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First Cheque

"So what will you do with your first pay cheque when you start work?" Sibu, the final year med student, and I are walking through the car park at the doctors residences. I am eyeing the brand new BMW's, Mercedes and 4WD's. It seems that the first thing you do when you get a well paid job in South Africa is buy an enormous car on credit. Sibu sighs.

The first thing I will do is build my parents a better house."

"Where do they live?"

"In a township outside Pietermaritzburg. It is a very small house. Four small rooms – they built it themselves."

"Does your father have a job."

"Sometimes – but they are very poor. I nearly had to leave medical school in the third year because they had no money. I did not get a bursary." This surprises me – he is bright fellow and on pushing admits he got 84% overall in his first year.

"Why not?"

"I do not know but I think it is because they give the bursaries to people from the rural areas – the 'previously disadvantaged'."

I feel stupid – as a foreign doctor it is easy to feel rather self-righteous about driving your beat up Toyota and parking next to the interns (just qualified) BMW. But if I had experienced poverty, struggled through medical school with little support to fall back on, not been able to go out and do things many of my friends were doing I suspect I would go a little wild with my first pay cheques.

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