I stared at the woman in front of me in utter amazement. Her name was Sarah , but she was black, Like so many of the non-whites born in SA before ’94, she was given a “white” name as well as a “black ” name.
I don’t know what the real reason behind this unusual custom was. Maybe they thought they would be employed more readily if they had a name familiar to the whites.

Sarah was dressed in a fashionable flowered dress with long sleeves. She also wore a blue polyester overall and a smart, black hat.. A stray thought, “She must be boiling hot!” , flashed through my bemused mind.

What made this outfit ludicrous, was the fact that Sarah was appointed general cleaner/ gardener of the complex, Rose Court where l own a flat, or apartment as they call it these days.
How could she do such heavy, dirty work dressed like that? March is stll hot in the Free State!
According to her resume, so l was told,she worked in the gardens of an office building before she was retrenched.She also proudly stated that she worked there for 21 years! To me that indicated that she must know a lot about gardening!

After 2 weeks it was abundantly clear that she knew very little about it and l had the suspicion that she may have been a cleaner/ tea girl to her previous employer..

We spoke Afrikaans as l soon discovered that her English was very limited as is my Sotho.
I was trying to explain to her how to water the garden properly and that one could not do so in a slapdash way only once a week in the heat.She pointed out that her job description indicated that she should only water the garden once a week.

Anyone who lives in the Free State, knows that is downright stupid! I have tried to explain that different plants also have different needs as far as watering, ammount of sun and trimming are concerned.
It was when l mentioned names of plants, the ordinary layman names, that l could see by the blank expression on her face’ the fearful animosity in her eyes behind trendy black- framed glasses, that she could not even identify a geranium. Then her eyes became blank, her face sullen. Without another word she turned on her smart heel and walked away from me.

A heavy cloud of hopeless frustration settled on me..

I really missed old Simon who used to work here! The poor man faded, then died of aids in December. As for Sarah, like so many South Africans, she was not properly trained, or she lied in desperation to secure another job…The future became another shade of bleakness..