The world we live in...

The other day while I was driving back from a meeting out towards Bellville I drove passed a chap hitch-hiking and I almost stopped to give him a lift.

The reason - cause it sucks when you are hitch-hiking and people just drive right by you without even noticing you. How do i know this? Cause when I did a ski season in Colorado, USA, I sometimes had to hitch a ride. Now there my ex-girlfriend and I had to catch the work bus at around 6:30am to get to the resort to start work and in Colorado in winter it is freakin freezing!

It would easily by -10degrees and sometimes even -20degrees and when you miss the bus you have to try hitch a ride in, and trust me the wind just goes straight through you and its cold. There it would only take longest 10minutes to get a ride, normally.

So, back to my story now. I had driven past this chap and was on my way home and was coming up to the Rondebosch common and at a red light when this elderly chap on crutches came to my window. I thought he was going to ask for some cash so was about to give him some when instead he asked for a lift, so I said 'sure, get in'.

Now I know South Africa has crime and that people are very aware of it and that people do moan and complain a lot about it, also that most of us know someone who has been robbed, raped or worse. And, because of this people don't really like to help people especially because if you give someone a ride you don't really know if they just want a ride or if they want to hijack your car or kill you.

So the chap got in my car and we drove off, think I got quite a few stares from the other drives - they were probably like 'What the hell is he doing!!!?'
After about 30seconds the poor chap was basically in tears, he couldn't believe that someone had finally given him a lift as he had been trying for almost 2 hours.

I was quite taken aback by this and continued to drive not quite knowing what to say, so he started to talk in between his tears about what had been happening and what he needs to do. Basically he was so torn down by the way people had been treating him, he was around 60 years old and had to walk on a crutch because of a car that had crashed into him a few years back and people wouldn't ever give him a lift. He said sometimes cars with 3 young guys in would drive by and not bother to give him a ride and he couldn't understand why they wouldn't as he couldn't be a threat to them physically as they could break him in half.

He was on his way to the Wynberg hospital to get some medicine for his wife, the day before he had walked for 5 hours to get to the waterfront to try get a job. The job was driving people from the hotel to the airport and they couldn't give him his job because he didn't have his driving license on him. The license had been stolen from him and to get a new one he needed almost R200 for the new license and ID photos.

His words were

Its not my fault I don't have a license anymore why should I have to now pay... I almost prefer the old regime...

While obviously I don't agree we should go back to the 'old regime' I do sympathise with the chap that he is stuck a bad circle. He doesn't have money and is trying to get a job but to get the job he needs money...

So, I drove passed the ATM on the way and withdrew some bucks for him to help on his way a bit. He couldn't stop crying the whole way and the scariest thing for me was that he mentioned he had been thinking about taking his life as he had nothing to show for it and was so tired of not been able to put food on the table for his wife and child to eat, so with my vast psychology knowledge (psyc 101 at Rhodes) I told him that that's crazy - if he took his life his wife and child would now have no-one helping them instead of him at least trying and been there.

He did seem to agree a bit here. SO I hope that where ever Jonathan is now more people are helping him like I tried to do. He even tried to get a job making tea or something but was told he couldn't get it because he wasn't female, he said 'its so degrading when you can't even get a job making tea'

Now, my real worry comes in when people just live in their own little world and just drive by people like Jonathan on the road and are very happy to go on a night out and spend R500 plus.

Something has to change, we can't carry on like this where a very small minority keep getting richer and ignore the majority and not care about their plight. I don't know what the answer is but we all need to try and help others around us who are in need, I think that is a good start.

And, please don't go giving everyone lifts now - be careful about who you let in because there are people who would try hijack you or worse...