When Good People Take Risk

"Thucydides tells us that during the plague at Athens those that most displayed their virtue perished with their friends that were ill, for they neglected their own lives in going to visit them."
- Plutarch's Morals. 1st Century Greek Philosopher. 

Speaking To My Chatacter

"Another time, my dad gave 50 bucks to a guy who said he needed to buy medicine for his kids. I told my dad he was probably going to spend the money on alcohol or something, but my dad said that "whether he was lying or not says something about HIS character, but hearing someone in need and choosing not to help when l have the means to says something about mine".

I never forget that."

- Josh Wolcott

We Don't Have Any Money

Life for many rural Africans I know. How many time have I heard this?

"Have you given him any medicine?" I asked.

"Yes, yes," he said. "We gave him aspirin and vitamins every day."

I shook my head.

“You know that's not enough. You've got to get him to a doctor. You've got to go to the mission hospital."

A look of shame and embarrassment crept onto Kanyenda's face. "Teta katuena ne falanga to," he said. "We don't have any money."

There they were. Those five words: "We don't have any money." They were permanently stitched to the sleeve of serious illness in Kalambayi, speaking like an epitaph for 90 percent of the chiefdom's dead and dying."

 

(Mike Tidwell. 'The Ponds is Kalambayi. pig 130)