I wait impatiently, hoping not to be late for work, parked on the yellow line, squeezed between the traffic light and the first occupied parking bay, illegal, but satisfied that I will see the door as soon as the Book Lounge opens, while enjoying the warmth of my car.
I feel that the book I am about to buy is exactly what I need to help me through this tough time and offer some solutions to problems I have not yet been able to figure out and I only have 2 days to do so before the meeting…..
It’s Saturday 9.18 am. I have been up since 5 and already done most of my “before work” chores.
It is unseasonably cold for this time of year; a chill wind swirls last night’s rubbish into an eddy at the corner of the building.
Sharing the corner and the yellow line are men waiting. I know this city corner as a venue where out of work men group together hoping to be offered employment for the day or better still a weekend contract… Their dignity intact they offer themselves for cash. Honest people trying to survive another day.
There are about 8 of them identically dressed in dull clothing, beanies, caps, and hoodies with hands tucked deep in well-worn trouser pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind, each as different to each other as I am to them. Young and eager, old and resigned, alert, disinterested, tired, anxious, some not quite sober, some not too strong looking, but all hopeful for R120 by the end of the day to sustain them until tomorrow!
Their hands don’t come out of their pockets to wave for attention unless it is a bakkie looking like it may be transport to a building site or a man driving a 4 x 4 for garden work in the suburbs. New arrivals stand slightly back from the prime front row positions waiting till their turn comes, an unwritten code amongst them.
Eye contact is a big component of these sales skills. He who makes that first eye contact with the driver wins the contest. So alertness and street savvy are essential. I watch as all of them crowd around a vehicle that slows but does not come to a complete stop. I hear nothing, but I can see a knot of bodies with expressive arm movements around the driver’s window, 2 climb in and the unlucky one’s return to the corner, perhaps with a hope that they will be next?
Another young guy approaches dragging heavily on his cigarette, dressed similarly and also hunched against the weather. Unlike the other, he has a bag slung casually over one shoulder, with the imperceptible nod of the head he acknowledges the man waiting closest to him then stands staring vacantly up at the Mountain, puffing.
I am surprised by this; he is white, and all the others are black, but his arrival reminds me that this is the new South Africa and we are all equal or extremely unequal according to the Gini coefficient.
Inhaling deeply and in the midst of my crisis, I am grateful for my lot in life and wish I could make a difference. I am saddened that many people in the world, especially here, live like this. I don’t pity them; I am sorry for them for their situation, and I admire their determination and tenacity. Every day, I see them there; I feel the helplessness of the inequality.
Breaking my melancholic moment, the most recent arrival delves into his bag searching…….. Keys.
He stubs out his cigarette under his shoe and turns to open the shop door!
My 10 minutes waiting turned out to be an excellent lesson and a salutary reminder – never to make assumptions and always be grateful for what we have in this world.The shop is open on time. I will not be late for work.
The book I am looking for is ” The Art of the Idea” by John Hunt and may yet in the next 48 hours help me find some solutions to enable me to take an alternative path to end up in a different place.
If I make the right choices, perhaps I will make a difference, by ensuring that those who currently work for me do not end up here?
© Chapter Six 2009
Chapter Six 