Great story Carolina. I live in NZ where many South Africans have moved to and I am friends with a large number of them. Many say they’ve come to escape difficult areas back home. However NZ has its dodgy areas which may or may not compare with some places in Sth Africa. In South Auckland where I live and work as a youth worker, there are a few suburbs with poor reputations. However, I’ve discovered the opposite is often true of them. Once I too broke down in a “dodgy” area. Within a couple of minutes 4 big, rather intimidating guys approached my car. “wanna push bro?” they said. “sure, thank you.” And with a good shove we got the car started and I continued on my way. I learned a wee lesson.

A year or 2 later one of my colleagues was complaining of traffic coming to work on a certain road. Knowing her location I said “Why don’t you come through ####? Its faster” “Oh no I couldnt do that, its dangerous, what if I broke down?” Laughing I told her “Well if you did you’d probably get helped to get going again likelier than many other suburbs!” Within a few months she’d changed her route and never looked back.