By KUHLEKONKE DLADLA
Wake up. You have a job. A mouth to feed. Bills to pay. A life to live. Time. Three steps forward, five steps back. The economy is unkind to people who do not work. Time. There is a time for everything, and one day you WILL get to live out your dreams of working as an administrator – tick tock tick tock. You need to leave your home and your sleeping child. Time. The kids are expecting breakfast. Time. Wear your uniform. Make sure to catch your transport in time and head to work to resume your role as a server in the dining halls at Rhodes University.
Lindiswa*, known to many as Mama Lily, is a 38-year-old woman with a heart of gold and a smile so devastatingly heart-warming that you instantly feel at home when you see her. But she is no stranger to the idea that when it rains, it pours. Mama Lily has always been a dreamer, seeing the world’s goodness even when the world proved to be cruel and cunning in harbouring any plans she had for a future far away from the small town of Makhanda.
Like all the servers who work in the dining halls throughout Rhodes University, Mama Lily dotes and checks up on all the students she serves as if they were her own children. One minute is all she has. One minute to ask you how your day was, one minute to make you feel a little better and give you words of encouragement. One minute to have a lifetime of meaningful conversations wrapped up in the simple phrase, “Hello, nana.” It is her favourite part of the day.
“For just a moment, I can escape my reality and find joy in bringing a smile to all your faces as I serve you your food for the day,” says Mama Lily. Time. It is not enough. Mama Lily yearns for the days when students provide her with more than just a simple greeting or nod. “You have got to dream, my child,” she tells me. “It makes the uncertainties of life easier to bear. Time. My child, I need time.”
One day Mama Lily will trade her apron for a pen and desk, but until then, all she has is the reminder of fleeting time and a smile that could make anyone feel so loved that the earth tilts on its axis.
* Mama Lily’s surname is known to Grocott’s Mail but is withheld at her request for personal reasons.
