Good Women

Good Women

My name is Agnes Mbutu I live near to the Drakensburg mountains in South Africa. I am 58 years old, I have given birth to seven children, six of them are living. I work as a cleaner. I work six days of every week. I start work very early in the morning, and I finish late in the evening of every day. On Sunday I go to my church. I do not have holidays, when I am not in work I work for my family at home.
I am I think a very proud woman. I am proud of who I am and I am proud of my country.
Of my six children that are living two of them are twin girls, my eldest son is very ill. He is in a hospital far away. My heart it is very sad that I have not seen him for three weeks now. I do not have money to pay to travel to see him and I cannot be away from work or my whole family will suffer. When I think of him I am very sad.
The places where I clean have many people coming and going, I do my work quickly and I work hard. They do not see me although I am there. If they come in to the places where I am cleaning they act as if I am not there. I clean toilets and bathrooms, shower rooms and laundry rooms. I go from job to job and I clean. Sometimes when I clean people walk all over the floor I have just washed, but I do not say a word, I clean it again and I leave.
One day I was cleaning the shower room and a woman came in as I was about to leave. She stood at the door waiting so I hurried up. As I passed her she looked at me and said 'thank you'. I was very surprised and I looked back at her. She was a white woman, she did not hide her eyes or her stare from me, she looked into my face. I felt that this was a good woman.
The next day this woman came to the shower block to find me. She had a parcel of clothes. She asked me if I would be kind and help her, she did not need these clothes and wanted someone to have them, if I knew anyone who needed them would I please give them away. I could see that the woman was being very kind indeed, she was finding a way to give me the clothes without offending me. I said I would be very glad to help her and then she surprised me again by asking me to wait as she had forgotten something. She ran back to me with more clothes, some of these belonged to her husband and some of them were hers. She had given me things that she still had need of. She told me her name and I told her mine and I told her my story. She said that she would share my story.
The next day it was my turn to look for her. I knew that she would be travelling onwards and I wanted to give her something. I wanted to give her something to remember me and for her to know that I too had something to give. I found her packing away her tent with her husband. I felt very shy but the gift I gave her was a bottle of different coloured sand. These are gifts my daughters make for tourists, they are very pretty and we use the sand near to our home, when we give them we are giving some of our home. They are very important gifts because they are Africa.
The woman took my little sand bottle and she cried and put her arms around me. I was very happy and very shy about this too. She told me I had a beautiful face. She saw me. She was a good woman.