Have you got your sandwiches ready?

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him. ~Albert Schweitzer

Saturday, 18 July 2009 was the inaugural Mandela Day. The cause was celebrated all over the world and the point was to 'make an imprint' by dedicating 67 minutes of your time on that day to basically spreading good vibes by helping someone or making some sort of contribution to making the world better. The time would be spent in honour of continuing Nelson Mandela's legacy and remembering the 67 years he spent as a leader, trying to make his country and the world a better place.

I've spoken a few times here about giving of myself and how much I felt I should do that more. When I heard about Mandela Day, I thought this was my opportunity to stop talking about it and BE about it. My idea: to drive the streets of my city with packed sandwiches and give them out to needy people as we came across them. Pretty simple and straight-forward, right?

Anyway, Hubby and I started off at about 12:20 or so and the 67 minutes started ticking. I had it all worked out in my head... we'd get to the city centre and at every traffic light there'd be the usual three or four guys either begging or selling stuff; we'd stop at the red lights and hand out our lovely festively-packaged sandwiches with smiles and salutations all round while we gleefuly shouted "Happy Mandela Day!" as we pulled off, hooting... lol.

But it was not to be...

The experience of Mandela Day was a really big eye-opener for me. I am still amazed at how we agonized about the selection of our beneficiaries. As soon as we got into town, we realised we had no system or real plan. And a lot of questions that we were only now asking ourselves, 20 minutes into our 67!

Would we give to beggars? We decided that maybe we shouldn't because they really weren't desrving. Everyone knows they make a lot of money for doing nothing but standing around looking disshevelled and miserable. But, 30minutes in, we hadn't seen anyone that was deserving so we pulled up at a red light and sure enough, there was this kid... begging.

He couldn't have been older than about 16 or 17, so we decided 'why not' and gave him a sarmy. "Happy Mandela Day!", we said smiling. The kid nodded his head and walked on to the next car... no smile. no thank you. nothing! We were like WTF?!? and I looked back at him in the rearview mirror. The sandwich was gone! I have no idea were he put it, but he stood there, between the two lanes of cars, empty-handed and making sickly little gestures between his stomach and his mouth as he emplored our fellow motorists to pity him with some food.

WoW! I was stunned, but I had to think about what I really expected to happen. Well, I guess I have already answered that question quite early in this blog post. Could I really describe what 'needy' means? I mean, just because that kid was on the hustle and he needed to keep up the appearance of sheer destitution to get any more food, did that mean he didn't need the sandwich? Or maybe he needed something else that I could have given.

That question still forming in my subconscious, we moved into the next neighbourhood. (Now, the South African socio-economic dynamic is so definitive, vivid and palpable that I hope anyone unfamiliar to the country will still follow). Picture an old white neighbourhood with a small mall-type centre and across the road a smaller centre with the old Portuguese-owned take away, post office, habedashery, dry cleaner, little Italian restaurant, etc... Of course, at lunchtime on a Saturday, there is bound to be an assortment of black people sitting scattered across the tiny lawns and their railings... on break from work or looking for work.

We pull into the parking lot and think this is the perfect spot, there's gotta be someone needy here who's not a beggar. And that, my friends, I learned is one of the hardest things you could ever try and do! How do you assess 'need' by just looking at someone? There were so many people there... big mama's talking loud with their friends, domestics with the white babies they've been charged with caring for for the day, men in blue overalls asleep in the sun, the shopping centre security guard, the car guards... And every single one of them, I was sure, needed someone to perform some random act of kindness for them at that moment, but all I had was sandwiches.

All I had was sandwiches.

We drove around, and up & down, and debated... Picking people out and then gultily picking reasons why they weren't the ones. "These sandwiches are pretty rudimentary, so we've gotta give it to someone who won't judge - who's really just, like, starving"; "He looks pretty well-dressed and clean. Won't we come across as arrogant and as thinking that we're better than him?"; "He's obviously got a job, I'm sure he's got money for lunch"; "What if they think we're trying to poison them"; "I can't do it. You go. If you go, they'll be more receptive"; "But I feel so awkward... no, no, I can't. You go".

And so it went until we had been sitting in the parking lot of another centre in the area for about 10 minutes, watching the man who was sweeping up leaves on the sidewalks (not to mention having changed parking spots twice while doing it! lol). Sounds utterly pathetic, I know. Anyway, Hubby just decided to go for it and after a couple of "What do I say"s and "what if"s, he took the sandwich and went off to give it to the guy. Apparently he just gave him a funny look and then thanked him. He watched Hubby walk away for a while before he finally took a sniff of the sandwhich, peeked inside it, and then took a bite.

The first one was the hardest (the beggar doesn't count). We (or I, rather) quickly eased into it and went on to give away all our sandwiches, but one. I changed tack by losing "Happy Mandela Day" and rather explaining what Mandela Day was and why I was giving sandwiches, which elicited much better reactions. The whole experience was thoroughly rewarding. I'm still all about LOVE and I'm so going to make a habit of giving. But, it was also a lesson...

I had this idea that our 67 minutes was going to be a walk-over, but it turned out to be (a mostly agonising) 2 and half hours! I learned that everyone has a story. I learned that all it takes is a little time to get to know someone's story & you would be surprised to learn how much you really can give with what little you've got. We had it in our heads that 'needy' people are out there, like this other sub-species of human with easily identifiable markings. But we are needy too - all of us. Whether you have a roof over your head or live under a newspaper. We all need something, that someone close-by can give. We all need something that someone else has a lot of, like love or a helping hand, or time, or friendship, or even sandwiches. Yes, even sandwiches.

Like the one guy we gave a sandwich to by the train station. He was clearly employed in some sort of hard-labour, but he hadn't eaten all day and he needed that sandwich. Even though all I had was a sandwich... the lesson was, all he needed was a sandwich!

And as we drove off and I saw him bow his head in a silent prayer, it all started to hit home. Of all the sandwiches we gave that day, I only saw that reaction once - but just that one guy... just that one sandwich made it all worth it.