The Worker's Prayer

I offer You today all my work, my hopes, my sorrows and joys. Grant me the grace to remain close to You today, to work with You and to do all that I do for Your honour and glory. Help me to love You with all my heart and to serve You with all my strength. Give me the spirit of charity that I may contribute to the happiness of all those with whom I work, and when the job is done, grant us all a peaceful rest. © St Joseph's Worker's Prayer.

Just before Christmas at the end of last year I was browsing through one of the local stationary shops when I overheard a conversation between an extremely rude, ill-mannered client, and a saleslady. Under difficult circumstances the saleslady remained cool, calm and very polite. Afterwards I complemented her on her great customer service. In all honesty I was ready to hit the customer over the head for her racist behaviour.

So when starting this blog the saleslady, whom I now have come to know as Margaret Matsepe-Tau, was definitely going to be my first interviewee. 

The very first thing I noticed when we sat down for the interview was a tiny pin with two praying hands and the words "Worker's prayer".

Just as I hope to touch the hearts of the readers of this blog,  32-year-old Margaret's story touched mine. Margaret grew up with her granny in the foothills of the Maluti mountains in Lesotho. She's the fourth child of seven. "I had to share my granny Maseipone's attention with other siblings and cousins. Those days there were no grants or pension. So in summer we lived off the land and in winter, because of the drop in temperature, we could eat meat when one of our pigs was slaughtered." 

Hardship was part of their lives. Sensing the importance of education, Margaret would walk 12 kilometres to school in all kinds of weather, and without shoes. "I got my first pair of shoes in 1992 when I was eleven." In that second, the look in her eyes told me the importance of that first pair of shoes.

Margaret never knew her father, and her mom was a stranger who appeared once a year over the Christmas holidays - empty-handed. "To this day I struggle to accept gifts over Christmas."

Struggling to find work in Lesotho, an elder brother left for Bloemfontein and disappeared from their lives for almost a year. Margaret was sent by her granny to go and look for him. Lucky to find him, he refused for her to leave and go back to the poverty of Lesotho. For the first time in her life, she had new clothes and a meal before and after school. 

Today Margaret is the proud mother of 10-year-old Keitumetse, which means "I am happy, I am thankful". She gladly pays R250 per month in taxi fare for her daughter to attend school. Margaret's dream is to earn enough for Keitumetse to attend either St Michael's or Eunice, both well-known girls' schools in our home-town of Bloemfontein, to get the education she would have loved to had.

I asked her what would be her dream for South Africa. "To feel more protected," she said with a determined light in her eyes, before telling me how she was almost killed coming back from work late one evening. "It was on 16 June 2009, of all dates." Margaret said it's so sad that criminals have more rights than victims. What does ubuntu mean to her? "To me its the word people use when they want something from you."

She's had some good and bad experiences with clients. "Once a lady waltzed into the store, completely ignoring me. She spoke to the Afrikaans-speaking assistant, and referred to me as useless." A sadness filled her eyes: "My heart was broken."

Then her eyes lit up and she told me of a middle-aged lady who lives in the nearby town of Brandfort. "She buys in bulk from the store. She greets me before I can even say 'hallo'. She's always smiling, and thanks me for my help." Margaret looked me straight in the eye: "You know what - to her I am Margaret, I exist."

Margaret's struggle to get to work includes having to take two taxis. Proudly, she told me about the family home in Phase 9. "We've recently got a roof!" At the same time there is sadness for her husband who works in Johannesburg and whom she and her daughter only get to see once or twice a month.

Margaret calls herself a general worker. She smiled when I interjected with "a Jill of all trades". In an ideal world she would like to own her own business and perhaps complete a degree in Business Management. 

I walked away from the interview in the soft rain being glad for meeting a proud, strong, determined woman like Margaret. My wish is that her dreams come true and that, when we meet again, she will know the word ubuntu because she sees it in the eyes of her customers.