Chance to show our humanity

The lovely Snapdragon was on the warpath this week. It hasn’t always been easy in these financially pressing times, but we have paid the three-year-old Egg’s nursery school fees punctually throughout the lockdown.

Now, a rumour has reached her all-too-keen ears that the nursery school did not pay some of their workers’ salaries at the end of last month, because they are waiting for a Sassa grant.

I’m not talking about a reduced salary – I’m talking about no salary. Nada. For people who, in normal times, battle to make ends meet.

If true, I can understand the nursery school’s thinking. The school is closed and those employees can’t work, which justifies not paying them, they probably think.

But, by the same measure, the school is closed and the little Egg can’t attend. We have to make other plans at great expense and inconvenience to make sure she is not only looked after every day, but that she also receives the bit of education that is possible for such a little hooligan.

So why should we continue to pay school fees until the school reopens? We do it because we know there are good people who depend on our money to get their salaries and to feed their own families.

We have exactly one worker in our humble home. The dear Monica, who manages our household three times a week, was seriously injured in a gas bottle explosion last year and couldn’t work for several months. We paid her full salary throughout this period.

Now, during lockdown, she received her full salary, even though I did not.

These salary payments don’t make us good people. It merely indicates that we know too many families that depend on every cent to keep a roof over their heads and food in their tummies.

We all know the dangers posed by the coronavirus. We are almost defenceless against it because we are humans.

But the same virus gives us the opportunity to demonstrate our human side.

Dear reader, I call on you to resist the temptation to make these times even tougher for the most fragile in our community.

Reduce the economic impact on the less fortunate as far as possible. Because without compassion, we would be little more than viruses ourselves.