“So what’s in your bag Mr. Pat?” I’m writing this ten thousand metres over the Sahara desert en route to Ireland after another visit to Sables which was, as always, heart-wrenching, laughter-inducing, guilt-provoking, awe-inspiring - and all at the same time! Early this morning we went down to Sables to spend the last few hours there before dashing to the airport in Lusaka. The buildings in Sables are now decrepit, falling down at this stage but who cares - by the time the rains come we’ll be safely in our newly-built premises and a new era of life in Sables will have begun. Regardless though, of where we’re housed, it is the children which make Sables - Sean Sables or Sables Nua. I arrived this morning, early, to go around and say shalenipo. There were the usual tears and promises made to return soon. Leaving Sables is ALWAYS difficult; there’s the mix of emotions - anxious to get home (the All-Ireland Final is coming up, after all!) but, at one and the same time, reluctant to leave. (One of these days I won’t leave!) I got to see all the kids bar one. I went to look for him and found him in the run-down room that passes for a dormitory for our night shelter boys. He was sitting on his bed, his eyes were holding back the tears - just about. “You’re going away again”, a statement not a question as he had seen my bag in the back of the Ranger when I drove in. “Yes, I’m going but I will return”. “ Are you going home to see your mother?” “No, my mother dies many years ago”. “My mother is dead also”. There followed an awkward silence while he looked at me. Eventually he said “I have a photograph of my mother; would you like to see it?” “Of course, I would love to”. Each of the lads has a big metal trunk in which they keep, quite literally, all they possess. He proudly pulled his trunk out from under the bed. “This is my trunk”, he said, “I keep my treasures in here”. He took a key from around his neck and carefully unlocked the little padlock guarding all his worldly possessions. With a proud look at me he opened the trunk and laid bare everything he owned - a few bits of clothes, some galimotos (brilliant home-made toys fashioned out of milk cartons and bottles) and a crumpled page of a magazine. He very carefully unfolded the page - it was a page from a magazine, probably South African Cosmopolitan or suchlike - and showed me a photograph of his ”mother”. Somewhere, somehow this lad had fastened on the idea that the model in the magazine photo was his mother and he beamed with pride as he showed it to me. It was a humbling experience - for me. “She was very beautiful”, I said. We walked out to the car and chatted some more; now it was I who was holding back the tears. “What’s in your big bag Mr. Pat?” he asked, looking at my bulging rucksack and his question rocked me back on my heels, filling me with embarrassment or shame or some mixture of both. I thought of what my bag did contain- chitenges, a drum, some flowery Zambian shirts, a few Mosis, bags of coffee, dried fruit, pots of jam. I mentally contrasted the totally indulgent, unnecessary contents of my bag with the cherished items in the battered metal box of an orphaned child. Which of the two of us is the poorer?
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:40:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015