We can always buy more bananas

I thought a section from Kevin Winge's book Never Give Up is worth quoting. This is the executive director of Open Arms of Minnesota, a US non-profit that has done a lot of work distributing food in Guguletu and other places in South Africa and throughout the continent. He visits JL Zwane twice a year, and has an ongoing relationship with Rev. Xapile. I have mentioned the book before, and it is a decent read if you want to learn more about the community here, and the challenges of providing assistance from the perspective of a North American. While living here for an extended period years ago, he stayed in Seapoint, a posh neighborhood on the Atlantic in Cape Town. The book's title is taken from a song that we sing in church every Sunday, usually after the message about HIV/AIDS. The words are "You must never give up", repeated several times. The picture at bottom is from one of the doorways out of the sanctuary. Here is the story:


"One day I went shopping and stocked up on food and supplies because a friend was arriving from the States for a visit. Later, after the housekeeper had been in to clean, half the fruit I had just purchased was gone, along with all but one roll of toilet paper. Now I knew that it wasn't my imagination. The housekeeper was -- I hate to use the word -- stealing.


"These are little things, petty things... I can deal with grinding poverty. I can handle the sickness and death that permeate life in the townships. I can make the necessary adjustments to daily life to protect myself as much as possible from violence and crime. But at the end of some days, a few missing bananas are more than I can take...


"I'm reluctant to talk about this side of living in South Africa. I'm afraid these experiences will reinforce existing stereotypes that people have about poor people, black people, people living in the developing world. I fear that donors will be reluctant to contribute to legitimate causes because of concern that they will just be asked to do more and more. Or that people won't help other people directly by giving a few rand or employing someone because their generosity won't be appreciated or the assistance won't be seen as enough.


"It's easy to relay success stories or stories that hopefully connect on an emotional level. It is much more difficult to show a less flattering side of people. But failing to acknowledge this part of life... is cowardly and presents an incomplete picture.


"Of course, the sketch... of my housekeeper is also incomplete. If I used an outhouse instead of a bathroom and newspaper instead of toilet paper, and I finally got a job working for a man who has three bathrooms and a linen closet full of toilet paper, maybe I would also put a roll or two in my bag at the end of the day.


"None of us can ever know what we would do in a given situation until we are in that situation. Fortunately for me and for many of us in the developed world, we will never know what it's like to be poor, uneducated, HIV-positive, and living in the townships of South Africa. Instead, we can dwell on our generosity not being properly acknowledged or appreciated. We can get irritated over the constant requests and demands for more of our money. We can complain about the untrustworthiness of employees when a few bananas go missing.


"And then we can go to the store and buy more bananas."