Durban - He was born in prison and spent his latter teen years serving his own jail sentence, but an Inanda man refused to let trouble with the law define his life.
Mandisa Getane believes his fate was not sealed when his mother, Nomanisi Getane, gave birth to him while held (never convicted) for running a shebeen. He takes ownership and lessons from imprisonment, but is forging a new path in life, as a university graduate.
The 30-year-old obtained a BCom degree in Industrial Psychology and Human Resource Management from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) last week, accompanied by his uncle and two cousins.
Getane was only 16 years old when he was arrested for robbery.
The community of Amaoti in Inanda effected a citizen’s arrest. “My mother got there just before the police. I thought she would defend me but she scolded me... I was more hurt by the disappointment in her eyes,” said Getane.
While out on bail in 2003, he tried to go back to his school but was refused. He eventually started Grade 10 at another school.
“I wanted to continue with school despite the robbery case hanging over my head because it was always important to my mother. She used to give us hidings as children if we didn’t go to school.”
His education was soon interrupted again when Getane was shot twice in an unrelated spat. His right leg had to be amputated from below the knee.
“I remember lying in that hospital bed and thinking to myself, is this me? Is this my life? How can two such serious misfortunes happen to me? I lost friends because I was no longer normal and had to learn how to walk all over again, with a prosthetic leg. I had to adapt to life with a disability.”
Getane was convicted in 2004, as an adult, having turned 18 that year. “When the judge said ‘guilty’ and eventually sentenced me to eight years in prison, I stood in the dock on my prosthetic leg and felt my world crash. I turned around to look at my mother and could see she was shattered.”
Imprisonment felt like he was being “thrown away”.
He kept to himself, feeling hopeless.
“In jail we slept at a set time, ate at a set time, huddled in the corner of the courtyard where the sun shone only during the set free time.”
Life either gets worse or better while one is in jail and he chose the latter.
He started at Usethubeni Youth School inside the Westville Correctional Facility.
“I had always been bright at school so I thought let me at least get this one thing right in my life, make my mother proud.”
He credits Lwando Bantom, project director for transformation at the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, who would often come to the school to motivate them.
Usethubeni’s deputy principal, Nelly Mkhize, also played a major role as teacher and mother figure to Getane.
But it was founding principal, Dominic Zulu, who created a cordial, but strict, environment at the school, that helped Getane become one of the top achievers in his matric class, obtaining two distinctions despite his mother’s death the same year.
“There is something worse than your parent being angry at you, it is them being disappointed in you, and I never had a chance to redeem myself to my mother. But my father was there for me, he accepted me and was proud of me,” said Getane.
Once paroled in 2008, he chose to live in a halfway house. He was accepted to study at NMMU but because of his parole conditions, could not go. Later, he moved to Port Elizabeth to study.
“It was the perfect opportunity for me to start life anew, in a city where no one knew me so I could not be judged or distracted from my education. I blemished my family’s name by being the first to be convicted of a crime. Now I have made them proud by being the first university graduate. No one can take my education from me,” Getane said.
Zulu said he was proud of Getane but his joy for his former student was marred by the discrimination by employers against ex-convicts.
“People like Mandisa come to jail immature but learn lessons, change and acquire skills. But with all the rehabilitation, they come out and are unemployable because of their criminal record,” said Zulu.
He believes this frustration is partly responsible for driving some back to crime.
Getane works in customer services and wants to build his family home and give his eight siblings the future his mother wanted for them, one where education comes first.
Daily News