Eish! London 20 July

Monday, 20 July
This was another of those days when the glaringly obvious differences between South Africa and London appeared so blatant to me. Even though I had a ‘wicked’ (that’s British slang for ‘really awesome’, no I don’t understand how ‘wicked’ ended up ‘good’, but apparently it is; and ‘sick’ is ‘good’ too. Eish!) session of dancing this evening: Spanish, Street Dancing and a bit of Street Jazz. I was exhausted; but I still wrote this diary entry:

I’m the only South African in the TC office as the other members of staff are predominantly British, and otherwise Kiwi or Australian. The discussion this afternoon was around the inefficiency of CRB’s (the one I had to get when I had only been in the country for a day), and how the checks do not stop pedophiles from working with children. (Since I have been in England there has been a lot of press on child pornography rings and nursery school teachers doing things that are too disgusting to write about. The government has been trying to introduce more advanced security checks than their CRB for adults who work with children.) One of the managers was saying that the inefficiency extends towards bus drivers too; that the checks aren’t what he believes they should be and some individuals who are driving buses shouldn’t be. Obviously this whole topic is a huge bag of worms that everyone has a strong opinion about. Everyone in the office had something to say and a story to share at the appalling system and how the children are at risk. Then the conversation veered towards the rules of bus drivers allowing people on to buses without tickets and should the driver be responsible for the person who doesn’t have a ticket? A girl left on her own at a bus stop at night is left in a very risky situation. One lady in the office was up in arms that a driver could even think of refusing a child entry on to a bus. I sat and watched, I didn’t say a word as the comments and opinions on the system and potential circumstances as a whole went back and forth.

I sat there and realised what a different background I come from. Instead of thinking of the shocking possibility of a bus driver with a bad past, I was thinking about the shortage of buses in South Africa and how people pile on to the really old buses that are in use, or they have to use unsafe ‘taxis’ (16 seater mini-buses) to get to where they need to go. Instead of thinking about the poor girl at the bus stop, I was thinking about the driver who has to do his job and her being irresponsible and losing her free travel card. I was thinking of the hundreds of children back home who walk barefoot to get wherever they need to go, where they have nothing for free.

As absolutely, undeniably horrific as rape is, back home it’s way worse than here and it doesn’t just happen because someone is left at a bus stop. I was thinking of how blessed the children in London are to have social services that can get to them and the freedom of public transport to go wherever they need to go, and if they use the buses, for free! The total amounts that children pay to travel back home are extortionate, and the taxi drivers are often way worse than London’s bus drivers will ever be. I sat there and realised how much people take for granted. I sat there wishing that the children back home had what the children here have, without picking up their attitudes with it. It would be so fantastic if South Africa had a transport system for children that they could appreciate and not take for granted. I guess if one doesn’t know any different, then one can’t know that things could be seriously so much worse than they are.

I sat there and realised that first world priorities are very different to third world priorities. I realised that being in a first world country allows people to argue from a looked after, ‘safe’ perspective whereas in a third world country many are so busy trying to get by that survival is the priority. Not that either is right or wrong; the perspectives are just completely different. Obviously I’m generalizing on an incredibly broad canvas here; but I did smile when I thought about how my experiences as a stranger on African soil have been so much more pleasant and welcoming than my experiences as a stranger on British soil. Would that be a third world approach of empathy? Or is it a higher understanding of being blessed with what you do have?