Agness is the lady who opens the gate for us when we drive into or out of our housing estate. She works with a man named Rafael Lucius (one on each gate) and they always greet us with smart attire and a warm smile.
Agness is about 25 years old. She was married but her husband decided that he preferred another woman, leaving Agness to care for their young son alone. Agness now lives with her parents several kilometers from our estate and walks to and from work. She starts at around 8am and leaves between 4 and 5pm, 7 days a week. For that, she earns the princely sum of MK2,000 per month (the equivalent of A$21/US$16/£45). Agness’ mother also works but her father can’t because he’s unwell. (To give you a comparison that might be more meaningful, we pay our housekeeper MK8,000 per month and she struggles to make ends meet on that amount, admittedly with 4 children to support on her own.)
A few weeks ago Agness sent me a letter asking to borrow MK2,000 so she could buy maize and fix one of the doors in her house. We assumed that “borrow” meant “give” as it frequently does here. However, yesterday I received another letter from Agness, containing MK1,000 of the amount she had borrowed and apologising profusely for not being able to pay the whole lot back at once.
I took the money back to her and told her it was a gift from God (He’d given it to us in the first place) and that she could keep it. Just seeing her genuine gratitude and delight meant far more to me than the pitiful amount we’d given. And in a land where so many people expect us to give to them just because, Agness’ story is especially moving.
1 comment:
How delightful and full of memories your story is. I lived in Malawi for thirteen years and met many like Agnes.
May I just mention in passing that Agnes earns the equivalent of GBP10, while your housekeeper earns the equivalent of GBP40.
I am interested to notice the wages being paid today. when I was there (1989-2001) my houseservants last earned about MK1800.
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