Dustbin diggers

Dustbin diggers.
They've become a regular morning feature for most of us as we travel to work - those rubbish collectors. Not the official ones hired by the City of Joburg's Pikitup to collect our trash - those guys (they're nearly always young black men) digging in our dustbins on the street looking for metal, plastic - anything they can sell for scraps - and anything else at all that might be useful to them.
Leftovers, old newspapers, broken gadgets and more.

'One man's rubbish is another man's treasure'...or so the saying goes along those lines.

A treasure trove for hundreds of unemployed

I've written more than one article on these characters in local rags I've worked at (going to try dig these up) so it is not like it's a new idea to travel in the Fluffy mind maze...but an incident yesterday got me thinking about how crazy and unfair a world we live in that people have to dig in dustbins.....but at the same time a high five for taking their destiny into their own hands instead of begging at robots - not remaining a victim of circumstance. And perhaps they ought to be employed instead of the littering SAMWU strikers?

But back to my story...

Curly and I went for a lovely afternoon stroll around Melrose yesterday and as we were cutting through the park home we noticed a rather amusing site - a man had set up camp between some trees (I should have had my camera handy, perhaps). He'd created a make shift house using scraps and odds and ends - obviously requisitioned from some or other dustbin. There was even a bed base lying on its side - a dirty rug was more likely his bed though.

Anyway, Curly decided he wanted to go in for a closer look but I pulled away and walked up the hill instead, not wanting to look like a tourist at the zoo, gawking at the tigers and baboons. I thought it would be degrading and just plain rude to do a walk-by...before heading back to the comfort of a big house full of warmth and things.

I ended up waiting on top of the hill for Curly as he stayed chatting with the man (we named him Thabo) for ages....and I started to feel bad that I had underestimated his intentions.

And then he gave me a report back:
Thabo was just staying in the park temporarily, waiting for the man to come give him something because the job was done with the grass cutting machine. And then he was going to take all this stuff that he's collected from the stirring back to his 2 townhouses just down there - "they're only town houses." And this is actually his park and he's going to build a sea here for the boats.

He seemed to know exactly where he was and the surrounding areas...but was totally in his own world.

Happy but oblivious to his situation?

Or perhaps, happy because he has made himself oblivious (through some drug or alcohol or substance) to the situation he finds himself in.