"They may forget what you've said-but they'll never forget how you made them feel."

I came to Rhodes about 10 minutes ago to check my e-mail.

I was walking pass the Drodsty Arch, the main entrance and official separation point of Rhodes with the rest of Grahamstown, when I glanced down High Street. It was around 4 o'clock and the street was bustling with people shopping, students packed into street-side cafes, mini-bus taxis brimming with domestic workers, Rhodes gardeners and crafters, racing toward the township.

The trunks of these taxis have the words "government initiated poverty alleviation program" splashed across them. The sides of the street are packed with young guys engaging in their own poverty alleviation program: they stand there begging for change, for bread, for milk, or offering to wash your car for whatever tip you might provide.

As I glanced down the street, in the distance, I saw a tall figure: black skin, blue shirt, presumably second-hand pants that had been cut off just below the knee to be made into shorts. He stuck both hands in the air and waved to me, and, without any regard for the cars in the street, began sprinting toward me down the middle of High Street.

When he got to me, I saw a tall boy with a beaming smile. I had run into him earlier in the week while I was grocery shopping at "Pick 'N Pay."

He approached me in front of the arch, shook my hand and said "How is it Jay-SEN?" I shook his hand, said "great" and continued walking toward Rhodes. He walked at my side.

Earlier this week at Pick 'N Pay, this same boy had asked me if he could come by school and I could show him how to use the computer. In the store with me, he asked me how I'd been, how he missed doing karate (something I haven't done really, formally, since my first visit), how he was going to come to school to see me, and how he was washing cars in town for some extra cash.

In our conversations, this boy brings up things he wouldn't possibly know unless I had spent time, and a considerable amount of time, with him.

The thing is, I don't know this boy. There are many kids I run into every day and I don't remember their names--but I know their faces. I don't know anything about this kid.

Nothing.

When I see him, he seems genuine and makes it out like I've had such an impact on his life. Maybe it's true. Maybe he's just another masterful manipulator and is waiting to stroke my ego more before hitting me up for some bread money.

Maybe he's genuine. Maybe he's not.

But maybe he is-and I don't even remember his face.