Tag Archives: Prenisha Sigamoney

R.I.P Yandiswa Luphondo

She was so so special. Cheeky, irreverent, bright as a button, she’d done her bachelor degree in psychology and had just heard she’d passed her honours. Next year she was going to do her Masters, on her way to becoming the clinical psychologist she would have been so good at. Many people would have benefited from consulting with this special lady. She could tease me like few others, and she was wonderful with my kids when they helped out in the practice.

Yandiswa worked for us whenever she could between her studies and raising her little three year old daughter Thia. Whattapleasure to have known her. She was a huge asset to the practice and to us all personally. Astute as well as irreverent she would grin, cock her head to one side and say something that put her finger exactly on what was bothering you, distracting you or amusing you.

And now she’s gone, just twenty five years old. We met her lovely parents for the fist time and could share some of our sorrow and our admiration for their daughter with them. We miss her keenly, as do they. We still haven’t come to grips with her loss.

~~oo0oo~~

In the picture, Yandiswa is in a beautiful traditional Xhosa outfit, Jessica is in red and I’m in my element – at Raksha’s wedding. Prenisha took the photo. Happier days

COVID Hits Home

Last year on the 18th March, one week before Cyril could tell us to Go Home, Stay Home, I dived under my duvet and stayed there. I’ve been here ever since.

On 1st June Raksha said Let’s open up again, and I said ‘No! Keep your head down!’ On 8th June she opened up, can’t wait on a wimp. I said ‘No-one will come. Who’ll be foolish enough to roam the streets, never mind go have their eyes tested!?’ We’ll see, she said. Let’s go!

Prenisha was with her. Let’s go! said Prenisha. They hired locum optometrists and got going. We won’t make breakeven turnover, thought the hidden wimp, all panicky. They did – every single month! They paid the rent, paid their own salaries, paid our locums’ salaries, paid expenses. And – bless them – they even paid me a part-salary! Me, the undeserving fugitive. – – Wait! Were they paying me to stay away?

And so it has gone. Thirteen months later, joined now by Yandiswa (also saying Let’s go!), they’re still doing a wonderful job, I’m still under my duvet. But now one of them has tested positive and we have closed, as everyone takes time to isolate and recover for the one, and avoid contagion for the others.

One day at a time. We’ll test and monitor and open again when we can.

What STARS!!

~~~oo0oo~~~

And then: Two days after we closed for COVID isolation our centre got ransacked in the looting inspired by the greed brigade who got used to robbing us blind under Zuma and used his eventual deserved jailing as an excuse to incite the poor to loot. A shameful attempt at an insurrection, people way past their sell-by dates hoping to topple our government so they could get back to looting the budgets of each govt department.

So our practice closed again. Eleven weeks later, having re-built it and re-equipped it and re-stocked it, we begin again on 11 October 2021. We’re in a wrecked-looking centre, with many shops still boarded up (many will never re-open).

My ever-optimistic ladies Raksha, Prenisha and Yandiswa – now vaccinated – are back too, saying Let’s go!

Fingers crossed we can rise from the ashes again.

~~~oo0oo~~~