yesterday a friend and i decided to visit a sprawling "sub economic" area of cape town called delft.
delft is an area close to the cape town international airport and is a sprawl of low cost housing and by now i reckon it could easily be home to a million people.
we were planning on breaking fast at one of the many mosques in the area and had brought a pot of food along so that the congregants who were present for the evening prayer could join us and we them in the iftaar.
upon our arrival, we were greeted by a queue of people outside the mosque waiting for food. the mosque runs a food kitchen and apparently this is the deal every evening now in ramadan with people waiting for handouts. looking through the line i counted at least 12 able bodied males and females who looked that they did not have a worry in the world and to them this was just another free meal.
there were many hungry faces as well, people with deep concern and worry about the next for as luck might have it, the chicken curry and rice arrived late.
when it all was dished up and everyone had their little bowls and plates filled and sad worried faces turned to smiling ones, i was left contemplating that what if the people of this poor mosque had asked those able bodied people for assistance....would they have assisted them in the same way that food was given to them without question.
my resounding answer is...NO!
i hope to be proven wrong sometime...
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