I am sharing my experience as open awareness especially for the youth in rural communities where wearing a mask is still treated like a rumour. It’s real! We are so far gone into the pandemic that a time where we lived without a mask is a fantasy. It is hard to imagine a life without one even with the vaccines having arrived in South Africa.

On Thursday January 28^th I woke up feeling good, switched onto some J-Cole vibes because it was his birthday and I was on a roll doing my DIY turmeric face mask to fetch my glow as I would be going out to get some bread and stock up on some ginger tea because it’s been cold since the Cyclone Eloise floods (one gotta take precaution!). I make my way out of my residence with absolutely no thoughts of the police because I am not committing any crime right?

As I make my walk down the road, literally 2 minutes from my residence I see the police behind me and the van immediately stopped, I was still trying to make sense of what was happening when I realised that I had lowered my mask to my chin to send a WhatsApp voice note and just to get some air because it was hot, plus I was walking down the main road so there weren’t really any people. I won’t lie for a split second there I thought of running away because I mean, I am just by my res so I’m not in public yet, right? By public they mean the town, shops, and public buildings and stuff, right? It all happened so fast.

I could not dwell long on those thoughts as the policeman grabbed my arm so violently and threw me into the van and we moved. It is then that it hit me! Oh Snap! I’ve been arrested. That is about the same time I saw another girl in the van, face covered and crying. We were both so consumed by what was happening that we did not talk at all. It was only when we got to the police station and we were told to either pay a R1000 fine or be arrested for 6 months. I heard her name as we registered in a book, the list of “failure to wear a mask” cases was quite long for the day and it was only around 11am so I knew for a fact this was serious.

So here we are at the police station, with 3 others that we found there, terrified and making phone calls because we did not have R1000. I mean honestly, it’s” Janu-worry” everyone is broke. The first person I thought of calling was my mom but I knew for a fact that she had no money and I would just be causing her panic to tell her that I am under arrest for not wearing a mask. “ There goes my dreams” I think to myself, I have so much to look forward to, vision 2021 is really promising and now I have to go away for 6 whole months and who knows how things will be even then? “You only have 20 minutes to get yourself together or I am putting you in a waiting cell” shouted the policeman ever so coldly and rudely.

The long story short, I borrowed the money and that is how I lost R1000 I didn’t even have because of a silly mistake and that is really all it takes to ruin your future and everything else you have worked hard for a silly mistake and I know you are probably thinking to yourself “so many things were done wrong with your arrest, former Public Protector ADV Thuli Madonsela said the police must first either issue a verbal warning”. The police are not radical, they will arrest you without question nor warning and in the end it is you who faces the consequences so the best thing you can do for yourself is to just wear a mask. I have learnt this the hard way that it is our humanitarian responsibility to stop the spread of the virus. It is a new era, a new normal, a digital order. Maybe not resist and welcome change, the only aspect of life we cannot manipulate.

I have taken lesson from this experience to stay conscious and be intentional about everything I do because one way or the other it has an impact on my future and manifestations, I don’t want to be the girl who could have greatness but lost it because she refused to adapt.