While I was at home trying to complete my PhD, I continued applying for jobs.
One of those applications took me back to a familiar organisation.
I was called for an interview in Cape Town by the same conservation agency I had left earlier when I went to pursue my PhD.
There was something almost circular about it.
I had left the agency because the PhD opportunity had opened. Now the scholarship had run out, I was trying to finish the PhD from home, and the same agency was giving me another opportunity.
But first, I had to get to Cape Town.
My lady friend from KwaZulu-Natal, whom I had assisted during an earlier part of my journey, was now in Cape Town furthering her studies.
I told her about the interview and asked her to help me find accommodation for the night before the interview.
She refused.
Not because she did not want to help me.
She refused because she did not want me to spend money unnecessarily.
She insisted that she and her housemates would accommodate me at their residence. She reminded me that I had assisted her before and that I should now allow her to assist me.
I accepted.
The ladies changed their arrangements for that night and provided me with my own space.
It was a little uncomfortable, but I could have said no.
What mattered was their generosity.
They also provided supper and helped orientate me around Cape Town, a city that was unfamiliar to me.
The following morning, I went for the interview.
Some of the panel members seemed excited that I wanted to return to the agency that I had previously left to complete my studies.
Then I travelled back home.
Before the end of that week, I received the breakthrough.
I had been offered the job.
It was a one-year contract.
I took it.
My former GIS manager, the person who had helped me with professional registration and recommended me for the PhD scholarship, had already left the agency some time before.
So, although I was returning to a familiar organisation, things had changed.
I had changed too.
I returned carrying a PhD that still had to be completed, the experience of losing the financial security of a scholarship and a clearer understanding of how quickly circumstances could change.
The contract solved one problem.
But it did not solve everything.
It was still temporary employment.
So I continued applying for permanent positions.
Looking back, however, I also remember something else about that trip to Cape Town.
At an earlier point in my journey, I had been in a position to assist someone else.
Now circumstances had shifted.
I needed help.
She remembered.
I had only asked her to help me find accommodation.
Instead, she effectively said:
You helped me before. Allow me to help you now.
Perhaps reciprocity does not always arrive according to a schedule.
Sometimes what you give to another person returns years later, in another city, under completely different circumstances.
And sometimes it does not return from the person you helped at all.
But on this occasion, it did.
Join the conversation
Have you ever received help from someone you once helped, at exactly the point when you needed someone yourself?
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