If 7 maids with 7 mops swept for half a year, do you suppose, the Ballito unofficial street sweepers could sweep Ballito clean?
I doubt it very much, because our 6 or 7 resident beggars have been trying for almost as long and they have not gained an inch.
In fact, they have been sweeping and ‘mending’ potholes at the exact same street corners and look to have no intention to move.
Some don’t even bother with the moving of sand from one side of the road to the other, and instead employ what I call the ‘Praying Starving Man’ position. It clearly works like a charm.
I may sound heartless but the situation really has got out of hand.
Let me give you some of the back story.
When the beggars, on bended knee, first arrived on Ballito street corners a few months ago we all gawked in horror and dished out food and money in great plenty.
Could this be the result of lockdown, we all wondered? Are people truly starving?
The North Coast Courier Orphan Fund co-ordinator at the time took great pains to try to help each one, finding out where they lived and directing them to NGO-run centres near their homes who promised to give them warm meals and help them get back on their feet.
Only it turned out that was not as lucrative as begging.
I cannot help wondering how much a Ballito beggar earns in a day?
Of course, there may be some genuine cases who need help, only it strikes me that these are unlikely to be found on street corners.
A report published by Solidarity Helping Hand in 2016 revealed that ‘most beggars on the street are drug addicts’ – as many as 80% to 90%.
Interviews conducted by Solidarity senior researcher Nicolien Welthagen showed that 20% of the money beggars receive goes towards food, while the rest is spent on drugs.
An extract from the report read: “When you’re on drugs you don’t have any appetite. That is why the guys become so thin. The person you see begging on a street corner is not the full picture. You cannot see or realise the extremely complicated, entangled life of everything constituting the world of a drug addict.”
My suggestion: Make eye contact. ‘A person’s a person no matter how dirty’.
Give kind words and food (cuppa soup packets are easy to keep in the car) or water but do not give money. It only helps the person stay captive to a life as a beggar. There are so many hard working NGOs we could support instead.
I bumped into Richard Ngwane the ice-cream seller on the beach on Saturday.
Richard inspires me.
He’s in his 60s and carrying a heavy cooler bag filled with ice-creams and travels to Tongaat from rural Ndwedwe every morning to buy stock before lugging them to Ballito.
His feet are calloused and his back hurts but he keeps on going.
There’s also Mr Wilson who sells cattys, salad servers and walking sticks. I see him walking everywhere, from Burnedale to Thompson’s Bay, hawking his wares. He’s not young either.
These men work for a living and they work hard.
There are many others like them if one cares to look.
Having just spoken to Richard, I was touched by his humility and perseverance and it made me angry to see able-bodied people lining the street corners with begging bowls and pleading eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, I have genuine compassion for them. Only I don’t think my donations, no matter how large, will ever remove them from their posts.
