Giving alms to beggars at intersections

Some of us complain about beggars all the time. What about living in a place like India where hordes of little children run up to you when you come out of a building and are clamoring around you in the street for a rupee or two? We don’t have India’s problem with beggars. Here the beggars can be givers themselves. It’s amazing what people will tell you when someone runs up to your car at an intersection when they don’t want to give. Yes, the beggar is a nuisance at intersections, but many of them ask to do your windows or try to sell you a bag of oranges of avocados. They will say beggars are choosy, or that someone should get rid of them. What’s up with the stinginess? Cape Town would not be the same without them. You have a job or a partner who brings home money from his job as an architect or a plumber and don’t have to worry as you will probably have a juicy steak with roast potatoes for supper.

Twenty rand is all it takes.

Buy yourself happiness for the day by giving a complete stranger begging for something a crisp twenty rand note and see what happens. He will bless you and your mother and your dead uncles up and down and you will feel really good. What is twenty rand to you? It is nothing, but to the beggar it might mean the difference between going to bed with an empty stomach and feeling good. Don’t say that he will spend it on liquor or drugs. Give it without restriction. You might even decide to make Friday or any other day your twenty rand day. Have loose change in the car; not five and two cents, but five rand coins.

Incident in Toronto in the 70s

I was living in Toronto in the 70s when I was accosted by an old woman in a ratty coat and big boots and a bag on her shoulder who asked for a quarter (twenty-five cents coin) and I stopped and I gave it to her. Every day this woman would wait for me at the door of the office building where I worked as a paralegal. One day it was snowing and I had to walk some distance to my car. When I got to the car it was under snow from the afternoon blitz. I saw the bag lady and saw her getting into a cab. I was astounded. I could not even afford to take a cab but she could. The following day when I left work, I saw her again loitering on the pavement. She asked me for money. I told her I did not have. She swore at me. I was very upset. I had given her money and this was how she treated me when I did not have. For years I did not give anything to beggars, and then I started again. I realized that when I did not give, I was using the bag lady as an excuse, and I changed my thinking. Even though she was rude she still needed money and if I gave it should be with a clean and generous heart. Why not make Friday your twenty rand day?

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Things I would like to do with the rest of my life

Having reached 65 and having written ten novels, two film scripts, and directed a movie Confessions of a Gambler, I can say that I have achieved a childhood dream – and as a Muslim woman, quite a feat in then apartheid South Africa. I was convinced as a child that I would not like working in a 9 to 5 job in an office and because of my rotten childhood, I scribbled and read a lot not knowing that it was a coping mechanism in those early years. I


The Canadian years

I left for Canada, married an immigrant, where I started to learn many lessons. 27 years I stayed. A crucial day came in my marriage when a publisher in Canada, after examining a draft version of the story I was busy with asked me to make some changes and the book would have a chance. I was so excited, but I was the only one. My then husband said that he wanted me to give up writing. His brother added to it by throwing a quarter on the table and said, 'thanks for the coffee'.


Hard decisions

I kept my name, packed my bags, and left. It was the beginning of my journey as a writer. I have written ten books, written and directed a film as well as playing the lead. I am extraordinarily happy in my life here in South Africa, and then just a month ago was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. I was shocked. It took weeks to believe that I had this disease. I particularly feared getting dementia. Yet I am writing almost two to four thousand words a day. My brain is sharp. I eat brain food. I try a little exercise. Sometimes I have to sit for a few seconds when getting out of bed, but that is all right.


Writing to give information

At first when I got the news I was angry with God... then realized what a gift I had received. It was not cancer. It was not my heart. It was all the anxiety over the years that had given me Parkinson's. For the last few years I have been very preoccupied with God's gift and what I could do to give back. Surely, I have realized my dreams. I came to the conclusion that I was given the gift of writing to give information - to help someone who is struggling with an illness and could find an answer somewhere. I have a new script that has to be directed, but I am not ready yet to do it. My brother and son tell me all the time to give up this 'nonsense' writing and get back to my eleventh book which is only 15 pages long at this time.

Receiving the diagnosis was a gift. I have time to sell my house and, wrap up my business and head for the bright or not so bright lights of New Jersey where I will stay with my daughter and grandchildren and DJ Dirty Harry who is a music producer and a fabulous husband to my daughter for my remaining years. I am a lucky woman indeed. God has blessed me.

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Is it worth writing articles for the net?

With this writer it has become an addiction. I make real money writing novels and in fact a publisher is waiting for me to start writing my eleventh novel. I don’t know what it is, but I love checking my cents growing daily. It is pure pleasure and an addiction and I don’t know why I continue. Depending on the site the instructions are easy to understand but after a month of trying to get Ad Sense and Chitika earnings it is virtually impossible.


Experts Column pays decently and shines way above five other sites I also write for. However, the downside of this kind of writing is that it is not your writing alone that makes bucks. You have to figure out how to use links and back links, how to place widgets, and how to navigate your way through a maze of information. You also have to search for things as some sites are not so easy to understand. Today I contacted tech support at one of these sites and asked when I was going to see earnings. I was told that I had to wait. Finally I was approved as a publisher and was instructed to write until I realized a lot of time had gone by and that I still do not have ads running on my site. When I did get approved for an account with Chitika which includes revenue from ads running on my blog, I am writing and writing and just today was told by a friend that the site would not even respond if you had below a number of clicks. Worse, I had not gotten any instructions that I would have to pick the ads and place them or that the ad running process had even started.


Out of frustration I am writing to all of you to say that I am not going to waste my time anymore and will start working on my next novel. I am busting my brain to write great articles every day and the sum total of my sweat resulted in only twelve dollars if I add revenue from all the sites. Pony up, Chitika. I am close to walking away. I mean, how can you write all day for eighty cents? A frustrated writer.


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