Saying Good-Bye is not the Hard Part of Leaving

At the end of the month I will leave Cape Town and begin a slow trip back to the U.S. The hardest part about leaving a city I have come to know so well is not saying good-bye to friends and those we work with in the townships. Before long, I will be back here again, picking up with everyone where we left off. No, the hardest part is telling the people who have come to depend on me, in part, for their income, that I will no longer need their services.

I’m already in the process of closing up the apartment where I’ve stayed for the past few months. One day a week, Veronica has made the long commute from the township where she lives into Cape Town to clean my flat. It’s an efficiency apartment that I could have easily cleaned on my own, but helping to create a few jobs while I’m here seems like the least I could do to repay a country that has been so hospitable to me. Besides, coming home to an immaculate apartment, with all of my clothes crisply ironed and hanging in a closet, is a luxury I will miss when I’m back in Minneapolis and cleaning my own house.

This morning I told Veronica that this would be the last time I would need her to clean for me. Veronica took the news about as well as someone, who desperately needs the 200 rand I pay her each week, can. That’s less than $30. Not enough to survive on here, especially when food and gasoline costs are escalating rapidly.

Friends who own a popular guesthouse in Cape Town introduced Veronica to me. They will continue to look out for her and find her work when they can, but with winter setting in and few tourists coming, it’s going to be a challenge for them to help her. A few weeks ago the lens of Veronica’s eyeglasses broke. Losing me as a client makes it less likely that she will replace her glasses anytime soon.

Later today I’ll get my haircut and tell my stylist that I probably won’t be back. She won’t miss cutting my hair. “You have Japan man hair,” she tells me. I take that to mean that my hair is very straight. I know it is a challenge for her to cut. She will, however, miss having a regular customer once a month. There are days when my stylist has only one client. She is trying to find a job waiting tables at night, but the bad economy and the lack of tourists make that an unlikely prospect.

I only rent a car here when I need it and after this week I probably won’t need to have my own transportation. Before returning the rental to Avis, I will take it to be washed. The man who washes my car gets 10 rand, about $1.50, for doing so. The company that owns the car washing service keeps the remaining 35 rand it charges for a basic wash. As surprising as it sounds, the car washer will miss the 10 rand he earns and the 10 rand I tip him when he washes my car.

By the end of the week the only service person I will have left to tell I’m leaving is the man on the street corner in front of my apartment building who sells me the Cape Times newspaper every morning. I give him seven rand for a paper that costs 6.50 rand. It’s not much, a .50 rand tip every day, but over the course of a year that comes to about $20. A man’s got to sell a lot of newspapers to make that up.