Freshly Grown ....

About 4 months ago - I posted about an amazing a group of women who supported HIV infected neighbours in their squatter camp .... and to whom i had given the last few rand in my pocket to in order to help them with their small garden .....

To be honest .... of late - my idealism about giving money away has been beaten down by some hard-gained hard-nosed scepticism .... after two years in this country - i assumed that the cash would have probably been used to buy more than a few rounds of drinks down at the local shebeen ... and if not several bags of tik to smoke ... frankly anything to make the poverty and misery less overwhelming ....

And so when Pauline, one of the women involved in the project, gave me a call last weekend muttering that something was a problem and that i needed to come to the camp urgently ... my heart sank .... by chance i was in the area .... and so reluctantly i agreed ..... i hid most of my cash away, backed up my computer, left my valuables at home (this is after all south africa) .... and journeyed nervously out into the informal settlement .... expecting the very worst ....

Instead .... I was met with much giggling from the assembled women - pleased that they'd set me up .... and after the prerequisite singing - they proudly led me to their neat happy rows of green .... nicely fenced off .... interspersed with watering bins and garden tools ....

The women's group had taken their little garden and turned it into a mini-vegetable farm .... and more importantly they were turning in quite the profit for their support group members ..... they had just wanted to show just how well and how much they'd done on the paltry 500 rand ....

I was ecstatic for them ... and rather ashamed for me ..... clearly you can spend too long in a place and start to become far too cynical ....

They wouldn't take any more money (more to salve my conscience really) .... and they wouldn't take no for an answer - and so I left with my arms piled high with cabbages, sugar beet and spinach .... and with my loot - i made the best veggie curry ever .... there's clearly nothing like the taste of goodness ....