Market Street, one of the busiest streets in Johannesburg, is in the heart of the city. The city is known for its drug dealers, crime, and street hawkers. It is a place where foreigners live forty in a room of dilapidated buildings with no electricity and no running water. Where litter becomes the playground of the young.

It was Sunday, and Joyce was returning from church to what she called home, a room she shared with others from her beloved country, Malawi. She was sitting with her head resting against the window of the mini-taxi she was traveling in.

Although it was Sunday, it was a noisy bunch of travelers that were traveling with her. She was thinking about the morning service and the message the pastor sent them off with. “Be thankful, as the Lord is with you wherever you go. You are one of His children.” Just like Jacob, she was sent by her father to live among her countrymen. The only difference was that she was not running away, as she feared for her life, but making a living for herself and her family in an unfamiliar country.

She knows that she should be thankful that she had steady work and that she could send money home every month, but that doesn’t stop her from missing her family. Missing seeing the cracks of wisdom on her father’s face, her mother sweating behind the pots on the fire, and her siblings playing happily with car tyres in the dusty street.

As the mini-taxi stops, some passengers get off and pick up some new ones. Joyce turned her head, looking to see what was happening in the street. Then she saw it; an old woman sitting on a bench clutching her handbag on her lap. She couldn’t see the woman’s face clearly.

_{From the original contest post}

The mini-taxi pulled off, and Joyce turned her head as far as she could, hoping the lady would turn her head so that she could see her full face. It was not the case. As she turned her head again to rest against the window, she could not help but feel a deep sense of disappointment.

She closed her eyes, blocking out the noise around her. The picture stayed in her mind. The old woman sitting on the bench, clutching her bag. Why is a white woman in the middle of Johannesburg all by herself? Joyce opened her eyes in shock. On the street, there were no hawkers… no litter. How can that be? She shouted at the taxi driver to stop. She had to get off, and she had to go back.

Joyce found herself running to where she saw the woman sitting on the bench. She was totally exhausted when she reached the place where she thought she saw the woman, but there was no bench, no woman, and no clean street. Maybe she was in the wrong place. She walked for another block and another, but the picture did not change.

Disappointed and all sweaty, she stood with her back against a street pole, waiting for the next mini- taxi. Is this what missing home is doing to you? She could not help asking herself.

Soon she was sitting in a mini-taxi again, her head resting against the window, her eyes closed, listening to the other passengers. They were discussing the lottery draw from the previous night. After almost a year, there was a winner.

She searched for her purse in her handbag and found it, the lottery ticket she bought the previous day. She looked at the numbers.

Slowly, she put the ticket back into her purse and back into her handbag. She put her head back against the window, closed her eyes, and held her handbag tightly in her arms with a smile on her face.

She remembered the dream Jacob had. The stairs that led all the way to heaven, with angels going up and down. She started to smile. The bench, the old woman clinching her bag, and the clean street that she could not find. She started to smile. It is time to go HOME!

Thank you @waqarahmadshah for the invitation!

I invite: @solperez and @ngoenyi to participate.

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