"Be a good boy, Jabu," My mother would say to my six year old self as I lay shivering upon the thin, dirty mattress of our bed. "No-body likes a tsotsie - a scoundrel. You will go far in life, my son, and good things will find you, if you are a virtuous boy."

"Yebo Ma." Yes Mother, I would say, looking around our tiny candlelit shack of scrap corrugated iron. How guilty I would feel! How good must all the little white boys and girls be to live in those beautiful brick houses with lights on wires and pools full of clean blue water right in the garden! Surely I, who tried all the time to be good, must be a very bad boy already? Only a very bad boy should have to walk two kilometres to fetch water, just for drinking, each day.

She was a very beautiful woman, my Mother. A good woman and religious too. But nothing good ever came her way. My Father (whom for many years I, as 'mfane', a small boy, believed held the misfortunate name of Goodfornothing Tsotsie) gave her two things: I, a good for nothing tsotsie now also, and the slow puncture - Aids.

She passed away just this year and with the last bit of air she breathed "Be a good boy, Jabu." But what good is good if nothing but bad ever comes from it? There is no good here in Soweto.

My Mother attended Catholic Church. She was a believer in God the Spirit. I am unable to find Him. And now, I am joking to my friends, that the only spirit I am willing to turn to, is that of the Methylated variety. You see, we pour the liquid through a loaf of bread and it turns from purple to white. And white is good. White will get you all the water in the world, right there in your garden.

I am Jabulani. My name means 'happiness' in Zulu. But I am not happy. And I am not a good boy.