“An old age home? You’ve gotta be kidding me, Leah! Have you totally lost your mind?” my friend Bontie asks.

“What’s wrong with that?” I counter. But I already know what she will say.

“What’s wrong, Leah? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. How do you expect to meet any fit guys working in a place like that?”

My friend Bontie, of course, has the perfect job for meeting new guys: she works in a sports shop. Well, she calls it a sports ‘boutique’. She also calls it a ‘stud-magnet’. All day long, there are guys trailing in: hot, fit guys. Looking for the latest Nikes or backpacks or soccer boots. Sometimes swimming goggles or boxing gloves or body-building weights.

“Life is not all about the guys, Bontie!” I tell her. “Life is not all about finding a date for Friday nights. There are other things as important.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Bontie says again. “Of course life is all about the guys – at our age anyway. I mean, we are young and cute and gorgeous right now. This is the time to catch our dream men. Before we start getting old and wrinkly. Before our boobs start drooping. Nothing else is more important right now!”

I argue back. Bontie and I spend a lot of our time arguing – that doesn’t stop us being best friends. Real BFFs.

I say, “Well, I also want to find my dream job. I want to find work that will make me feel fulfilled. That’s as important as guys.”

“Never!”

“You’re just boy-crazy,” I tell her.

“And you’re just plain crazy!” she counters, so that we both end up laughing.

Most of our arguments end up with us laughing. That’s the best thing about having a best friend that you’ve known forever. Bontie accepts me just the way I am, and I do the same for her.

The truth is: I love my work at the care-home. Oak Ridge, it’s called. Even though I am only an assistant carer – the lowest of the low. And even though it makes me sad sometimes. I mean, all these elderly people in the twilight years of their lives. Yet so many of them have no-one: no family that comes to visit, no phone calls, no letters in the mail.

“Chatting and listening, Leah!” That’s what Matron Mannathoko told me when I went for my interview. “It’s the most important part of your job. It’s what our clients need most. As much as they need medication and tidy rooms, they need social interaction more. They need to feel connected to the world.”

“Chatting and listening – yes, ma’am,” I nodded. Because I was remembering my grandmother.

So whenever I am not busy with my chores, I head to the sunroom where our patients spend their waking hours. Well, our clients. Matron says we must call them clients, not patients. And I sit amongst them and chat away about anything I can think of.

Or, more often, I sit and listen, while they talk to me.