As zenzile wheels her chair back into its corner and returns to sit on her bed, a radio announcement from the 1994 election results plays on the wireless.

news presenter [voiceover]: Now president in all but name, Nelson Mandela swept into the ANC headquarters to address his followers. The outcome had been a virtual certainty all along, but the sense of history was lost on no one. More than merely leading the fight against apartheid, Nelson Mandela came to embody it. The struggle is my life, he said; his personal victory was the victory of an entire nation. Nelson Mandela's inauguration as his country's first democratically elected president is just days away …

‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ is being sung triumphantly in the background of the news broadcast. zenzile has had enough. She lurches across the room and switches off the radio.

zenzile: I’ll never forget, Nkulunkulu, hearing what was happening with those elections on the radio. The anc were winning more and more of the people's votes. Yah, that made me go very quiet. [Beat.] All of those years of fighting and we were losing … we had lost.

A silence.

zenzile: You know, when I worked for Nzondo, he told us that what we were doing for the IFP would make us all heroes of the struggle. That's what he said. Angiqambi amanga. Tshela mina sikhona istatue sami esigcwele amasimba ejuba esimiswe lapha eCity hall eduze kwesikaQueen? … Lutho. [Chuckling.] I’m still waiting. Lutho … You won't find an airport or freeway named after me … Maybe a cemetery … but that will be all.

Seventeen years after those first elections, I walked into Sis Thembi's offices – she was the ANC councillor at this hostel – and I threw my IFP membership card in her rubbish bin and told her I’m leaving this thing called the IFP because they were making a fool out of me. After all those elections there was not a single time we were doing any of the winning. No, I only ever saw ANC people on the RDP list getting houses and I now wanted to become a member.