Lucky me

We visited the place of rest, a place where I would in no way lay my head. The place of rest is one of many informal settlements in South Africa. The settlements look like hundreds of makeshift clubhouses. They look like my seven-year-old gathered cardboard boxes and tin and made a place to play. But there are thousands of Africans who live in the settlements. As we drove in, we were greeted by an elderly woman with a shovel, digging though piles of trash for food. We pulled over the caravan to give her one of the two hundred bags of groceries and soap we’ve brought. To show her appreciation, she claps her hands together twice. Then she opens her hands as if we were going to pour water into them. We heard a voice from over the fence, yelling in Sutu, “You are luck women.” The elderly woman leaves the shovel in the pile of trash and walks away.
Tags