It’s so sad how you see people walking in the road with dirty, tatty, washed out clothes that barely cover their bodies and their broken shoes that don’t even match, barely holding on and just enough to cover the feet from the hot tar surface preventing blisters.
They stumble around scratching in rubbish bins on the pavements, hoping for a bite to eat, wasted food – which we take for granted.
Standing outside you see him walk past morning after morning with one broken shoe on the left foot and a dirty, holey sock on the right foot.
He walks with dark clothes and a heavy trench coat, which he clenches tight around his skeletal body, head down but just keeps walking as if he’s got some place to go.
I want to shout to him to wait so I can give him food but something always holds me back – what is it?
I stand there and think to myself; I wish I had so much money that I could open up a place where these poor people can at least bathe, eat, sleep and feel appreciated, but how?
Driving out on the old Mooi River road past the rural settlement I see people standing in queues, waiting to fill their buckets with water, mothers physically exhausted from carrying the children on their backs who are crying due to hunger or thirst.
The whole way of living is so different yet they still try to get by and make ends meet.
The whole point of this is that we take so many things for granted, which is really sad.
I look at these different situations and think how can I help them?
How can I make a difference? How do you help someone if you yourself don’t have money to give or to just try help make their lives better?
And the sad part is that winter is peeking its head around the corner, ready to bite us and these people don’t have anything.
When I voiced my opinion one day to someone, they looked at me all uptight and said: “It’s not your problem, it’s called LIFE.
You will make yourself mentally ill if you continue thinking the way you do.”
I was really taken aback and it upset me because it’s so hard for me to grasp the fact that it is life but it’s so disheartening to know that there are people out there who have nothing and yet, you get us, who have so much and take everything for granted.
Since last year, I have made a point of trying to do something good for someone else, at least once a month.
I encourage you, the reader, to better yourself and do your good deed for the day/month.
When you hear of individuals or businesses who are collecting blankets and food for the less fortunate, play your part.
Put yourself in their shoes before you just drive past or turn your head…that could be you someday.
Unfortunately it’s a reality and it’s called life.
Estcourt News Reader
