Please, just give us a chance...

This is the story of a fictional character from a fictional place in a fictional country. She lives in my heart and mind and haunts me all day long. She keeps whispering the same message to me over and over again:

“Please, just give us a chance”

She's told me all about her life. She was born in the Pacific Islands and married young. She decided to leave her tiny village and come to a Western Nation for a better chance for her kids. She gets dumped in a badly built state house in a ghetto, but it’s OK, there’s lots of Island people here and she knows their families. At least there’s plenty of jobs about and the kids will have a chance at a decent education and maybe even make it to university or get a job that pays more than the minimum wages that she’s used too.

She’s got two part time cleaning jobs through the day. In the morning she works in one of those fancy offices in town. She catches the bus or walks to work because she can’t afford a car with a current warrant and registration let alone the costs of petrol. She’s always tired but she tries her best. None of the snobby Palagis she cleans for bother to say hello or even acknowledge her presence. They stand around the water cooler and make rude comments when she walks past. They call her “Fololobese”, a “Dirty Coconut”, make fun of her clothing or complain that she still hasn’t cleaned that dirty mark off the light switch in the women's toilets. She pretends not to notice, but she does and it hurts. She shrugs it off because she knows what they’re like and they aren’t part of her world that’s for sure.

Her husband works night shift in a factory so he can look after the kids through the day. It’s tough making ends meet. She can’t afford to heat her home through the winter and the kids get sick all the time. Sometimes they end up in hospital. She’s exhausted but she tries to spend as much time with them as she can. Some of the other parents and even the nurses judge her and label her as uncaring but she just can’t take the time off work like they can. It doesn’t matter what they think anyway because there’s plenty of family members who will spend time with her child and spoil them with food she knows medical professionals won’t approve of.

She can’t afford to buy much for her kids. Her diet is basic so she treats them whenever she can. She saves some money each week so when it’s their birthday she can shout everyone a feed of KFC. She loves to see her kids happy. She buys second hand clothes from charity shops and is not bothered if something's too big or covered in stains because it’s cheap, functional and warm and she’s not into the latest fashions. Sometimes she can afford to buy a brand new dress when The Warehouse is having a sale. She treasures it and treats it as if it’s a $1000 Trelise Cooper creation and only wears it on special occasions. She always feels like a princess when she dresses up and her family and friends tell she looks beautiful. It’s the little things like this that make it all worth it for her. She’s not into material things.

She goes to Church every Sunday and they have a big feast after the services. Every one is welcome even if they don’t believe in God. If she knows of a homeless person in her community she’s gives them what little she can and brings them food. She knows some kids who are in gangs and who go around tagging, she feels embarrassed and ashamed and wishes they would start coming to Church and respecting their elders. Deep down she understands and knows why they behave like this and she tries to reach out to them but they just don’t want to know. She’ll keep trying though and help them when they get in to trouble. She won’t report them to the Police because those men in blue uniforms remind her of the people she works for and she’s afraid of them.

I wish she would leave me alone but she won’t. I hear her voice constantly and I just can’t switch it off. Is that you Folele? I hear you and I understand. I’ll never forget you and I’ll carry this sorrow and pain in my heart forever.

I hope they start giving you a chance beautiful lady...