Yesterday I was shafted. I suppose there's a less crude way of saying it but there it is. How to explain what happened without being a crybaby or boring you too much?
It was a little bit like this: Someone said we should play a game of football. I supplied the ball and inflated it. I mowed the field, painted the field markings and erected the posts. I did this with the help of one of the teams (let's call them Blue Team) who sportingly agreed to help out beforehand and who became not only respected colleagues but close friends too.
Kick-off time but all was not well.
The opposing team - let's call them Team Pink - took to the field though it hadn't technically qualified to do so. In fact they'd jumped several places up the log by paying off the ref - who had invited the bribe in the first place. More than this, the coin toss was cancelled and the ref ruled that Team Blue would be playing uphill - not just for the first half but for both halves.
Not to sound too melodramatic but it was devastating. We'd been preparing for at least 3 weeks and the game was lost before we even took the field. But such is life. The sun rose this morning and it's turning into a pretty spiffy day. God is still on his throne. No-one - at least that I know - has died.
On my way to the aforementioned "game" - I'd given a lift to a Mozambican builder named Chico. He's actually a self employed plasterer who lives in Stanger but who spends a lot of his time looking for work in Durban. Chico speaks 5 languages - Portuguese, Shangaan, Zulu, Xhosa and English. He has a wife and two young children under the age of 10. To save on transport, he sleeps in Durban for nights at a time - sometimes in public places, sometimes on vacant building sites - and returns to his family on the weekend. His tenuous existence wavers perilously close to the poverty datum line. Yet when I drew to a stop in Umhlanga, he pulled R10 from his pocket and offered to pay for the ride. I was amazed. R10 for Chico is like R1000 for me.
I refused the money and we said our goodbyes. As he walked up the pavement I saw he carried a plastic bag containing a clean shirt and a bottle of Oros. It was a heart wrenching sight and I may never forget it.
What is the real business of life? What is the reality we are called to pay attention to? Those light and momentary disappointments which occasionally surface but which in no way threaten any of our comforts? Or is it actually about the grinding, unrelenting miseries which beset the majority of people who surround us? The voiceless ones who have no way of defending themselves?
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