While living and volunteering in Kimberley, I have been witness to beautiful images. Through individuals here I have seen and felt strength, perseverance, hope and triumph. However, like many places in the world, the struggles here are visible. While working at Thusong, a home for street children, many of the images I see are unfortunately those of illiteracy, hunger and lack of security. Poverty and stress weighs heavy on the children’s shoulders every day.

I often ask myself how it is that I have been able to cope these last seven months working at the home. When other people began to ask, I started thinking about it and giving a name to the mechanisms I consciously and unconsciously use each day. I’ve made a quick list here.

I become a bit numb to it.

I talk about it.

I pray about it.

I plan.

I keep working.

I cry.

Let me explain myself…

I become numb to it.

As extremely dangerous as I see this coping mechanism to be, I find that it is also necessary. One must realize that what these children are dealing with is part of a life that millions of individuals have. Neglect, malnutrition, violence, you name it, are issues that spread worldwide in alarming numbers. They have become so normal that the presence of such disturbances does not shock many people into action. Terrifying, but true.

Seeing and hearing the violence, witnessing the inequality and poverty, one must to some extent become numb to this reality in order to be present every moment of the day. Please don’t mistake this idea of being numb as being insensitive or dead. Rather, it helps while taking everything in without falling apart. If I allowed my true emotions to dictate my work I would not be very helpful. I would be a mess.

Over and over I must tell myself that what I am seeing and dealing with is a reality for many people. ‘A common struggle’ I hear at times, but it is not okay.

I talk about it. I pray about it.

Working as a YAGM through the ELCA’s Global Mission there is never a lack of support and people to talk to. Especially with my fellow MUD4s, I have been privileged to be a part of a group that relates to me and listens to my struggles. I have also found that talking about coping with the struggles faced at Thusong with the local people here in Kimberley has been beneficial. I have learned a lot from just listening about how they deal with this happening in their community.

Prayer has also been a consistent help. Sometimes I think that the answers to my questions are beyond my compression and it’s easier dumping those questions on God, knowing that he will deal with them a whole lot better than anyone else.

I plan. I keep working.

While my country coordinator was visiting my site, he asked one of the directors of Thusong what she sees as the strengths and weaknesses of the home. She replied by saying that the strengths are being able to have a place to house street children, that these children have a roof over their heads and food to eat, and that they have the opportunity to gain an education with the help of Thusong. The weaknesses, she expressed, had everything to do with lack of money, donations, and recognition.

Many times when I am feeling lost, I think about these things. I am motivated when thinking about the strengths this woman addressed. Though the weaknesses are strong, it is true that every night these children have the option to sleep in a bed rather than on a sidewalk, they have a gate to lock rather than being vulnerable on the streets and they have a guaranteed three meals a day, which would be nearly impossible to find in town with no money. After thinking about these strengths, I remember the weaknesses and I begin to brainstorm. Lack of money and donations? Each month, myself and the other volunteers at Thusong hand out letters to local businesses, are persistent in follow up calls and have been successful in gaining donations for the home. From these efforts we have made a partnership with a local bakery that donates bread on a weekly basis and we have received multiple donations from clothing stores over the last six months. In addition, we are welcome to schedule movie screenings at the art museum, rent movies for free at the local movie store, attend programs at the library, and had free entry into the local swimming pool through out the summer. Though these contributions probably will not drastically change much, I pray that they help. Acknowledging and understanding weaknesses is an important step in progress. Action is the essential follow up.

I cry.

Sometimes I feel so pissed off and helpless that crying is what helps best.

What’s happening in this world and in my face at my work site has been happening since Jesus’ time. Poverty, inequality, many other social injustices.

On one hand, this is a very sad realization. In the last couple thousand years, after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we people have gone nowhere. Backwards, maybe? Had we continued to live like Jesus did, coming not to be served but to serve, maybe this wouldn’t be the case?

On the other hand, I find strength in Jesus during these times when I really don’t know what do, think or feel. Jesus lived and walked with people who were outcasts and who were considered unworthy and unwanted. Jesus knew that this is one the greatest dangers facing mankind- he was born, lived and died because of that knowledge-, he talk about it with his friends, he prayed to God about it, he made plans and worked to change these injustices, and sometimes he even cried.

I pray this day and always that we may never become too numb to realize the urgent help our neighbors need and that we may never become too discouraged to lack action.

The last few summers at my parent’s house I remember there being a lot of woodland creatures. Huge increase in the chipmunk population. There are none this side, no squirrels either. However, once a week or so I do see a meerkat running around. I think that Animal Planet is fond of them and the majority of people most likely think they are cute, but I’m not so sure and sense they are a bit devious. I’ve seen them chase the cat at my work and I’m pretty sure they have everything to do with the loss of pigeon eggs at Dinah’s house. Circle of life. Dinah says that I should love all of God’s creatures. “Sorry, my sweet”, she says as she delicately places the horse-sized ant outside the door.

