Appreciation

So this is my last post from South Africa! I can't believe how fast this trip has gone by, but at the same time, I feel like I've been away from home forever. The past two days have definitely been the most emotionally draining of the trip, and I am still processing the experiences that I've had.

I don't know if I can put my reactions to our visit to Kliptown into words. Bob (the guy from the CNN video and our host in Kliptown) is by far the most inspirational person and beautiful human being I have ever encountered in my life. He has sacrificed his entire life to stay in this community and live among the people he wants to help. I think that just about every other sentence out of his mouth was quote worthy. One of the things that he told us as soon as we got there is that feeling guilty for what we had in our lives would do no one any good...what he wanted us to do was appreciate what we had and to appreciate other human beings. He was very clear that while he appreciated our donations and charity, he wants to teach the children of Kliptown dignity and to earn what they get. As Bob said...."Sometimes things are too big...we are small people".

As soon as we got to Kliptown, we were welcomed with open arms...we had to cross train tracks to get into the community, which is basically just a bunch of tin shacks other then two community buildings that serve as a recreation center and cafeteria for the SKY program that Bob runs. We immediately had a following of small children. With huge smiles on their faces, they would just walk up to us, take our hands and say "shoot me, shoot me", meaning take my picture. Many of the kids had never seen their own picture, so with the beauty of digital cameras, we were able to show them their own smiles :). The older children and teenagers from Bob's group performed for us, singing and dancing. The afternoon ended with a lunch that they prepared for us, and about 50 members of the community walking us back to our bus. Even though Kliptown is probably the poorest and most dangerous place to live, there is a spirit of community that is inspiring.

Through dinner last night, we all talked about ways that we want to continue to help Kliptown, but more importantly, to make sure we are doing more at home as well. We are already planning a group reunion, both to socialize and to organize some projects.

Today, we visited Nelson Mandela's house and went to an open air African market. Tonight is our farewell dinner, and we are headed to a traditional African restaurant that is open only to our group....I made a pact that I would try a local delicacy, which is a dried, salted worm....we'll see how this goes!

Tomorrow is our final university visit in the morning, and then its off to the airport and back to reality. My pictures will all be posted soon....and as for the trip as a whole, I guess that all I can say is that I have a lot of appreciation for my experiences here...both the beauty that I've had an opportunity to see, and an appreciation for the people that I met in Kliptown and throughout my time here. Now its back to reality :)