know that majority always win against the minority, I was the minority on the matter.

I’m a kind and friendly individual I guess that is one the influences that made us to get along without any glitches. How was the Performance on your comeback?

My performance was on point, I didn’t repeat a class.

I went back to school in 2007 then matriculated 2009; I even cried tears of joy when, I saw my name in black and white in the newspaper indorsing my results.

First thing I did was to thank the Lord for giving me power for making it out-off negative difference of opinion people were saying about my decision.

My life so far

I enrolled for beauty therapy coursein 2004, but that didn’t go as planned due to the fact, that the school was not legally registered with the department of education of South Africa(fly by night thing) but, that never changed me the struggle continued.

In 2012 I enrolled for Paramedic course with EMK graduated on record time, currently working at Net Care as a Paramedic. My relationship prestige changed from single to happily married, to my husband Nare Maubane on December 12, 2015(traditional weeding).

Massage to youth to north community

“Focus on important things in life, education is the only tool you can use to reach your dreams and, the other thing is to value your life use a condom at all time to avoid teenage pregnancy, STI or anything that can stop you from dreaming.

Everything goes with time, so try to balance your time.-Nxilibane Mampshe Valry Matlala.