The Woman at the Drainage Ditch

Yesterday we took a 30-minute walk to Pick-n-Pay to buy some groceries. Most people around here walk. We drive. I think walking is to driving as reading the book is to watching the movie. You experience life in Lesotho much more perceptively when you walk.

On our way back home we took an alternate route down a steep dirt path. At the bottom of the bank we encountered an older woman wrapped in a cloth, washing her hair under a drainage pipe. Her clothes were laid out on the field, drying in the sun.

I gestured to the woman that she should follow us home, thinking she could shower and clean her clothes at our house. Of course this wasn’t very practical since her clothes were likely still wet. She indicated that she was hungry and wanted money. We gave her some change, enough to buy bread. Then we continued home.

That afternoon, thoughts of this woman began to haunt me. She was probably about my age, but we live in vastly different worlds. What brought her to that place? Did she even have a place to live? If she washed in a ditch, I imagine she has no other place. Would I be able to bear that kind of subsistence? Why didn’t I give her more?

Today I returned to drainage pipe hoping to find her. I brought a small lunch and some money. I prayed for her along the way and asked that God would cross our paths once again. When I got there, the place was empty. All I could do was sit and pray and weep. She was gone; my opportunity to bless her was gone.

Matthew 25:44-45 (NLT) “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’
 “And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

Some facts about Lesotho:

• Lesotho has a population of around 2 million people, with 57% of those living below the poverty line. There are no socioeconomic safety nets for those without adequate income. The average income per year is equivalent to about $2500 US.
• The cost of food and housing is not much different here than in the United States. Most Basotho live in cinderblock houses with one or two rooms. Often they have no running water and no indoor plumbing. Forget about central heating and air conditioning.
•  Although primary education is free and compulsory in this country, secondary school is not. It is not uncommon to have desperate mothers approach us on the streets, begging for money or to buy their wares so that they can pay school fees.