It feels like I have not blogged in ages! I haven't had a chance, with assignments due very soon, they are all I think about right now. I look around me and people's gestures, the scents around me, light, all these somehow translate to either Milton, Paradise Lost, Master Harold and the Boys - Athol Fugard, or Es'kia Mphahlele's Down Second Avenue. These are my best friends at the moment, but unfortunately I can't even enjoy them because I can't afford the luxury of taking my time to drink every word on the pages and to bond with the imagery presented to me. No, I have to write something smart and submit it very soon.
But something has been nagging my thoughts lately. Here in Johannesburg it is not easy to trust anyone, even family at times! It may sound crazy but tricksers are all around, a problem common with all big cities. So I am just wondering how other people react to a stranger asking them for money and saying they are desperate and narrating some sad story. How do you react to that? I have had many such encounters in the streets and I would not even blink, moved right along as if I didn't see or hear anyone speak. But this one time, recently, I met a woman with the most adorable two children. She told me her stranded story and asked for money. My heart broke, but I sincerely did not have money on me, although I could have made a plan. With all my heart I wanted to help her, she asked for R100 for petrol or something like that and gave me her cellphone number and address, but I didn't have the money. I later smsed her, and prayed for her.
I have heard that the Jozi tricksters are getting smarter by the day, could it be that I was falling for some trick and fortunate not to have money with me, or was that encounter meant to lead me to praying for that woman and sowing a seed of salvation in her life? We'll I don't know yet.
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