Free Lunch

A few of us met at Dulce (a coffee shop/restaurant in Tzaneen) before we left for Polokwane for lunch and to meet with Andrew, a former Peace Corps Volunteer who now works at a school near me, to talk about fundraising techniques. Meagan, Omar, and I all got food while Hossam and Andrew abstained. Eventually, Johan, our waiter who we know quite well at this point as we have become “regulars,” came over and the following conversation ensued:

Johan (directed at Andrew and Hossam) What do you two want to eat?
Andrew: Nothing, we’re okay.
Johan: You have to get something to eat
Hossam: No, we’re fine.
Johan: No, you need to order something.

(At this point my thought process is the following: What’s up with Johan? Why is he being such a jerk? He’s never been like this before.)

Andrew: Why?
Johan: You have to order because your bill has already been paid for…

Turns out the people who had been sitting behind us at the restaurant paid a tab of 250 rand for us as they left Dulce. That’s approximately 40 something dollars. For 5 of use a bill normally runs around 150ish rand. That’s a lot of money- a fifth of what I get to survive on for a month. We have no idea who these people were, none of us had seen them before and none of us talked to them while at the restaurant.

We can only assume that they overheard us talking about the work we do and were impressed or felt sorry for us or something. So often here I’m surrounded by passivity and/or negativity regarding my work so the awe of being appreciated left us all in shock. The best part of the whole thing was when Hossam proceeded to flip through the menu, find the most expensive item, and order the “rump steak.” We all had deep appreciation for the extravagance.