I notice her black soft takkies first. White smooth soled and black laced, they’re shuffling down the aisle beside my sandals. I glance sidelong. A tired face. Simple plaits hold the hair to the side of her head. A thick blue towel covers her white blouse, binding the baby close to her back. I am staring at the pasta, imported from Turkey, on the shelves. It’s one of the few carbohydrates you can find anymore, and I think to myself I’d best learn to love potatoes. At over $600,000 a pack, I’m not going to be eating any pasta again soon.

I’ve gone to this shop in one of Harare’s most affluent suburbs knowing things will be expensive. But hoping just maybe I’ll find something edible. My heart goes out to the woman beside me. I size her up to be a domestic worker, perhaps, or the wife or sister of a gardener employed at one of the houses in the neighbourhood. What can she possibly be feeding herself, and her child, I think to myself with a sigh. I turn and move on to the next aisle, leaving the pasta behind. I notice her pick up a spaghetti packet behind me and sigh again, doubting she could afford it.

I hear the sound of crumpling plastic as I wander aimlessly past the endless shelves of tinned tomato puree, and I turn, just as the woman finishes tucking the pasta safely into the wide wrap of towel at her child’s legs. My eyes widen as my brain registers what she’s doing. Her eyes widen as she realises I’ve spotted her. In an instant I know I won’t dob her in. But I don’t know how to tell her. She looks scared and I smile wanly, shrug, and disappear, hoping she knows I won’t tell; hoping she walked straight out of the shops and home. I stand in front of the empty meat freezers and think about the risk borne by desperation. I leave the shop empty handed.

Five hours, 40 kilometres and eight shops later, the woman’s face still haunts me. Why didn’t I think quicker? Why didn’t I offer to buy her the pasta? Why didn’t I speak with her? What would she have said? What would I have said? What is this place doing to us?

Some time back, a friend flew down to Johannesburg. On the plane, he passed someone leaving the toilet as he was going into it. The lav stank of cigarette smoke, and he suspected the man he’d seen coming out. So he mentioned it to a flight attendant, and pointed the bloke out to them, believing himself a responsible, civic-minded traveller. His heart raced a bit as he got off the plane and saw the same man being taken aside by ground security. He felt a pang of self-doubt wondering what the man’s fate would be.

The story proved grist for many a dinnertime conversation. What would you have done? Why turn him in, why not turn him in, who are you helping, what point are you proving, when is it best to speak up, and when is it best to keep quiet? Which laws do you play a part in enforcing, which do you ignore, and which do you break, and why?

Last year some friends had a visitor who spoke a lot about our “moral floor.” That we, all of us, must have some personal sense of right and wrong, our own set of principles that we know it would be wrong to violate. And that, presumably, if we all did a better job of keeping our moral floor stable and polished and well swept, our lives and those of the others around us would be better off.

I know she has a point. But over the past few years here, I’ve certainly noticed my moral floor boards sagging a bit here and there. We’re all just trying to get by. But what’s a fair price for survival?

Leaving another shop with empty shelves, I called a truce with my foraging instinct. I’d left the house with a list: matches, milk (enough to last four people one week) petsfood, and something to eat. I was returning with milk (enough to last four people two days), cooking oil and potatoes. It would have to do.

As I walked across the carpark, a woman approached me. Tall, lean and hollow eyed she asked me for help. She had three children, a running stomach, no food and no money, she told me. Wouldn’t I assist. My thoughts were with my shoplifter as I reached into my bag and gave her what I had in cash – $600,000. Her face lit up in amazement and she thanked me profusely; it was far more than she’d expected. I smiled thinly and turned away, barely seeing her. I don’t know the value of our money any more. I don’t know how much is a lot and how much is a little. I don’t know what things should cost, I only know what they do. And in all the scramble and scraping and dealing and plan making, what is the cost to our humanity?

This entry was posted on September 16th, 2007 at 11:33 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.