Through the simple act of cutting his hair, a South African man has managed to forever change a young man’s life, and find closure in the process.
Southern Mali, West Africa – A few years ago Greg Reynolds lost a woman very close to his heart in an unfortunate and tragic manner. Losing her shattered his existence, knocked him to the ground and pinned him there.
With the support and love from his family and close friends, the Pretoria man was able to pick up the pieces and start living life again slowly! However, this woman loved it when he had a really ‘questionable Viking hairstyle’ so as a coping mechanism and a way for him to hold onto a small piece of her, he started growing his hair out the day he lay her to rest and have not cut it ever since…
That was until yesterday.
Greg is currently working on a mine in an extremely rural part of Southern Mali in West Africa. His colleagues are not a fan of his hair and have often tried to get him to cut it.
“I work with a whole smorgasbord of characters from across the globe and needless to say there are a few who are not a fan of my hairstyle and have been unsuccessfully trying to get rid of it. That was until yesterday when after a few beers, the manager from one of the companies working on the mine put USD 1000 (R14 000) on the table that would go to a charity act of my choice!”
Greg declined; telling him that this was not enough to get him to shave his ‘majestic mane’ but after making that comment the rest of his colleagues jumped in to get the pot large enough to sheer him on the spot!
“I had managed to escape in the past… but not last night… everyone was adamant and after a few rounds of bidding I settled to shave all my hair as well as my beard for USD 2500 (R36 000), a fair sum of money for a bit of a shave.”
Greg immediately knew what the money would be used for!
When he first came to the mining site, he met Giovanna Cowley, a community Doctor who shared many stories with him about her line of work.
“After many evenings of sharing stories, I had learnt of the work she had been doing in the local village next to our campsite, the community clinic she was establishing and the people who she was working with. She explained how passionate they are about their work despite having to survive and support their families off a salary of only USD 90 (R1 200) a month.”
During one of their talks, Giovanna explained how sad she was because the clinic was about to lose one of its hardest, diligent and most passionate workers. His name is Moise, and he had resigned from the clinic as he couldn’t afford nursing school and needed to support his family. He had taken a new job as a Security Guard on the mine so that he could earn a little more.
“Dr G explained what a loss this would be to the healthcare of the community as they would be losing one of their most dedicated healthcare workers.”
Before shaving his locks, Greg pledged to donate the money to Moise to help the young man through nursing school so that he could follow his dreams and passions and save lives!
Giovanna woke Moise up when she called to tell him the good news! She explained that he would not have to leave the community clinic and that he would be going to Nursing school! Moise was ecstatic and couldn’t believe that it was true.
The next day Greg received a phone call from an elderly Malian gentleman, who was speaking French as best he could, unfortunately, Greg’s French is non-existent, so he got someone to translate for him.
“It was Moise’s father, and he wanted to thank me for what I had done for his son!!!”
That afternoon Greg went to meet Moise at the community clinic and wish home the best of luck with his future studies.
He took to Facebook to share the encounter:
“I was welcomed to the clinic with gracious smiles and open arms, and when I meet Moise, he was speechless and almost had tears filling his eyes… and when he managed to start speaking again he could only say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
Not only was Moise taken back, but all of his colleagues were glowing with joy and happiness, they even had goosebumps and explained that they were so happy for Moise because they know how much their entire village is going to benefit from him going to school! They said that they would be sad to lose him but knew that he would be back soon after finishing school to help serve and uplift the community!!!
A while ago, a great mentor to me – Brian Dawson – shared a message of a simple act of kindness and changing a man’s life forever and to always ‘pay it forward’. I want to thank Uncle Brian for the role he has played in my life and all the lessons he has taught me with kindness being one of the secrets to success.
Through the simple act of cutting my hair, I today, have managed to forever change a young man’s life and I know this act will be payed forward, even though it already has, you see, for me cutting my hair, I was able to gain closure, and start moving forward.
Today I honour a great, strong and amazing woman’s memory by picking up the pieces of my life, putting them back together and making a place for her where I can visit and cherish her memory!! I will forever love you.
To my new friend Moise, thank you for this!! I wish you the best of luck and success with your exciting new future.
And to you who are reading this now… thank you for taking the time out of your day. With all my heart and soul, I hope that someday you too will experience the fantastic and humbling upliftment of paying it forward.”
by 