Page 49 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 7

COMMUNITY
until they are frustrated again.
Something needs to be done to
shift the behavior. This ‘some-
thing’ is not limited to the ballot
and it can include the courts
of law, under which even the
withholding of said funds may
be possible until the employ-
ees change their behavior and
learn some manners. We are
responsible for the society we
are building. Supporting certain
types of behavior makes one
complicit in the injustice. Again,
if only for the sake of one’s
immortal soul, one must speak
and act.
Create a Culture of Care
There’s a company I have had
the displeasure of having deal-
ing with that provides a service
that has become something of
a necessity. It’s a monopoly, so
no one can really get away from
it, unless they are able to make
a hefty cash investment in the
equipment required to escape
their clutches or do without their
services altogether. The compa-
ny doesn’t care, it never loses.
If you don’t pay, then you don’t
get the service and in order to
get the service, you have to
pay. When you call to report
a service outage you are met
with responses such as, “You
just have to wait.” The support
staff even gets belligerent if you
try to press the issue to explain
to them that there has been a
trend in service failure that you
want addressed for the long
run. Service quality is not a pri- by the taxman prevented them
ority to them, except when it will
cost the country investor dollars
(i.e. they were threatened by
someone they deem worthy of
responding to.)
I’m told that this company
charges on the basis of neigh-
borhood. Some neighborhoods
pay more for their services,
www.msingiafrikamagazine.com
like it or not, because of their
perceived high status. Meaning
that no matter what cost saving
measures these families try to
put in place, they will continue
to be hit with the same fees
over and over and over again.
The irony of the culture we have
created is that one can live in
such a neighborhood and actu-
ally have little or no money, so
while their classification should
really be for a different income
group, because their home is
situated in the ‘rich’ area, they
pay ‘rich man’s’ prices. The ser- to find a workaround and we got
vice provider doesn’t care and
any appeal to make changes is
met by a lot of promises to act,
but since company policy has
already been set, the neighbor-
hood must pay, so it’s residents
must pay.
Contrast this with someone
who was selling water to my
husband and I recently. The
house we live in has water that
is not potable, so we purchase
water for drinking and cooking,
yes, in 2020. This is something
common in many neighbor-
hoods across the country, yet
despite that, bottled water was
recently classified as a luxury
item and subjected to addition-
al levies. Anyway, we recently
found a lovely spot where the
water cost half of what we used
to pay, but on a particular day
when we went for a top up,
having carefully factored in the
cost into our budget, we were
told that some new regulation
from selling to us as long as
we had bottles that belonged
to another company. (So much
for recycling initiatives) Anyway,
we needed water and went to a
supermarket that was close by,
whose prices are much higher
and as a result we were a little
short of cash. We explained the
heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika
situation and the man in charge
of the water section not only
sold us the quantity we needed,
but he topped it up a little and
then gave us a little money so
that we could bridge the gap
between what we had and what
it cost. We didn’t beg, we didn’t
cry or have to humiliate our-
selves like some people seem
to want others to do before they
offer their help, we didn’t have
to justify the value our existence
on the planet. We simply ex-
plained our situation and tried
our water because someone
saw us as people, like himself.
Not only that, he didn’t despise
our purchase at all. He treated
us like we were every other
customer paying the full rate,
taking the time to heat seal our
bottle with such care that he left
us almost speechless. We were
blown away by the fact that he
just… cared. Yes, in 2020.
To lack compassion in any-
thing you do from lawmaking
to stitching a shoe robs society
of much needed life, because
all you will do is pursue your
own goals, be it to make more
money or gain status or what-
ever, all at the detriment of the
customer, or your citizens and
your society as a whole. This
allows you to ‘get ahead’, while
stepping on the heads of your
brothers, but your stench is
foul. What manner of culture is
that? Heartless and hard and
mean spirited and it engenders
so much ill will and stress that it
sickens the heart of the society.
I have read that in America, for
instance that law makers are
considering putting in place
provisions to allow the govern-
ment to take temporary custody
of people’s children so as to
vaccinate them and then return
them to their parents to deal
| 49