“None of the work in
rigidly fixed modern settings, no matter how noble, matches a discovery of the
long-lost stranger one finds on the street. True devotes of the street find
themselves searching for the stranger, longing to overcome the barrier that
separates us from the countless nameless lives that inundate and encroach upon
us physically in the subways and malls, or on the highway.”
~Marc Gopin, Holy War,
Holy Peace
A week ago, I was in South Africa with a friend. We needed
to get back to Lesotho from a town about an hour and a half across the border,
but with no public transport, hitchhiking was the obvious and frankly only
choice. So my friend and I walk
from the beautiful town of Clarens to the road and stop to wait. Stylish,
empty cars drive by ignoring our waves of desperation. It quickly becomes
apparent that, despite our proximity to the Lesotho border, the culture of
trust that permeates the Mountain Kingdom is absent here.
Allow me a brief digression to explain what I mean. Over the past year, one of the biggest
lessons I’ve learnt in Lesotho is how to trust complete strangers. In Thaba
Tseka, one of the schools I was in charge of monitoring was beyond cell phone
reception, making it impossible to call for any kind of transport when my day
was done. When public transport is difficult to come by hitching rides becomes a way of life. I was surprised that the
first time I hitched even cars that were too full to take me would stop, ask
where I was going, and apologize for not having space. If a car had space, it
was expected that they would stop and
take anyone who needed a ride. In these situations one quickly learns to trust
strangers; the gap between the “self” and the “other” is much closer than the
cult of individualism would have us believe.
Returning to my day in South Africa, as nearly empty cars
continue to drive by, my friend and I decide to walk towards a nearby township.
As we come closer a young man who looks about twenty approaches us. “I’m not a
criminal,” is the first thing he tells us, clearly used to mistrust. “My name is Joseph. I just wanted to
find out if there was anything I could do to help.” We explain we want to get
to Fouriesburg so that we can take a Kombi (15 seat mini van used for public
transport) to the Lesotho border. “I can help you with that,” he smiles.
So we follow Joseph to the top of the road as he tells us bits
and pieces of his story; he talks about his life in Johannesburg, returning home
when his grandfather passed away, and how he now cares for his grandmother. We
wait a while, chatting as cars continue to drive by.
Finally, Joseph is able to flag down a car for us. It’s an
old beat up pickup truck with chipped red paint, a cracked windshield, and
duct tape on the steering wheel. “You don’t want to get in that do you?” he says, looking skeptically at us and then back at
the truck. “Yes we do!” my friend and I say in unison. We hurriedly hand Joseph
a few rand for his help (I love it when people see a need and make up their own
jobs). The men sitting in the
front of the truck offer us their seats and move to the back. We jump in and
introduce ourselves to the driver.
Our driver is Steve.
“Do you smoke?”
Steve asks.
“No,” we say.
“You mind if I light up?”
“Not a problem.”
Steve rolls down the window and lights his cigarette. “I
keep meaning to quit,” he tells us. “But I think you have to really want to
quit to quit, you know what I mean?”
As we drive Steve tells us snippets of his life. He sells
firewood for a living. He has an eight-year-old daughter. He speaks five
languages: Sesotho, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans and English. We, in turn, tell him about
our work in Lesotho and life in Canada.
When we get to Fouriesburg, Steve makes sure we get in the
right Kombi. Just before the Kombi leaves, he gives us a big wave.
“All the best on your journey home,” he says.
“You too,” we smile.
***
I have been reflecting all week on this simple exchange; how
we stood by the side of the road and none of the fancy cars stopped—too busy to
care, too afraid to trust, or perhaps a bit of both.
It was a poor man from a township who stopped to help us
find a ride. It was a man selling firewood who offered us a space in his car.
Why is it that
those who have the least are the most willing to share? Why is it that the
marginalized are so often willing to greet others with great openness?
That day in South Africa there were ultimately two different
attitudes towards the “other” at play:
To the fancy cars we
were merely strangers but to Joseph and Steve we were fellow human beings.
