Lwandile Mnatanywa is zipping up his wetsuit. The tall, soft-spoken high school junior comes to Cape Town's Monwabisi Beach almost every day after school and starts running when he sees the water. "I can see the waves are cooking, I will run fast as I can," says the 18-year-old.
Before he began surfing, he was running as fast as he could ā in the wrong direction.
Mnatanywa grew up in a shack just up the road. For him, childhood meant dealing with a terrible secret. His dad was physically and emotionally abusing his mom ā usually while drunk.
Mnatanywa couldn't do anything to stop his dad's violent behavior: "If you try to stop him, he will push you away, [saying] 'Don't mind my business, I'm just doing my business with your mother.' "
One day, things got really bad. His dad chased his mom out into the street with a knife and tried to stab her. Neighbors spilled out of their homes, shouting at him to stop. Mnatanywa's mom escaped and went to live with her mother for a while. Eventually she moved back in.
And the violence continued.
[For more of this story, written by Anders Kelto, go to http://www.npr.org/blogs/goats...way-to-mental-health]
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