Tragic tale of a man in Spar
2009-10-08 10:29
Last week, my husband and I were shopping in our local Spar, wallets comfortably filled with a recently-drawn stack of crisp, new R100s. As we meandered down the detergents aisle, we noticed a man stooped over a meagre basket of goods, carefully counting and tallying his intended purchases.
As we walked past, he glanced up at us, and I think because he saw our baby daughter, full of vitality and well-fedness, kicking happily in a sling, he approached us.
"Do you have R2 for me?" he asked, cringing. "I'm just short a little bit."
I glanced into his basket and saw the tiniest tub of the same brand of baby bum cream that we use, and my heart (not particularly hard at the best of times) melted.
"We don't," I said, and he immediately retreated - obviously not a hardened beggar or hustler. "We've only just drawn money, but if you wait for us to finish our shopping, we'll have change then. Come and find us and we'll help you out."
I'm not sure he really heard the last part, and he just said that he would count again, so we continued with our shopping. When we were done, although we couldn't see the man, we decided to look for him. We found him at the back of the Spar, putting back a small packet of mealie meal on the shelf.
"How much do you need?" I asked.
"My wife said to keep what the baby needs," he said, gesturing down into the basket. There was a collection of baby cereal, one pot of pureed baby food and the bum cream.
Honestly, by this point, I would have given the man all the crisp new hundreds in my wallet, but he seemed very reluctant to ask for help at all, or to put a figure to any of it. In the end, we gave him what he said he needed to buy milk and mealie meal.
"Thank you," he said to us. And then, as we walked away, "sorry!" he called to our retreating backs.
I left the shops in tears, wailing along with my bags full of purchases, while my daughter, who will hopefully never know true hunger, cooed delightedly at the passersby.
I know that the story of the man in the Spar is not a particularly sad one in the greater scheme of things. As my husband pointed out, it was the day before payday, and hopefully he was just getting the essentials before his wages came through.
But the idea of him and his wife going without food or milk so that their baby could have the tiny pot of food and some cereal has wrenched at my heart terribly. It made all the financial worries of earning reduced rates in a recession, and finding things a bit expensive in the wake of having had a baby pale in significance when I consider that there are people who are making the choice between their full stomachs and their children's.
I am sure that we all do our bits here and there, and that now that times are tough and traffic intersections are filled with impossible numbers of people asking for handouts, finding the spare cash to help out can be difficult. But it really is worth remembering that those of us driving around in cars who are able to buy food for our families really are privileged, and should do whatever we can to help out those who aren't quite so fortunate.
- Georgina Guedes is a freelance writer. This Christmas she will be attempting to identify some meaningful charities to donate to. She'll keep you posted.
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