Here’s a sympathy picture for our pigeons. Dinah likes to feed them our left over rice and for that they stick around, despite the threat of the meerkat.

Sunday is eating day.

Actually, every day is eating day, but Sunday meals are my favorite. Coming home from church around 9:30 the kettle immediately goes on for our second cup of tea or coffee. We also set the rice on the stove before leaving to go pick up a bag of mixed vegetables at the tuck shop down the road. The bag of veggies is brilliant, sold only on the weekends, and includes carrots, pumpkin, cabbage, potatoes, and onions for a decent price. When Dinah and I get home we spend time in the kitchen chopping and peeling while sipping on our tea and chatting about the week behind us and the week to come. Dinah also uses this time to translate for me what was said in church. Each food item goes into its own pot and takes its turn on one of two burners. On top of all that, Dinah always fries chicken and we make a cold lettuce or tomato salad.

Sunday cooking is a wonderful time that Dinah and I share together. Each Sunday she laughs and says, “three hours to cook, 10 minutes to eat”. It is without a doubt the best food I’ve had in Kimberley and is a meal I’ll have to continue once home.

Here is a picture of the table last week…a meal shared between two.

Second Retreat

At the end of February, I was able to get together with the others volunteers again. I first met up with some of my girl friends in Pretoria, helping out at a crèche one day, exploring the city and hanging out on the lawns in front of the Union Buildings. Then we traveled to Soweto to meet up with the other girls in MUD4. We spent a lot of time in Joburg, hanging out with new friends, going on the SAB (South African Brewery) tour and walking around some beautiful markets. All of us girls then traveled together to Pietermaritzburg and went ziplining before the boys arrived to start our second retreat. During the retreat we went rafting, went to the Botanical Gardens in PMB, tried bush golfing (miniature golf literally in the bush) and played some kickball. This was also a time in which we were able to sit together and have amazing conversation about the past few months and helpful discussions about the time ahead and the departure date that is quickly sneaking up. On the Sunday before leaving we had the opportunity to attend church at LTI (Lutheran Theological Institute) for the second time, greet new and old friends and hear Brian preach about being a servant-leader.

These times we have together as a group are rare and it has been amazing to see how the last six months have informed and formed us. The next time we’re all together will be our last week in South Africa. Hard to believe.

Here’s me ziplining.

The Rainbow Nation

During the last six months in South Africa I have had the privilege to travel in seven different provinces, surrounded by locals in buses and kombis. Many times, in my experience, the travel from place to place is one of the most exciting parts of visiting others. What I have seen from taxi and bus windows are life-giving images that I will forever remember. In fact, these moments on the road are ones in which I have felt closest to God while seeing the wonders of South Africa. I keep coming back to the thought that South Africa’s landscape is as diverse as it’s people. As the dry, flat landscape of Kimberley becomes lush hills or an urban city, the language changes, the culture differs, music, food and dance transform. Everyday I am amazed by the diverse colors, sounds, shapes and tastes that create this singular country, South Africa. People are so unique in this country that I have trouble picturing what a South African would look like, what he would sound like, or what his struggles and joys may be. Labeled as the Rainbow Nation, South Africans remain who they are and come together to make something really, truly great.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom we were able to hear speak at the COP 17 rallies in Durban last November, speaks about African people by saying, “In African language we say ‘a person is a person though other persons.’ I would not know how to be a human being at all except I learned this from other human beings. We are made for a delicate network of relationships, of interdependence. We are meant to complement each other. All kinds of things go terribly wrong when we break that fundamental law of our being. Not even the most powerful nation can be completely self-sufficient.”

At home in the States and here in my community in SA, I see things go terribly wrong when we as humans fail to work together. Many social injustices that I see and feel happen because we refuse to take responsibly for what we do and more importantly, we refuse to take responsibly for others. For example, I question everyday about who’s responsible for the street kids I hang out and work with. Who’s responsible for these human beings?

‘I am because we are’ vs. ‘each man for his own’

In four months I will be leaving this country and a lot of worry and grief comes with thinking about that departure. One worry is that in leaving I may lose the deep connection I have with my community and I am concerned about how I may find a way to continue to communicate with the youth I hang out with each day who do not even have a mailing address. In these uncertainties, Tutu’s statement about the importance of our interdependence gives me hope that these ‘networks of relationships’ can certainly span across oceans. Leaving this amazing, colorful, diverse country, which has taught me about the world and myself and challenged my views and beliefs, should not bring me grief, but rather delight in the opportunity to go home an ambassador for my South African family and the children I serve. My community in South Africa has indeed taken responsibility for me, loved me and taken me in. They have upheld the meaning of Ubuntu and what Tutu explained as a ‘fundamental law of our being’. I am because we are. “A person is a person though other persons”.