South Africa

“In America we pay good money to feel alive. Adrenaline and fear are a hobby: We go to scary films to experience a couple hours of horror, we jump out of planes to touch death right before our parachute opens, we own video games so we can pretend to cause havoc on villain’s lives. Risk is an option and finding familiarity with danger is a luxury. I could write about all of the “risk” I have paid to experience in South Africa. I have jumped off the highest bridge in the world and gone swimming with sharks, but that isn’t the African story I want you to know. I feel that those stories are American because I was searching to feel alive, and in South Africa millions fight to stay alive. I am fortunate enough that I never felt terrified from the wrath of horror; I have never had to hide from danger at night, I have never been haunted by violence or the feeling of death, and that is the South African story I want you to know. The beautiful resilience of the human spirit is overwhelming.

I have worked in two primary schools while I have lived in South Africa. All of the children I have worked with come from extreme poverty. Last semester I completed an internship in Kayamandi, at the Ikhaya Trust. All of the children that attend the school are “exceptional students” and they have been through exceptional circumstances. Each child has to be sponsored by a family to attend the school. The objective of the school is to rehabilitate each child and eventually place them back in the public school system. The children are victims of sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Many of the children have never been in school before arriving at Ikhaya Trust.  Currently I am teaching at Lynedoch Primary School. It is a public school located within the Western Cape of South Africa. Most children live in one bedroom shacks with their family on wine farms. The majority of the parents are labourers within the wine district. Fetal Alcohol syndrome is rampant. Until recently, workers could receive payment for their labour on the vineyard in alcohol. More than 40% of the children struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Many of the children eat one meal a day, and that is the meal the school provides. Needless to say, both schools and experiences have been humbling, but not because of their misfortune, because of their triumph.

These children have experienced life in a way that you and I will never be able to comprehend, but their determination to overcome, move forward, and enjoy the sunshine of each day is perhaps something harder to comprehend. I look up to them. They have weathered the storm and now they are outside jumping in the puddles. These children give me hope in humanity. They have witnessed the worst in human beings, and they still shine.

So my fellow American, next time you pay money to feel alive, I hope you remember the feeling of being alive isn’t a thrill, a risk, or a horror movie. The feeling of being alive is internal happiness, and refusing to be a victim of circumstance. The feeling of being alive is living, and that is my South African experience.”