Although my certificate of baptism, the only official recognition of my arrival in this world, says I was born on 27 December, my mother and grandmother insisted I was born on 28 December. Such was common in Mqanduli, Eastern Cape, where I was born and raised.

I was the first grandchild of Christopher and Lynette Zibi of the Radebe and Hegebe clans respectively. They raised and shaped me. They were salt of the earth people, hard-working, fully participative members of our village, Zwelitsha Location.

They raised livestock and planted crops, skills I had mastered by the time I was 12yrs old. My school, Phangindlela Junior Secondary School still stands, without running water inside the buildings. As boys we had to use buckets to fetch water for the school vegetable garden at the nearby Mgomanzi River (a stream really).

When I passed Standard 7 (Grade 9) and went to boarding school, St John’s College in Mthatha, I got my first taste of the real world. The dormitories and ablution facilities were extremely dilapidated. We hardly had any hot water to shower with, while the lights in the corridors and bathrooms never worked for the entire time I was there. I can go on and on.

I experienced another culture shock when I went to All Saints College in Bhisho, which had all the facilities – and the teacher-to-student ratio was 24 instead of 75 at St John’s College. Although I was grateful and the experience had a very positive impact on my academic and intellectual outlook, it also taught me what I had been missing out on all my life.

It pains me that these disparities still exist, and are often worse. I want a different country to live in, and that country won’t exist if we do not fight to create it.