A Final Farewell

It makes me sad to be writing this last blog about South Africa. This trip has completely changed the way I think about nearly everything. It was an experience of a lifetime.

My decision for choosing Africa, if you ready one of my first entries, may have just been a process of elimination, but I now believe I was meant to go there. I was meant to go to the AIDS Haven and help those children, I was meant to see the combination of rich and poor living so close, I was meant to have certain experiences with people that left me in tears. I know it may sound weird, but there isn’t any other way to explain it.

I had always been known as a quiet one yet my decision to go to Africa wasn’t a surprise to anyone, even if I did get a few strange looks from people and a couple “Why not Europe?”’s. I’m always up for an adventure and (though I didn’t come in with expectations...) I expected Africa to give that to me, to challenge me in ways I have never been challenged before, to put me in uncomfortable situations and have to deal with them, to communicate with people I had nothing in common with, and to make new friends. I’m glad to say, South Africa did not disappoint.

I arrived in Africa on my first day, in spite of being exhausted, wide-eyed and ready for the adventures to begin. Everything was new to me. I missed the familiar, my family and friends, my house and dog, Alexandria and school, but I was too excited for that to last very long.

My first impressions were mixed, to say the least. I had just been travelling for 36 hours and I step out of the PE airport, its hot, I’m hot, and I smell. Not the best combination in the world. I rode to Langerry with Vilma (who I thought was the nicest lady but had no idea who she was and so I didn’t talk all that much) and as we go around a curve I saw we were on top of a hill overlooking the ocean. I could not believe where I was. The place was so beautiful, and I hadn’t even seen the best of it. Walking into Langerry was surreal, though it may have been the lack of sleep, and I was so glad I travelled so light. I barely made it up the stairs with my stuff. The one good thing about being the first in an apartment is picking which room you get to have, and Melissa and I chose well – I will probably never have a room with a balcony again (sorry Amy for never switching). I had no idea what PE would be like so I can’t say I was surprised by what I saw or not. I figured South Africa had a poverty problem and that cities are a perfect example. But I was surprised to see how closely the third world and first world are to each other here. We lived in a very tourist part of the city, but take a five minute car ride and you could be in run-down apartment buildings; take another five minutes and you see the townships and the shacks.

I have to admit that I was nervous when other people started showing up. I had been travelling with the same five girls and along so well with them all that I was anxious about how well I’d get along with the rest of the group. As I said before, I’m a terribly shy person around new people, and, like everyone else, I wanted them to like me. I was also worried about how well 30 people could get along for 3 ½ months living so close to each other and wondering if we would be at each other’s throats by the end.

Needless to say, most of my first impressions are not the ones I leave with and all my worries were for nothing. I left South Africa with a whole new understanding to life and the world that we live in. Never again will I look at poverty or race the same way again. I will never take for granted anything that I have because most people in this world don’t have the same luxuries I do. One incident in particular drove this point home to me. I went running most days along the beachfront. One morning I saw this one man kneeling on the ground. As I got closer I could see that he was scraping ice cream that had been dropped the night before with a stick and eating it; he was just so desperate to eat something. I nearly broke down to tears. It took me a while before I could fully understand what I saw and it still affects me when I think about it. People shouldn’t have to do that. This is the same man that goes through all the garbage’s in the morning looking for something to eat. He carries around a plastic bag that holds all he has in life. Everything I have is a gift. When people complain about not having the latest shoes or cell phone I’m going to think about this man and wish that this person could see him too, maybe then they’d stop complaining.

As Gary explained before we even left CSB/SJU, we would run into the issue of race and racist people. Coming from small town Minnesota, diversity is having one black kid in your graduating class. In South Africa, diversity is much greater and racism can run deep. Some people blame the blacks for everything that is going wrong in their country. One white South African that I talked to said that whatever the black people want, they get. The government is black and so they need to help their people, and to do this they just tax the white people. The blacks do not need to pay for electricity or water if they don’t feel like it. He just kept going off on this for an hour. I guess I understand why he is thinking this but the problems of his country run deeper than this. Having had the experience of being a minority in a country and being treated differently because of the color of my skin, race is an entirely different issue to me now. I will notice it more and how people react to diversity. I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

I have to talk about how my time at the AIDS Have has affected me. Before, I was not much of a little kid person. I didn’t know how to talk to them or keep them entertained for 3 hours and was worried they wouldn’t like me. After, I love kids. I think anyone who didn’t like kids would just have to spend a couple of hours with these kids to change. All of these kids will never have a normal childhood. They live in an orphanage where one-on-one attention was nonexistent until we got there. Most live with the stigma of having HIV or AIDS. As Sandra (one of the most frustrating people I have met) said all the kids at the Haven have either been infected or effected by AIDS. Some were abandoned and still have parents – just a short aside, the mother of one little boy came one of the last days we were there and when one of the girls tried to hand him off to her he started crying and wouldn’t go to her, heartbreaking – others are true orphans, while still others are orphans and were abandoned by other family members. Despite all of this, they are happy, energetic little kids that completely exhaust us every single day we volunteered. Their sickness does not slow them down one bit. Most are developing (physically and mentally) normally and with a few of them you couldn’t tell that they had HIV or AIDS (we found out later that some that we thought had the disease didn’t). HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence, just look at these kids and you’d be able to understand how full a life can be.

Finally, I have to talk about the 29 fantastic people I got to share this unbelievable experience with. I did not have to worry about how well we would get along. Spending nearly 4 months together brought us closer than I could have ever expected. These people are like my family now, some of them I know better than some members of my family (oh and Joe and Melissa, if you think I have a weird family dynamic you should have been at my Grandpa’s 70th birthday party yesterday, you would have been blown away by the strangeness that occurred). The potlucks we had were perfect. I didn’t think college students could cook so well. Some I got to know well because I lived with them or had an amazing travel experience with them (especially Bulungula and Lesotho) others I got to experience the extreme stress that was Marine Biology with. I am going to miss so much about these people. I’m going to miss Joe coming into our room all the time because he got locked out and had to climb across the balcony. I’m going to miss the conversations with Nick (especially when he’s had a few…). I’m going to miss running around from room to room looking for our nonstick pan only to find it in the room down the hall (thanks Flat 6). I’m going to miss Amy running about 5 times a day. I’m going to miss the get well cards made by Laura and the crafts that would be made in Flat 14. I’m going to miss the music that would be blaring from the room next door and Jenny running to sing about freeing a whale. There is something about everyone on this trip that I am going to miss. My roommates were amazing and put up with me going to bed early I could not have asked for a better group to live with. Thank you to everyone who made this trip the best experience I have had in my life I will never, ever forget any of you.

Peace.