|
 AS vulnerable as a little china doll is the eighteen-year-old Vuyokazi Nguqu, a Grade Eight pupil at Noorder-Paarl Secondary. For a moment one wonders how a four-year-old toddler had landed up on the high school grounds by mistake, when she walks amongst her fellow pupils.
As a result of faulty growth hormones, she is only 50,7cm tall. But don't think this feisty little girl allows her fellow-classmates to push her around.
When asked to pose for a photograph, like any other eighteen-year-old girl, she fixes her hair first and parades up and down for the camera.
According to principal David Andrews she has a stubborn streak in her. "She talks all the time! The other pupils are very protective of her. They always carry her bookcase and sometimes they even carry her around!"
Despite looking like a four-year-old rather than a teenager, Grace is a happy girl, loved by her friends and she is a good violin player at the Frank Pietersen Music Centre.
"I love to be with my friends and the pupils at school are very supportive of me.
"I intend to finish high school and to go to university afterwards, to qualify myself as a teacher," she says about her future plans.
In her spare time she loves listening to music, especially gospel and kwaito, and enjoys dancing to Mango Groove's music. She lives in Silvertown, Mbekweni, with her mother Gertrude and sister Xolisa (20). |
HELDE-ONTVANGS. Derick Hougaardt, oud-leerder van Boland Hoër Landbouskool en die nuutste rugbysensasie in Suid-Afrika, het Donderdag sy ou skool in Agter-Paarl besoek. Volgens onderwyser Ben Greyling kom Derick wat vir die Blou Bulle speel, gereeld inloer as hy in die Kaap is. "Die seuns geniet dit om met hom te praat, veral omdat van hulle nog verlede jaar saam met hom rugby gespeel het en nou is hy 'n celebrity. Dit wys ook vir hulle wat gedoen kán word."