The street we live in is a very busy one. It is a thoroughfare for people using the central business district of Somerset West as their shopping, work and entertainment hub.
Mostly, they are pedestrians from the communities living on the other side of the railway. It also hosts a primary school, two churches, three retirement homes and privately owned properties.
Since the onset of the construction of the public transport interchange (PTI), there’s the menace of minibus taxis also using our busy street from their temporary holding area. But that topic is for discussion at another time.
Sitting at my window in my rocking chair I have a full view of the street and everything that happens in it. Watching all this hustle and bustle, I have noticed something very disturbing and heart breaking . . . a generation of beggars! And it is mostly young people, including children younger than 13 years.
These kids walk in groups, moving from home to home, walking in the hot sun, freezing cold, howling wind and pouring rain. Bare feet and dirty torn clothes are their only attire. You can see they have not bathed for days! They call out: “antie, antie, antie” while leaning against the garden gate, hoping that “antie” will hear them and bring something to eat.
Then there are the older beggars roaming our busy street. They linger around shop entrances, lying down and/or sitting down on pavements in our street where they beg for food.
Where does one even begin to describe the horror of being one who is destitute?
He walks on bare feet, sagging dirty clothes and a dirty old blanket draped over his shoulders. His head bobs up and down, as if he keeps confirming something to himself. Every now and then he covers his ears with his hands, wildly shaking his head, all the while mumbling something to whomever in his head. He stops at the street-litter bins, but his other beggar brothers have been there too, so the bin is empty! And I wonder how many more litter bins he must endure before there is a morsel for him?
They always walk together; could they be sisters or just friends, maybe a couple? Their hair is uncombed and their clothes dirty and torn, like every other beggar sister roaming the streets with them. Some wear old weary shoes and some just walk barefoot. Do they have a family, children? The thought of that makes me want to cry!
Lately there has been another dimension added to the child groups and older beggar single groups – a family of parents and children walking from home to home to beg for food, or a “bread penny”.
What, dear Lord, is the human race doing to it’s children? How do you begin to explain to them they need to fend for themselves by begging next to you? How low must those parents go and feel emotionally to expect that from their children?
All of that being said, unemployment, alcohol and drugs play a big part in this human-horror beggar show.
“Lord, please forgive us for we don’t know what we are doing.”
