The Word Cloud

Several times a year, containers are sent out here from England, packed with equipment for the charity my husband runs. Mostly, they are filled with donated bicycles, computers, sewing machines, books and even an odd Landrover or two. Stuffed in between all this requested equipment are often ‘little extras’. These are usually items that people have donated for their convenience, to save themselves a trip to the dump. Things like old clothes, broken shoes or outdated things, like reams of transparent overhead projector paper that no one uses anymore. Sometimes these things are a nice surprise, other times they are just awkward to dispose of out here.

In the last container, someone had stuck in a bag full of swimming noodles – those long polystyrene sausages that kids use to help them float in the water. The only thing is that they were all torn and in short broken pieces. No good for using as a swimming aid, that’s why they had been chucked out. So, yesterday, I drove around the local swimming pools to see if I could off-load them on anyone. No one was interested, and I can’t blame them. These were just dirty lumps of faded foam.

On the way home, I stopped at the supermarket for milk. There were only a few minutes before closing time, so I left my four children in the car, while I ran in. While I was gone, the usual melee of beggars and street children crowded round the car, peering in at my children and holding out their hands for money. My children know that I don’t usually give the street kids money, as I have seen some of them buying cigarettes and alcohol with their proceeds. (Not sure if it’s for them or for adults controlling them). However, if I have a bag of milk or a doughnut in my shopping bag, I might offer it to them if they look really hungry.

So, my kids wound down the car windows and told them that they had no money, but they did have noodles! One by one, Santa-like, they handed out these toys to small grabbing hands. But, to their horror, the street kids stuffed the coloured pieces of polystyrene in their mouths, and started to chew off great lumps.

‘Osadya! Don’t eat them!’ my kids called out, in alarm. But by now, the street kids were chomping their way through the noodles, aggressively fighting off any competition.

By the time I returned to the car, the noodles were filling up several hungry bellies, and the smiling kids were begging for more.

As I pulled away, my children were begging me to do something.

‘The noodles were dirty, mummy. Won’t they hurt the children’s tummies?’

I shrugged. What could I do now? At least the kids wouldn’t be hungry for a while. And polystyrene is pretty inert stuff, isn't it? Not much different from the cheap, fake-cheese maize puffs sold universally here. It probably wasn’t what the UK donor had had in mind for them, but the noodles had made a pretty satisfying meal for a hungry child.