Mango Tree Diaries

The Loafers

It was a Friday morning and the boys began to shuffle in to their meeting place. There was the usual fumbling in pockets for coins, coins to buy rolling paper, coins to buy cigarettes, coins to add on for herb. Today was a good day there was plenty of everything, the task ahead was to roll joints and get high.

Their discussions seemed to revolve around the same matters; neighbourhood gossip, football; and "what if scenarios".
"What if Elon Musk were to come here and one million dollars on this table and say that he wants to sleep with one of us? Would you do it?" They would go on this fashion for hours before briefly returning to their respective homes to bath; eat or watch television.

Their afternoon shift began at around one o clock where the order of the day was operating as human tollgates. "Hey bigger boss please help me, I'm short of two Rand" People in Swaziland very rarely refer to currency as Emalangeni perhaps due to the fact that Rand notes are in circulation or possibly due to the fact that South African soap operas and dramas are very popular in the landlocked country. The tolling will go on until somebody can buy a beer then the fun starts. Weekends are busy days for the loafers , there are plenty revelers to sponge off and tales to be told.

Loafing is a stage for some, a stage that could last months, years and in some cases decades. Some will end up in prison, some will get their acts together and others will just scrape along living from one weekend to the next. Most feel too important to look for work deemed beneath them, so they cannot work in gardens, and they wouldn't be caught dead working in construction or car washes.

Such is the life of the loafers and every neighborhood has them, some more delinquent than others. Some more violent, all of them wasting the potential.