When Is Giving A Bike Not A Gift?

A 10-year-old boy is saving for a vacation with his mother.  Instead, he uses the money to buy a bicycle for a man who works in the local gas station.

How do you read this gesture?

Most parents, I believe, would be proud of such a child--especially if that attendant were, as one might expect, poor.  At least, I would feel that I'd done something right--or had been extremely lucky--if I were a parent to a kid like him.

When word got out about the boy's action, most of the reaction was positive.  Notice that I said "most":  There was, believe it or not, at least one person who saw the boy as some sort of embodiment of his country's recent history--specifically, an aspect that made the nation a pariah in the world community.  

I am talking about apartheid and that country is South Africa.  In all fairness, it should be said that, in many ways, South Africa has more thoroughly and honestly confronted the ugliest part of its history than, say, the United States has done with slavery or some European countries have dealt with the Holocaust.

Still, because there are still so many people who remember living under apartheid, the wounds are fresh and deep.  So I can understand why someone might read paternalism or even colonialism into a white boy giving a black man a bicycle.  If nothing else, it represents the economic injustice that still persists--though the boy probably wasn't aware of it. 

I do believe, however, that a Twitter user who identifies herself as @_BlackProtector was going a bit far in saying "Keep the bicycle, give us our land."  I agree that the people should get back what was taken from them, and further compensated for their intergenerational trauma.  On the other hand, the boy does not have the power to give back that land.  He can only do what he can to make someone's life a little easier.  

I'd say that even if he doesn't know words like "colonialism," he already possesses some sense of fairness, and is certainly generous.  The only thing, really, that can be done is to teach him, honestly, about his country's history.  He would be a good student, I bet.

Oh, and somehow I don't think that gas station attendant was upset about getting a bicycle--especially if he'd been walking to work.

What Did It Cost?

Whenever anyone asks what my bikes cost, I find a way not to answer.  Muttering "none of your business" is a sure signal that it's expensive; so is replying with "Why do you ask?"

Then again, I am a New Yorker who lived in the Big Apple during the '80's and early '90's, when crime of all kinds was rampant.  I remember pre-hipster Williamsburg and when the Lower East Side really was "lower" in more ways than one.  Each of those neighborhoods bookends the Williamsburg Bridge which, even before the bike lane was reconstructed, was the best way to cross the East River by bicycle.

Apparently, some criminals knew as much.  Or, at least, they knew that in-the-know cyclists preferred (and still prefer) "Billyburg" to the Brooklyn, Manhattan or Queesnboro (59th Street) Bridges.  And, they knew that in-the-know cyclists were riding the most valuable bikes.  

You can guess what happened:  A few cyclists I knew, and quite a few more I didn't know, were attacked for their bikes on either side of the bridge.  In fact, an employee of one shop I frequented had his machine stolen just days after he bought it--and that after working more than a year to save up for it. 

Somehow I don't think those riders told anyone--certainly, not random strangers-- what their bikes cost. But then again, they didn't have to:  Such information is easy enough to find.

This leads me to wonder whether the advice given by police in Roodespoort, South Africa will be helpful to the bike shop owners who received it--or, more important, customers of said establishments.

The gendarmes told the pedal purveyors--you guessed it--not to disclose the prices of their most expensive bikes with the media.   They shared their sage wisdom after a cyclist was robbed and shot for his bike in the Kromdraai area of the city.  

Medics carrying the injured cyclist.

That cyclist is alive only because of the efforts of a Good Samaritan who heard his cries for help and stopped.  "They had shot him twice in the leg and in the back," said Jon-Jon Pietersen who had only a rubber glove, a towel and box tape.  

Fortunately for the cyclist, more people stopped by and helped until the ambulance arrived, 20 minutes later.

This Young Man Delivers

Three decades have passed since I was a bike messenger in Manhattan.   As far as I know, none of the other messengers I knew from those days is still "in the business" in any capacity, not even as a dispatcher or owner of a courier company.

Still, I feel a certain kinship with anyone who makes deliveries on a bicycle (though not on e-bikes or motor scooters!).  I was a messenger, in part, because at that time in my life, I couldn't have worked in an office or any other place with four walls, and I couldn't deal with any other human being--with one or two exceptions--for more than a few minutes at a time.  

Also, even though I was quickly forgotten when I stopped making deliveries--after all, it wasn't hard to replace me--I still sometimes feel as if no work I've done since those days was as vital.  Or, at least, the absence of anything I've done since then wouldn't be noticed as much as my failure to deliver the blueprints, letters, packages and lunches(!) I brought to offices, businesses and, on occasion, people's homes.

Even so, I never did anything as important as Sizwe Nzima has been doing for the past four years.

He was waiting--and waiting--on line for his grandparents' HIV medication.  They couldn't get to the Cape Town, South Africa clinic where the medicine was dispensed, so Sizwe--who was still a high school student--made frequent trips there.  He realized that others who were waiting with him on line had similar stories, or were themselves people who arrived only after great difficulty.  They usually came, as Nzima did, from the city's low-income townships, far from the center. 

Poverty and unemployment are rampant in those areas.  Most of the residents are black.  Nzima found out that while many companies delivered medications to people's homes, none went to the impoverished communities like the one in which his grandparents lived.  The companies told him they weren't acting out of prejudice:  They simply couldn't find the homes--wooden and metal shacks--because they don't show up on Google or other search engines.

Sizwe Nizma (r) and one of his employees deliver medicines in a Cape Town neighborhood.

Only someone with local knowledge could navigate the area.  Nzima has that.  While sitting on a hard wooden bench at the clinic, he realized he could use that knowledge to deliver HIV medicine to those houses the companies' maps and electronic devices couldn't find.

After a while, he branched out and started bringing people medications for other chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and epilepsy.  From having two customers--his grandparents--four years ago, he and his staff of six riders (some of whom work full-time) now serve 930 clients.

Now his business may branch out again:  an international shipping company wants to start delivery to Cape Town's urban townships. They, like the companies he contacted four years ago, can't find the houses.  Therefore, they need someone with local knowledge, and have contacted him.  They want him and his crew to do the work.

Not bad for a 23-year-old, eh?