South Africa

I had my first shift as a volunteer worker, knowing I'd be helping others is a big step for me and a long awaited one at that. What I didn't expect was the burst of inspiration and knowledge of the world around me. Stories so severe and tragic that I was close to tears. To think that a small group of children no older than 12 could impact my life so profoundly made a shocking revelation.

While learning about space, the children saw pictures of planets, meteors and space rockets. One of the children squealed (as most children often do) and exclaimed "I've seen one of those, I've seen one of those!!"
A real rocket? A 9 year old saw a real rocket? The teacher asks "Have you? Where?"
"In my country! In my country there are rockets!"
My stomach sank. Obviously the child had seen a missile. He lived in a country where warfare was a second nature, a missile was only scenery to them. Knowing this scared me. These children live in constant war and poverty, a medium of hell was their only home.

I could never bring myself to discipline a child, whenever I saw a child snatch something off another, it was not because they had no manners. It was the way they lived. In poverty, whatever you can get your hands on, is all that you really have. How can you change that mentality? How can I tell them that we live in a commonwealth country, that we can share and benefit from sharing? That there are refuges for the homeless and rations for the famished?

If I learned this in less than two hours, then there is so much more to know about the world around me in the lifetime that I have, and before I combat the problems of the world, I need knowledge of the issues. South Africa has so much beauty but it's humanity that killed it.