This obstacle course is exhausting. I’ve never had to do it before. I know it’s an initiation assignment, but I’ve had my perks because of who my father was. 

Now, we are jogging up some hill. We are all reasonably fit, but some are more fit than others. We are joined by priests from other countries. There’s not a lot of us. There are even fewer bishops. Then there’s one pope.

We get to the top of the hill. Someone finds some note. The note says we need to get into a bus that we find in here. We all look at each other; it’s as if there’s something about this that we don’t trust. But we climb in. Mohale is the one who takes the driver’s seat. Mnqobi sits in front with him. 

The bus takes off. The card said that we must drive out all the way north. 

It takes a while to get drive to the bottom of the hill. Mohale is trying his best to drive carefully and not let this thing capsize with us in it. No one is saying a word in here. We just want to get to the bottom of this hill alive. 

When we finally get to the bottom of the hill, we drive.

 It’s a few minutes into the drive when gun shots come at our bus at all angles. Everyone just follows instinct and Mohale almost kills us. But he gets a grip of himself and drives this bus as fast as he can. But the bus isn’t going fast enough.

“Stop this bus! We going to need our feet on this one”, someone says.

“The drive is fucken 30km. When will we get there on foot?!” Someone responds.

“We will die in three kilometres if we don’t get out of this bus right now!” Tholoana barks.

The bus stops.

We try to open the door of the bus, but it’s stuck.

OF FUCK!

Mnqobi tells us to break the windows… some break the windows while some try to save others from the bullets coming at us.

We manage to break the windows then we get out of the bus via the windows.

The bus actually blows up while we run away from it. None of us get hurt, but damn… realising that one more minute in there would have killed us is hectic. But we don’t have time to be sentimental. We run. Suddenly, the gunshots stop.

We are 15km into our fast paced walk when one of our fellow priests starts acting weird. 

“Carter, what’s wrong with you?” Kevin asks him. They are both Americans. 

“My diabetes”, Carter says.

Yerrrr!

“Can you see where we are? Do you see our situation? This is not the time to tell us that you are a sugar daddy!” Only Mohale will say something like that.

“What do you need?” Ntuthuko asks him. 

“My insulin and some food thirty minutes afterwards”, Carter replies.

“Where’s your insulin?” Ntuthuko asks.

Carter points at his pocket. Thank God it’s a zip pocket. 

Ntuthuko gets into first aid mode and injects this guy with his insulin.

“We are going to use these tree branches, wooden pallets, leaves and plastic to make a stretcher. We will carry him while he sleeps until we get to a supermarket. Then we will have to hit that supermarket”, Ntuthuko orders. 

I start collecting stuff for this stretcher while these guys want to argue that we must steal food for all of us.

“Discipline! We steal what need. He needs food, else he dies. We can live until our next obstacle.” Ntuthuko.

Complaining, people join me and we put this stretcher together. It takes us about 40min to finish and secure it – particularly the sides so he doesn’t roll off. 

We put him on the stretcher, lift it up and hold it while we jog. We find a shop that looks unkept 10 minutes into our jog. Indeed, three people go in to steal him food – fruit and snacks mostly. As he eats, we run while carrying his stretcher. Uyasinda naye ke u-sugar daddy bandla.

We finally get to our second station, finding glasses of water lined up for us. At this point, we are given tents and sleeping bags. Food is also waiting for us. 

Dinner is eaten in silence. We are just tired. In no time, we sleep, agreeing that 2am is our waking up time and we hit the road to obstacle course station 3.

–

It starts raining. I know I was born and bred in Tholoana Kingdom – the capital of rain noma kunini. But being in a tent while the weather is wild is not exactly the kind of noise that will shoosh me to sleep. 

I open my eyes and look around my tent. I’m alone. The tent is small, I’m all that can fit in here. I wish I could have Palesa here with me. I miss her. She’s all that would make this better for me. 

I smile to myself as I imagine her running those kids crazy in the house right now. Our house. I’m going to marry her. She’s done struggling. She’s never going to struggle again. 

I sit up. I open the zip of my tent a bit and peak outside. It’s still dark. The rain is pouring. I see Ntuthuko is also struggling to sleep like me. 

He walks over to my tent when he notices that I’m also up. Where is he going to sit here? This thing is so small. 

I open it completely, making the space for us to speak. 

“Sho”, him.

“Sho. How’s the sugar daddy?” I ask him.

We look at each other. 

We laugh. 

“He will live.” Ntuthuko says.

“Do you have the time?” I ask him. 

He shows me his watch. 

“You got a watch?” I ask him.

“Check your uniform pockets. You gents need to be more observant”, he says.

Yes, future pope.

I check. Indeed, I have a watch. And it’s one that assesses steps and heart rates and shit.

It’s 12:30am. 

“We need to get some rest.” He says.

“Yeah. But this rain is wild for a man to be sleeping in tents”, I say.

“Yeah. We got food packed at least for the sugar daddy.” He says.

“I also didn’t eat up all my food last night. Some guys almost died on us yesterday. I think it’s safe to say that some people are stronger than others.” I say.

“That’s good. Lalela, pope wants me, you, Khabane and Mnqobi to assess the weak ones. They need that report.” 

I nod my head.

“Let’s try get some sleep. We start a journey at 2am and there’s no telling ukuthi siyonqeda nini”, he says.

We shake hands.

He heads back to his tent.

It’s 2am and we are all on our feet again. This time… we have our tents tied to our backs alongside our backpacks. We have received our next clue and we are following it. The newly appointed priests are carrying the empty stretcher that we put together for the sugar daddy. He’s on his feet now. But we have the stretcher in case his sugar levels decides to show us flames again.

We get to some field. Oh shit. This is military training. We have to put tires around our waists then run a literal obstacle course. The obstacle course is three hours long. 

By the time that we are done, we have three people that have fainted. Anginawo namandla wabo yaz. But we manage to get them paramedics that help them by taking them to the hospital. For the rest of us, it all moves on. 

We get to a sprinter travel bus. We all look at each other. We don’t trust. Khabane and Ntuthuko check out the car’s engine and all other inspections. We all decide to help them. It takes us about twenty minutes. Then we get in the car, this time, I drive.

Some people fall asleep. Ntuthuko, Khabane and Mnqobi stay up with me. The Mohale boys are not sleeping, but they are at the back of the bus. 

The drive is a seven hour drive. I do two and a half hours, Mnqobi drives two and a half hours, Ntuthuko drives the last two hours. 

This time when we arrive, pope and his bishops meet us upon arrival.

“Gents, you’ll sleep in this hotel tonight. There are surprises waiting for you. Your deacons should arrive tonight. All your injured or sick people should arrive tomorrow evening, then we continue. Remember to rest. Your bodies needs to relax.” Pope says.

We head in and we go to our rooms. Palesa is here. 

I am so happy to see her.

She’s passed out though. I wonder when she got here.

I quickly take a shower then join her in the bed naked. I’m too exhausted to even have an erection.

She wakes up. 

She looks at me. 

We kiss.

“Hey you”, she says.

“Hello beautiful.” I say.

“I’m not allowed to have sex with you. They said I’m just here to remind you to survive. I leave again first thing in the morning”, she says.

I just hold her tightly.

“I love you, P.”

“I love you, B. Come. Let’s sleep.”

We kiss again then pass out.