Sbongile's mole - protecting children and metal sheeting

Sbongile was at work as a child and youth care worker on day shift in a residential facility when he got the telephone call. It was his wife. She was anxious and a little afraid. A mole she said , underground, had made a mole hill a distance from the house. She and the children were watching the mole at work from the bedroom window. All of them standing in the house, looking out. This mole was busy burrowing . They could see the direction it was moving by a mound that it raised like a pathway under the soft soil . It seemed to be heading toward the house and to the very bedroom  where they were standing. She was afraid and didn't know what to do.

Sbongile understood immediately. He knew the mole was a carrier of mis-fortune and if it burrowed itself under his house then ill-luck or even disaster could could be brought on his home and the family.

Being on shift with children in need of care and knowing that he wouldn't be able to explain the seriousness of his concern for his family to the white manager, he said that his wife must watch the mole's pathway and progress. Maybe it will turn away and go in another direction.

But it didn't. It got closer.

Mom phoned Sbongile again. He must come home and do something NOW.


Sbongile told management that he had a serious family crisis without spelling out the details, and that he was needed at home urgently. To tell management the actual situation at home would never be regarded by management as reason to leave the children in his care for the sake of his own.

Sbongile sped home. Mom and his children were still there behind the glass of the bedroom window. The mole's pathway was .yes, heading directly toward the house and now was quite close

In the garage, Sbongile managed to find some metal sheeting. He dug them into the ground across a length of the house across the pathway of the mole, lowering the sheets to obstruct.the moles pathway.and protect his home.

It worked. The mole changed direction and headed away to the left.

Ill-fortune had been averted.

Sbongile cannot be alone...... and for others it won't be a mole that is the carrier of misfortune. Who knows what it may be for the children and young people in our care in Africa?

 It seems a great pity if child and youth care workers but especially the young people  have to make cover-stories to mask their real fears in order to avoid ridicule or loss of credibility .It seems that if we are to make meaningful interventions in the lives of children here we will have to have the courage to come out in the open unafraid of being African in Africa.

.... to find metal sheeting..... whatever that may be .... and whatever it may take

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