twinutero

This post is in support of Blog Action Day on Poverty: October 15, 2008

The boy cupped his tiny brown hands and tilted his head just slightly. His ragged T-shirt fell from bony shoulders into thin air, and his trousers faded into threads below his knees. He looked seven or eight years old but likely weighed little more than Thomas, my three-year-old. His feet were scuffed and bare. I didn’t understand a word he said.

The boy was probably speaking Afrikaans. But I’m English-speaking Canadian and had lived in South Africa less than a week. I mumbled my incomprehension, and the boy repeated his request. His plea and his gestures were well-practiced but genuine. Their meaning, I realized, was perfectly clear. He was asking for food.

I scanned the parking lot for his parents or siblings, but he seemed alone. Once again, he asked for food, moving his hands from cupped to praying. How could I refuse? I was packing groceries from an upscale market into our new Honda. I grabbed a loaf of bread and handed it to him, smiling. He took it, looked me in the eye, and was gone.

It was a minute gift - but I hadn’t considered Thomas. He was perched in the shopping cart, watching the exchange. As the boy fled, Thomas went wild, as if his most cherished toy had been squandered. His legs flailed as I tried to untangle him from the cart. It was five or ten minutes before he found words.

“My bread! I want my bread! No! No!”

I hadn’t imagined that giving away the bread would upset Thomas any more than handing money to the grocery checker or pushing letters across the counter at the post office. Yet Thomas had identified with the boy as – simply – a boy. Not poor, not hungry, just another child who wanted something that was his. The boy hadn’t said please or thank you (that we know of) and he didn’t share. He just took our food and ran. And that, to Thomas, was wrong.

I felt compelled to explain a greater, more complicated injustice. “We have lots of bread. That boy doesn’t have any. He needs the bread more than we do. We can get more bread at home.”

Eventually, Thomas is quiet, and we are driving away from the shop. I hope he understands.

“Are we not going to give our bread away?” he peeps from the back seat.

He doesn’t understand. How could he?