“Where would I go?” – a missionary moment

I found it so strange in Madagascar that when I found mangoes for a very low price from a vendor on the street, he refused to sell me the ten he had.  “What will I do with the rest of my day?”  He asked.  This happened again at a little store where the man [is this the same mangoes man? Otherwise, ‘a man’ is preferred] sold prepaid phone cards. He wouldn’t sell me a number of them that I wanted, because he wanted to sell those over the day and not all at once.

One guy in my neighbourhood had been standing on the same spot selling things every day, but he didn’t have much success. He would manage to sell maybe one thing a day. After I lived there about 3 years, I finally asked him why he didn’t go somewhere else where maybe he would have more success selling his wares.  He responded with a shrug, saying “where would I go?” I urged him to consider a change, asking how he could be satisfied with selling only one thing each day?  But, he was content to sit where he was.

It was such a different way of thinking to me, very different from the thinking of my home country!

-South African missionary to Madagascar