reflection

She asked me to walk with her to an appointment with another community group. We didn’t have any work transportation and it was against the culture and I guess wisdom to walk alone. Especially as a woman. So if we needed to go somewhere for work or to buy lunch we asked someone else to join. I often enjoyed the buddy system time, but some days it was hot or there was other work to do.

But I had never gone anywhere with her so I said yes. We were talking about things and I mentioned we had no mirrors where we were staying. (Living in three different places we went from no mirrors, to an awkward amount of too many mirrors, to no mirrors again). It is interesting the things you stop paying attention to with mirrors, but I mentioned it none the less.

We worked in a church where some people were a little better off and I figured someone would have an old mirror lying around or in a room they didn’t use too much. She seemed concerned and asked if I would like her to find a mirror maybe from a friend. I didn’t want to inconvenience her and new she was struggling to make ends meet with time and money. I explained I was only looking for something to borrow for a few months and then would give it back before I left South Africa.

She stopped walking and said no you couldn’t give it back. If someone gave you a mirror it would be a gift to you. You couldn’t give it back.

I didn’t want something new or really a gift, but to borrow something that would be useful to someone again. Our debate continued, even though I had started by just making conversation. I explained I couldn’t really bring a mirror home with me, it would break in a suitcase.

She finally said well you could give it to someone else who needed it, but it would be an insult if you gave something back to the person who gave it to you.

I understood her point. The next day, she told me to take the white bad in the staff room. It was for me. I figured out she didn’t want to bring attention to it or talk about it at work. When I got home I opened her present that was carefully wrapped in newspaper. It was a piece of mirror about the size of a piece of paper.

Sitting on the sink in the bathroom it was still hard to hold to be too useful. And people often asked why it was there or told me to be careful with the edge. I hadn’t intended on a joke about mirrors becoming my gift, a reminder, a lesson. So to me the sharp edge of a mirror didn’t make it trash or dangerous, it was a gift and the connection of our stories.

In Zulu her name means gift. Nosipho.