More than two-hundred people have stepped up.
They've filled out their applications. They've handed in their CVs. They've stopped by to see us, hopeful that they will be the winner.
Two hundred will be cut down to fifty.
Fifty will be cut down to ten.
And from that ten, one person will become....
Amasango Career School's next cleaner.
It sounds like a reality show that could be on FOX, ABC or just about any American network. But it's the ultimate reality show--it's as real as it gets, it's heart breaking, it's dramatic. The winner won't walk away with a million dollars, but he or she will leave work at the end of the day with something. This person will have done an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
I walked into Jane's office at Amasango on Thursday and the floor was littered with boxes. Three or four of them, each one spilling over with papers, the white pages covering the edges of each box.
Having boxes and paper work scattered across the floor isn't exactly something new. There is a seemingly perpetual chaos at Amasango and in each classroom and office. Usually, it's second hand clothes strewn about; clothes that don't have time to gather dust because they're donated and then sometimes within hours, all ready on their new owner's back.
These boxes were different though. There were no second hand clothes.
There was actually something a bit more important in them: papers. Sure, they were just papers, but those papers contained the dreams of hundreds of people living in the township: to have a job, no matter how menial, and to be able to support their family.
If people don't have clothes, at least in this climate, it's just a bit uncomfortable, but they'll live.
Crush somebody's dreams--and crush them over and over and over again; I believe that is more damaging in the long run.
I peered into the boxes. Amasango is hiring one cleaner, two class aides, a security guard and a financial clerk. These boxes came from the Eastern Cape Department of Education and contained the applications for hundreds of people in need of work. The first box I glanced at, and the box that left the greatest impression on me, was the box for the cleaning post.
There was a list at the top--a full four pages long--of each person who was hoping to get the job. With an unemployment rate as high at 70%, this box was heartbreaking for me: hundreds of eager people, willing to work and not just come up to you in the street with a sob story and outstretched hands asking for loose change. These people are trying. They're deserving of help.
Hundreds applied. Hundreds will be told "thanks, but no thanks." A dream will be made, and hundreds of others will be crushed.
It's the ultimate in reality. And it's so damn sad.
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