A South African man on the way to work, saw the best side of our beautiful country & knew everything would be okay.
Nick Walker posted a status on Facebook after a trip on the Gautrain made him realise that its the little things that make up the big things…
His post has been shared nearly 1400 times & inspiring even more South Africans… here’s the full post:
Today was a good day for my outlook on SA.
On the Gautrain, I first saw and overheard a group of 7 young people, 2 Indian, 2 White and 3 Black laughing and joking.
It then became apparent that they had just met as they were exchanging names. They went on to discuss their really interesting sounding jobs, all happy and comfortable in each others company.
I then saw a young white guy give up his seat for a young black woman, who graciously accepted.
Then, as the train neared my stop, an old white man was coughing quite badly. Without hesitation, a young black woman handed him her fruit drink, which he gratefully accepted and drank. I then overheard her chatting to him for a while asking if he had had this cough checked out as she was a nurse.
Three separate but lovely experiences.
There was nothing remarkable about each event individually but together it showed me that at a general population level, we are doing pretty well in the new SA.
There are silly, bigoted people in every race on every continent. I just think in SA, because of our painful past, we have been too quick to give those outliers too much airplay and too sensitive to the words of a few crazies, including (and especially) politicians.
We could all take a lesson from the Gautrain users.