Polony sandwich pleasure for the poor

ON CHRISTMAS weekend it felt like it was time to go and do my bit for the street people of Cape Town.

Did you know that from two loaves of sliced bread you can make 22 sandwiches, excluding the crust ends. The garlic polony smelled of heavy garlic, like 10kg of garlic actually, the whiff of garlic alone would have scared any vampire away at 100 yards.

While slicing the polony (nice and thick as it was Christmas and no time to be suinig) the thought of what polony was made of shot through my mind and exited on the other side just as quickly, knowing there was garlic in was all I needed to know.

Some things in life are better left not to be understood; what any processed meat is made of is one of those. It’s like trying to understand marriage and true love – good freaking luck.

It was a lovely day so the plan was to hand out the sandwiches in the Company’s Garden and then make a day of it. I left my flat in the City Bowl at 8.57am and by 9.30am the sandwiches were gone, handed out to very eager, humble and happy street people; I did not even make the Garden.

I was shaken and shocked when it took only 33 minutes, and the sandwiches were gone, a scary eyeopener to the destitute out there on the city streets.

On New Year’s Day the same scenario was repeated, using a different brand of sliced bread and again I got 22 sandwiches. This time around the sandwiches were gone in 40 minutes and the eager hands were still there to receive them.

There is so much hunger on our streets. Let’s make 2018 the year where we turn away from the crooked politics and politicians and the crooked rich, the only people worth our effort is those who have nothing.

Let’s start making the effort to give something to those with nothing. You will be amazed what happiness a simple polony sandwich can bring into someone’s life. Gustav Lindemann Tamboerskloof