Member-only story
The Guy in the Laundry Van.
He drove on the sidewalk.
When I was 18 years old, I started my nursing career as a student nurse at a local hospital in South Africa.
My mother worked as a domestic servant for a doctor & his family. She had a room in the servant's quarters & I visited her after my shift ended at 3 p.m. She cooked good food. I was not too fond of the nurses' dining hall meals.
Walking to her workplace was about a mile & a half—no buses going that route in those days. Instead, servants walked to their homes from the white areas by five o'clock. Some lived in servant's quarters & were always out of sight in the evenings.
All non-whites servants had to be out of the white areas by eight o'clock in the evening, or the police arrested them for loitering.
The white employers ensured they left, or there would be no maid the next day.
I had noticed this green laundry van passing me on my way to my mother's workplace. At times, it would come back & drive past me twice. I noticed the guy driving was Indian. I told my mother & she said there was a laundry down the street. The van picked up laundry to be washed, ironed & delivered to the white folks in the city.
One day, this guy in the van stopped right next to me, close to the curb. He called out, "Hey…
