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| Maggie The Gambler |
It has got to the extend where the Lesotho Sun Hotel actually gave her a gold class access card for use of one of the special rooms designated for their most loyal customers.The doormen and service people know her by name.Every month-end, without fail, she is at the gambling tables, slot machines or whatever it is that takes her fancy to try her luck.
The unfortunate thing is that she could have had a home of her own,good furniture.The gambling bug has really bitten very deep.Maggie gambles her earnings away and has to rely on loan sharks in-order to make ends meet.It all started innocently as a night of fun with the girls from work,but now her life is up-side down.The loan sharks have possession of her A.T.M card and passport which she had to surrender as security.At the month end , she goes and collects the remainder of the amount left in her account ,usually about a hundred and fifty rands.This is hardly enough to pay the three hundred and fifty rands rental for the two-roomed rented garden flat in one of the not-so-elegant suburbs of Maseru as well the food for her children.To make ends meet she has to immediately borrow from the loan shark at an interest of around 30%,so the vicious circle continues.After getting the loan she gambles in the faint hope that she will be able to score a big enough amount to clear all her debts but slowly but surely she is sinking deeper into the hole of desperation fuelled by her debts and gambling habit.
Her children know that on her payday she will arrive home late after visiting the hotel for a gambling session.The eldest, a tall thirteen year old,does the best she can to look after her eleven year old brother and two year old sister.She has lost all respect for her mother,to the extent that she back-chats and is generally unruly.
What makes this situation tragic is the fact that Maggie actually has a college education,one would have thought that she would be wise enough to the dangers of addiction and the poor influence she is having on her offspring.She foolishly believes that she can stop at any time but this has been going on for a while.Her younger sibling, who has a well paying job in one of the government departments,has vowed not to feed Maggie's gambling habits and will not give her any money at all.
My sympathies lie with the children who have an AWOL mother on the day they should be enjoying her monthly toils.If children cannot partake of the mother's hard-earned cash,whilst she feeds it to the slot machines,can one really blame them for feeling neglected.Were it possible those children would have been taken into foster care.
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