Journalist hunts down happy ending

It was a journalistic assignment with a difference: do a story about a kidnapped child, Valerie Matthews, 8, apparently living in the Transkei, but find her first and if possible return her to her parents.

David MacGregor of the LiveWire agency was contacted by the Cape Argus after reporter Myolisi Gophe got word of a little kidnapped girl living at Nkwenkwezi near Engcobo in the Transkei.

She had allegedly been abducted by a woman and kept as "a virtual slave".

MacGregor has spent years in the Eastern Cape and knew who to contact. Within a day he knew where Valerie was and decided to drive to the village.

When he arrived, villagers gathered to smoke cigarettes and discuss the situation.

Valerie had run away from her abductor after months of apparent abuse and moved in with Maritana Mamnkeli.

Residents told MacGregor they first noticed Valerie working at the woman's home and sometimes sleeping in the bush and in abandoned cars in the middle of 1997. But they were told she had been adopted.

Mamnkeli wanted to make sure Valerie would be safe before letting her go, but when she made up her mind, she spent some precious money at a nearby trading store on some biscuits and a cooldrink for the little girl.

MacGregor said: "Everybody agreed she should leave with me on condition that I hand her over to the parents myself. She seemed very happy at the Mamnkelis and there were tearful scenes as we prepared to leave."

Valerie had become well known during her long stay in the area and residents named her "Nozi".

She had forgotten her first name and called herself Rosalie. "Valerie left as she came, with no baggage, probably in the same, now tattered, dress she arrived in."

At MacGregor's house at Port Elizabeth, she struck up an immediate friendship with domestic worker Nomvuyo Mbebe and her daughter Lisa, and had a bath and put on a new dress. Then, yesterday, the long drive to Graaff Reinet began.

When they arrived there, local policemen Inspectors Rudolf Adolph and Steve Fick kept questioning to a minimum.

"They were very welcoming and gentle and phoned ahead to alert the family. When we arrived at Santaville, outside Graaff Reinet, about 10 people were standing around a big fire. When they saw Valerie ... there was clapping and cheering and even the police were in tears."

Valerie ran straight into the arms of her mother, Maureen. Unfortunately her father, Kleinbooi, was away working on a farm at Robertson and her brother at a school in the same area.

"The only problem was that Valerie, who used to speak Afrikaans, now only speaks Xhosa and she could not understand her mother. But their body language said everything," explained MacGregor.

After eating some meat and sharing a beer, he headed home, his job well done.