Broken windows and minds

There's nothing like a chilly night to remind you to get a missing glass fitted to a window.

The Glass Men came with their long, thin ladders and fitted glass in one of the tiny windows upstairs. They also fixed two broken windows in the doors downstairs.

While I was in the garden with the men, waiting for the foreman to come and pick them up, and getting a quote for a weekend job they could do for me on the side, a stranger appeared in the garden. A black man in his 40s.

I was surprised, as the beggars have never come inside the walled area before. They ring the gate bell and ask for things, but never come in, especially if they're not invited. (Not that I would invite them in any case).

Joyce was here, ironing away in the laundry room, so I went and asked for her help. She came, indicated to me that the man was somehow mentally ill, and talked to the man for quite a long time. She then told me the man was asking for money, food or Heikki's old clothes.

There wasn't anything suitable for me to give. We had vegetables in the fridge, but he wouldn't eat them (only meat, no veg). Besides the vegetables we didn't have any basic food to give him. I went back outside and handed him a box of pizza-flavored breadsticks.

After the stranger left, Joyce told me that the man did some very odd things. Once he had snatched a baby from a house. The police found him later with the baby, under a tree, next to Checkers, one of the Hout Bay supermarkets. He'd figured many people want children, so he was there selling the baby for 300 Rand (~ 30 Euros).