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Granny dumps boyfriend of 30 years for first love

DUMPED: Makhubela was kicked out. Pic. Antonio Muchave. 13/04/2007. © Sowetan.
DUMPED: Makhubela was kicked out. Pic. Antonio Muchave. 13/04/2007. © Sowetan.

Mfundekelwa Mkhulisi

Mfundekelwa Mkhulisi

True love never dies, so goes the saying.

An 82-year-old granny has dumped her vat-en-sit boyfriend of 30 years for a man she loved when she was a teenager.

Catherine Shabalala, from Emndeni, Soweto, can hardly contain her excitement about the prospect of walking down the aisle with her former boyfriend.

She says she can't believe that she has met her first lover again after more than 60 years.

She says she first met Reverend Sibaya in 1941 when they were teenagers growing up in Heildelberg.

"We met when I was 16," says Shabalala. "But we lost contact in the same year when he joined the army."

After a time she decided to try to get over Sibaya and started dating another man.

One day she met July Makhubela from Mozambique.

They later moved in together and had a child.

But in 2004 Sibaya resurfaced and the old flames sparked again.

"He is my first lover and no one could ever replace him," Shabalala says with a smile on her face.

To make way for Sibaya she had to kick out Makhubela, her live-in partner of more than 30 years.

"I kicked him out because it was over between us," she says.

"In fact we spent the last 15 years staying separately."

Shabalala, who has two children and five grandchildren, says the date has not been set for her wedding with Sibaya.

Which ever way you look at it Shabalala and Sibaya have proven the old Zulu adage that kuguga othandayo.

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