She Shall Go To The Ball!

Sanet was able to stand tall at her matric farewell thanks to the kindness of strangers

- Jaco Hough-Coetzee

She looked gorgeous in her form-fitting, one-shoulder maroon and rose gold gown, her hair tumbling over one shoulder, a handsome young guy on her arm, and a brightred Ford Mustang ready to take her to the dance most schoolkids look forward to: the matric farewell.

But until recently, Sanet Basson didn’t even dare to dream she’d have the confidence to go to the dance.

A lump the size of a tennis ball protruded from her neck and going out anywhere was an ordeal for the 18-year-old – let alone stepping out on the biggest night of her school career.

Sanet, who lives in the Abraham Kriel Children’s Home in Modimolle, Limpopo, would sit for long spells staring in the mirror at the growth in her neck.

“I was so self-conscious and shy about it,” she says. “I didn’t want to go to the matric farewell looking like that.

“It didn’t matter what my friends said – I didn’t think I looked pretty.”

She’d always wear her hair in a ponytail to the side to hide the lump and hold her head at an angle. During winter she’d swathe her neck in scarves.

Sanet has been through a lot in her young life – she was uprooted from her biological parents and spent years in foster care before coming to the children’s home – and her lump was yet another hardship to endure.

But then a Good Samaritan came to her rescue. Marlene de Villiers, marketing manager of the children’s home, approached radio station Jacaranda FM’s Good Morning Angels show to see if she could raise funds for Sanet’s lump to be removed.