I’ve been home 52 days now. Nearly two months. When I tell people about it, I’ve begun to say “2 months” instead of “1”. Which I don’t like. I don’t like it because it makes the whole experience seem so much further away. Each day that passes, South Africa feels more and more like a dream. Like it was fake, or it happened years ago (I can’t imagine what it’ll feel like when it actually becomes years ago). Sometimes it feels like someone else’s memory, and I just heard about it or something. I don’t really know how to explain that.
I was thinking about those kids today. The beautiful kids I met in South Africa. The ones who are still there and whose lives are probably exactly the same as when I left.
A conversation that I had with a lot of people in my SA group was the stark contrast in the dreams of American kids and African children. I’m currently nannying for a family with two little kids, and when I asked them what they want to be when they grow up, the conversation lasted about 5 minutes. They kept changing their minds, sharing different dreams or different jobs they wanted. There was no limit to what they wanted. No dream was too outrageous or too far-fetched. Everything was possible. That is, after all, the American dream, is it not?
Then I thought about the dreams of the children at Ethembeni or in Oceanview. I painfully recalled the vacant look in their eyes when you ask what they want to do when they grow up or how they picture their life in 10 years. As if they’ve never been asked that question before. And honestly, they probably haven’t.
Those people are stuck in this rut and we as Americans come in and make excuses: “Well, they just aren’t trying hard enough.” Or “They could get a job if they really wanted to.” We say these things out of ignorance. We say them because they are truths here. But South Africa is a different world. It took me a long time to understand that. Majority of these people will be born and die in the same circumstances. Which pains me to say, but sometimes I feel like we shy away from the harsh realities in order to justify or remain content in superficiality. The truth is, it’s a hard life.
Of course, there are those people I met who rose above it all. There was one young man who grew up in Mpophomeni (one of the townships near PMB) and he is now playing for one of the national soccer teams. There is another boy who grew up in Haniville, a different township, and he is joining a performing arts group that travels around South Africa, preaching the Gospel. These stories do exist, they are just very rare.
There was one young boy who, amidst the sea of blank stares and confusion, knew what he wanted to do when he grows up:
Be an American soldier.
That’s what he said. It caught me very off guard. Why would a 6-year-old boy in Oceanview, SA want to be an American solider?
I had that conversation over two months ago. And it was just this morning that I think I began to understand why he said that. It’s because being an American also means having a chance to dream. Having everything be possible and living in a culture that says no dream is too big. We don’t realize here how powerful that can be for a young child, but it motivates them. It encourages and causes them to strive for something beyond themselves.
I wish that for those children I met. That they can have dreams and strive. That eventually, the Lord will provide ways for them to escape this trap of poverty and AIDS that has encompassed every facet of their lives for as long as they can remember. I wish for them to succeed beyond anything they could imagine.
“Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” –James 2:5
