Her neatly manicured fingers fold the edges of the Big Mac box. Her movements gentle, unobtrusive, but quietly determined.
She looks up as she finishes folding the shiny cardboard. Her brown eyes are warm and filled with a pride that holds back dark tendrils of so much fear. Perhaps, from the little I know about her life, at times they must edge towards despair.
We are taking a break from filming a story about gangs on the Cape Flats, and it’s time for a quick crew lunch paid for by the production. She must be as hungry and tired as the rest of us, but Shafika (I have changed names) doesn’t eat.
She is quietly saving this hamburger as a treat for her son Rayan back home in Hanover Park. He is studying computer science at UCT, by some combination of his own resolve and of miracles with the funding. Shafika has a good job at a supermarket, but there is very little money at the end of each month. She certainly can’t afford university.
Shafika is a single mother. Her husband Ahmed and she split long ago. He lives nearby but he seldom sees her or their two sons, Rayan and his older brother Zayn.
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