Life has been particularly weird lately, and today was no exception when I received a hand-written letter from a Mr. Christopher Velile Paliso, a prison inmate. I assume Christopher got my name from one of my company's media publications because he addressed the letter to the Johannesburg office (we recently sent out a supplement with the Sunday Times, which carried my name and the address of the Johannesburg office). Christopher was writing to me in the hope that I could assist him in anyway to start acquiring the skills he needed to enter the workplace when he left prison. He aspires to become an architect. But it wasn't his request so much that shocked me, it was his story and his honesty.
The amazing thing is that Christopher has been in jail since 1991. He's never lived in freedom, never seen South Africa's democracy. The image he has of South Africa is still one of an apartheid regime - as he says in his letter, "I've never tasted the fruit of freedom or democracy". He was 18 when he was convicted to serve 32 years in prison for possession of fire arms, assault, theft, and robbery. Can you even begin to imagine what South Africa and the world is going to look like to him when he does get released?
The weirdest part of it all is that Christopher's conviction date is the same date as my birthday, and I received this letter today, exactly 1 week before my 25th birthday and 1 week before his 20th anniversary of being imprisoned. I know most people would say that it's just coincidence but for some reason it seems the universe wanted me to hear this man's story. So I'm going to help him by sending him some publications from our company, as well as some old architecture books to aid him in his learning (from a general company signature that is). It's weird having the choice to better someone's life in your hands.
Receiving & reading this letter gave me a new found meaning to the term "mixed emotions"... I felt freaked out, shocked, sad, sympathetic, empathetic, confused, worried, scared. I also felt morally confused as to whether I should in anyway respond to a convicted criminal or not, a criminal who expresses his guilt in a letter to me, but also his desperation to make amends and to better himself. Funny enough, I learnt a thing or two about myself from Christopher's letter, and from that respect, I'm glad I received it.
I'm going to end this post with an excerpt from his letter [in his own words]. You can read the full letter below:
"I have a dream but I have no wings to fly. To me to be in Prison is to facing the consequences and the challenges experience of life, life has good a good and bad surprises so that we have to accept them as we all sometimes learn from our mistakes there's no one is 100% sure about life guarantee. What will happen tomorrow, I am not focusing on the past, I am focusing on the future plans, because the past confused the way to go forward. There's no one can change me unless I change my ways of thinking and actions when I falling down, I wish to wake up again and make my dreams come true"
