Rabbi Sandor Milun

A few years ago, I was privileged to go with my family to a resort in rural South Africa for a few days. After a long day of safari drives, relaxing on the patio and braaiing/barbequing, I decided to go for a little quiet time on my own.

I climbed in the car and drove off to the reserve, where I thought I’d be able to go on my very own night game drive. The guard at the entrance politely told me I could not go in, as no unaccompanied night drives were allowed.

What happened next simply blew my mind. I struck up a conversation with the guard, his command of the English language limited to education in a village school in rural South Africa. We spoke about his family (he was orphaned at eleven), about his dreams, his desire to better himself and to develop his working skills. At some point, I got out of the car. Standing under the stars were me and some security guard three meters away from the gate of the game reserve—pitch black darkness and a cacophony of different wild animals
in surround sound.

Survival, starvation, education, dignity…those were the challenges facing this nineteen-year-old man

What did we have in common? Besides being human and South African, nearly nothing. I come from a privileged background and this young man earned the equivalent of seventy pence an hour-- yes, an HOUR! He’d battled to pass his twelfth-grade exams, having to do menial jobs to help his younger siblings eat. The feeling of disappointment I had for not having had a good whiskey to savour during my barbeque earlier sheepishly began to vanish.

Council tax, new cars, the right schools, iPhone vs Samsung, Facebook statuses--they all began to take on a very different meaning. Survival, starvation, education, dignity… those were the challenges facing this nineteen-year-old man named Ni’iku (GIFT in English).

I then began to tell him about me. I asked if he knew about the Jewish people. His negative reply told me that he didn’t have any media-induced biases. He hadn’t heard of England, he knew about Manchester United, though (they have a seriously good marketing team!!), and he didn’t know that there was a queen of England. I asked him if he had heard of the Bible? Moses? Yes, he had. I told him I was a descendant of those people, the Hebrews. Ahhh, yes, he had heard of the Hebrews. It felt pretty awesome to actually think and say that!!

We marvelled at how Hashem had created so many stars, and I attempted to explain to him how each star was a sun with its own planets etc. and that they were very far away. I explained to him that where I come from, our conversation was less likely to happen than me spotting cheetah in the reserve (they don’t have cheetah there!) and even less likely was the chance of seeing the stars in all their glory.

I’ll never forget you as long as I live

Rabbi Sandor Milun with Give It Forward Today (GIFT) Volunteers at the Maccabi UK Fun Run

I began to encourage him to develop his spoken English, as this is the only way he would be able to advance job-wise. He knew that there were another two million people just like him who would be overjoyed to work for that seventy pence an hour. I began to teach him English - the tenses, and some ways of saying hello to guests - and I encouraged him to speak to guests as much as possible. In addition, I suggested he read a newspaper to develop his vocabulary. He agreed, but said he needed to get himself a dictionary to
learn the words.
We’d been talking for two hours. I asked him if this kind of conversation happened often to him and he said it never had. Ni’iku also said something I felt mutually: “I’ll never forget you
as long as I live.”
It was late, I said goodnight and thought I’d see him tomorrow. But when I went back to see him the next night, with an Oxford Dictionary I’d bought from the closest town that morning – a sixty kilometre round trip-- the new guy on the gate told me they had transferred Ni’iku to some other place. Just like that,
my friend was gone.
Remember (the new guard’s name), gave me his cell phone number. I called Ni’iku and told him that I was giving Remember the dictionary. When we spoke, he was unable to express his thanks for my gift. Frankly, it’s probably the best five quid I’ve ever spent....