Lousia Zondo on the death of son Riky Rick and her
JOURNEY OF HEALING
MARCHELLE ABRAHAMS marchelle.abrahams@inl.co.za
THE late French novelist Marcel Proust once said “Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.” Louisa Zondo is one person who fully grasps the meaning of this profound quote. For her, grief was an immeasurable pain; an intangible emotion that she couldn’t grasp after the death of her son. A distinguished advocate, board secretary and chair of Oxfam South Africa, Zondo has a list of
LOUISA Zondo when she reached the Everest Base Camp rock. | LOUISA ZONDO
accolades to her name. Many will know her as the mother of the late Rikhado Makhado, AKA Riky Rick. I had the opportunity to watch Zondo who was the guest speaker at the Wellbeing Summit For Social Change, held in Bilbao, Spain. Walking on to a stage would be daunting for anyone, but for the diminutive Zondo, her larger than life presence was felt by everyone in attendance. Introducing herself as a 58-yearold black South African woman, she said, “I say the word black to take us into a space.” With her vulnerability exposed,
she spoke about how she came to be at that very spot. “I have not shared parts of what has been there,” she said referring to the death of her iconic son. Born and raised in a township outside Durban, she explained: “living in a township was not that easy and hard in so many different ways.” Zondo was the last-born of three sisters. Her mother was a nurse and her father a social worker. “By virtue of their education and line of work, they would have fallen into the category of the elite in the townships. Really, we were
