The real wealth of work

Anyone from the area known as The Parks in Johannesburg will know of Delta Park. In the ‘Big Smoke’, this is a restful and respiratory green lung of over a hundred hectares and it provides a welcome playground for many of the city’s residents. If you know Delta Park, then you will know the Blue Bridge – an iconic landmark allowing passage over the Braamfontein Spruit, and a meeting point for pelotons of peddlers, rafts of runners, wanderings of walkers and of course a defecation of dogs. Whilst these are not the official collective nouns of these groupings, perhaps they paint a more vivid picture.

Especially the defecation of dogs.

Hundreds, if not thousands of dogs can be seen in the Delta over a weekend, and most leave a calling card which is their own Facebook posting and attracts a fecal fascination of man’s best friends. Whilst there is a Johannesburg law against this form of canine clutter, like most laws in this extraordinary place, a blind eye becomes a pair, and even a nasal passage is conveniently, and suddenly blocked to any offensive evidence.

Since lock down has eased, there has been an increase in traffic of all types, and the car guards along Marlborough are well and truly back in business. On my last few visits there, I have also met up with Sifiso who is most often encountered at the Blue bridge. Armed with a poop scoop and a green plastic bag, he wears his pink size five hand me down cross trainers with pride, even though he is a size seven. He is reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which takes up a great deal of space in his backpack and it is immediately clear that the book is not just there for show when he gently takes my notebook and pen in his gloved hands to write down a phrase in isiZulu.

He takes great pains and patience to describe each word, and I know that the stubborn secretary of my linguistic left brain will probably never file the sentence correctly for a fluent recall from the far reaches of the banks of my memory. What I won’t forget though, is the meaning behind this phrase which this homeless philosopher helped me to truly grasp.

“When a child is born its hands are closed to show the world it is holding a gift; when a person dies, their hands are open to show that they have let go of this world.”

Sifiso Sithole lost his job as an office administrator and his children live with their Mother, and yet he walks these pathways and cleans up the debris left by the dogs of The Delta. As he greets some of the regulars he smiles in the realization that one dogs turds are another man’s treasure, and he says that although he would prefer not to do this forever, he will do what he can right now. He saw a need, showed up to serve, and he is able to send some money to his young daughter.

Mahatma Gandhi ‘the great one’ wrote about work, and this extract is portrayed in Number Four jail at Constitution Hill where he was imprisoned a number of times in the early 1900’s:

“It is wrong to think of any work as humiliating or degrading. I saw that sometimes there was an argument about who should carry the bucket for urine. If we had understood the full meaning of Satyagraha, [Holding onto Truth] we would have competed with one another in doing such work.” MK Gandhi

I left with so much more than an immaculately written phrase in my notebook. I left with an overwhelming gratitude for the work I still have. That as much as this Covid-19 virus has decimated my job, I still have work, and I only hope I can give to that work, the same open-handed attitude with which Sifiso gives to his serving. Could I arrive with my gifts held tight and then leave them all on the table of my life in a total letting go, and then depart this world showing a pair of open hands with nothing left to give?

In these times when rightfully, so many are demanding to be seen, I wonder if who I’m being is worthy of being seen, and whether the work I do is worth giving with an open hand?

I guess I have a better chance of being seen if I am truly grateful for the work I do, and if that work carries worthy purpose. Work is perhaps so much more than a means to accumulate wealth. It is what gets us up physically, moves us emotionally and serves us spiritually, and it matters not whether we are corporate directors or collectors of dung.

Like so many things in life, we moan about it when it’s around, but we miss it when it’s gone and maybe the real wealth of work lies not in what we do, but rather in how and why we do that work.

Sawubona Sifiso. I see you. Your work and your life matters greatly.

Steve

“Uma Ingani izalwa izandla zivalekile ukubonisa upethe izipho zalomhlaba.

Uma umuntu ashona izandlwa ziyavuleka ukubonisa ukuthi uyazidedela ezomhlaba.”

With thanks to Sifiso Sithole. Philosopher.