Skip to main content

See the Person

 


See the person walking in the middle of the road.  It’s a beautiful road canopied with an assortment of deciduous trees lush with leaves in all shades of green.  Look closely; a sprinkle of pale lavender jacaranda blossoms compliments the scene. It is a lovely image with various shades and shadows, and the lone figure gives it a sense of solitude.  The street is located near a large grassy area in an upscale suburb of Johannesburg. 


A friend and I stopped at the park along this street to visit an ART under the Sun open-air exhibition. A dozen local artists were selling their artwork anywhere from a few hundred rands to thousands of rands. A great deal of money for the majority of people living in South Africa.


When we got in the car to leave, we noticed this scene.  We were curious as to who this person was lumbering along dressed in an unseasonable amount of clothes (the temp hovered around 90F/33C) and carrying a couple of bags hiked up on slouching shoulders.  


We drove by the person who had stopped to sit on a stoop for rest and discovered an older white man; grizzled, unshaven, unwashed, and unhealthy. He was as pitiable as any homeless person I encountered during many years living in New York City. 


The poverty in South Africa is excruciatingly visible. It is common to see black men and women on the streets begging.  Some are so desperate they kneel in the middle of busy intersections palms together, praying for anything that might sustain them for another day. 


But, in my 7+ years of living in Johannesburg, I have only ever seen a handful of white men in this man's condition, although I have been told that white skin offers no defense against poverty.


I don’t know if this white man was a beggar. I don’t know if he was a drunk or on drugs. I don’t know if he was part of the racist regime of Apartheid.  He was simply walking under the shade of the trees, and I felt as sad for him as I do whenever I see evidence of human suffering.


#writing #womenwritersoverfifty #povertyinsouthafrica #mylastmonthsinsouthafrica #personalessays #memoirs #humansuffering #whitepoverty 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Golden Glow of the Bush

  The Golden Glow of the Bush I have seen some glorious skies during my travels around the world, from the smog-induced fluorescent sunsets in Moscow to the burning red horizon in Lake Tahoe. Looking up toward the heavens at dusk is my favorite time of day.  But, nowhere have I ever been so mesmerized by the setting sun than in the bush. Why? Because the light the fading sun casts on the landscape is like no other. Call it the golden hour or the magic hour, or the hour when a quiet hush blankets the land as day turns to night. Birds sing their bedtime songs, jackals practice their forlorn calls, and predators wake, yawning widely, preparing for the hunt. The fading light signals transformation from the brightness to darkness, from things seen to those unseen.  Lazy, sleeping lions transform from looking like cuddly stuffed animals to ferocious stalkers of anything that moves. Hunger calls them to action, stealthy and relentless in their pursuit. Owls waken, looking for bush animals on
Post a Comment
Read more

Esther Mahlangu - Ndebele Artist

  This beautiful woman is 92-years-old and lives in a small Ndebele village in Mpumalanga. Esther Mahlangu is an Outsider Artist, self-taught from the age of nine, who has achieved great success with her bold, colorful art reflecting traditional Ndebele culture. It’s not clear, but it seems she never went to school and can only write her name on her artwork. However, she has two honorary doctorates for her contributions to the art world. Her success was serendipitous. In 1986, researchers from France were roaming around looking for traditional art forms. One road led them to the artist’s village, where they became enthralled by Mahlangu’s uniquely painted houses. Right time, right road!  They invited her to create murals for an international contemporary art exhibition at the Magiciens de la Terre in France. Her obscurity was soon over and she quickly became a phenomenon in the Pan-African art world. Her resume is awe-inspiring. Look her up, here’s one link - https://www.sahistory.org
Post a Comment
Read more

Super Mom

  Super Mom   Super Mom    Seeing a coalition of eight cheetahs in the bush is more than a lucky sighting; it is rare and magical. What's even crazier is that my friends and I had already seen this family many times during the year and a half before taking this photo. Here's their story. Two cheetah sisters had two litters around the same time. Sister one had six cubs, and sister two or three cubs. For whatever unexplainable reason, one of sister two's cubs migrated to sister one's family, making her the mother of seven. She quickly acquired the moniker of Super Mom by all the rangers in the park. One mom, seven cubs. She had to chase them all around when they were babies, feed them (they have about a 58% success rate when chasing down a meal), teach them the ways of the bush, and most of all, keep them safe. Whenever we saw them, they were healthy, playful, and did whatever mom told them to do - move, rest, get down from a tree, get out of the road, stay quiet! We grew
Post a Comment
Read more