Breaking Barriers By Being

17 years after the end of Apartheid, there are still very strong cultural barriers throughout South Africa.  As a YAGM volunteer, you are immediately thrust into the middle of them all.  During my time here, I have certainly participated in many “barrier breaking” activities, but most have come by way of simply being, not doing.

Being a YAGM volunteer means that you are not allowed any driving privileges.  Sure, this can seem annoying at times and take away some of that independence we have cherished since teenage years as Americans.  However, my rides in the taxis have produced some of more fruitful experiences during my time in South Africa.  The taxis in South Africa are very different from the ones back in the States.  Here, the taxis are really minibuses, or “15 seaters” as we commonly refer to them back home.  Here, you squeeze in to capacity (and sometimes far over capacity!) and head to one common destination.  You get off where you want, and you have to know the lingo and hand signs to get where you want to go.  The taxis are quite cheap, and virtually travel everywhere and anywhere.  Despite the common use and convenience, the taxis are rarely ridden by white South Africans.  Often referred to as the “black taxis,” many white South Africans would rather walk than ride in them.  So, whenever I step on to a taxi, the heads turn.  People stare in amazement and for many I may be the first white person they’ve ever shared a taxi with.  But shortly after aboard, I try to start a conversation with whoever is seated next to me.  And the conversations have usually been wonderful, rich, fulfilling ones in which I learn a lot.  I see a lot of people smile when they see me on the taxis, perhaps enjoying the fact that race is not the issue it once was.  And all this by simply being.

My host family lives in a very safe, comfortable suburban neighborhood called Fauna.  The streets are generally quiet and I spend a lot of time outside with my little host brother and sister.  Down the street there is a little neighborhood shopping area, with a mini supermarket, a fish & chips place, a butchery, a dvd rental and other retail stores.  So whenever I am feeling for a walk or need something quickly, I head down to the shops.  As is often the case, my host brother or sister will accompany on my walk, (they do this because they usually get a chocolate or some ice cream out of it for keeping me company!)  We tend to make these walks quite often.  Each time we make the walk, we get stared at as if we had five heads and twenty arms.  Unfortunately, the stares became so intense that my host brother and sister started to refuse to accompany me because they felt so uncomfortable.  As unfair and rude as it is, it proves that there is still a stigma surrounding people of different races spending time together.  I can only smile and laugh it off, for I know that our presence by just walking is making people think and contemplate the realities of the new South Africa.  We are slowly showing people that it’s no big deal for a white person and black person to walk together.  And all this by simply being.

Either for work or leisure, I spend a lot of time in downtown Bloemfontein.  Covered with street vendors and markets selling spices, produce and other miscellaneous goods, downtown Bloemfontein has the hustle and bustle of a true African city.  Bloem has character, and it’s something you need to experience firsthand to understand.  And it’s because of this lively atmosphere that I sometimes just go for a stroll downtown.  Now, when I am walking around downtown, I am the only white person in sight.  I don’t get stared at as much as in other places, perhaps because it’s a city and people are more focused on their next destination or where the best avocado dealer is.  But I certainly get the looks.  I probably get the most astonished looks when I purchase something from the markets, or buy some of the food from the street vendors.  There have been many times when I’ll bite into a fat cake (doughnut like bread ball sold almost everywhere,) freshly purchased on the street just to have people literally stop and stare at me.  I’ve even had people tell me that they’ve never seen a white person eat something that they’ve just witnessed me happily devour.  And despite hearing from many people how “dangerous and unsafe” downtown Bloemfontein is, I have never had a problem.  Although I am just a drop in the ocean of people in downtown Bloem, I cannot help but think that my presence there triggers people’s thoughts about race, acceptance and life.   And all this by simply being.

After spending over ten months in places and situations that are against the racial norm of the area, I see how powerful a presence can simply be.  And then I think, how present have I been back home?  How have I gone about my life in the cities and towns back in the U.S.?  I was not unlike many white South Africans.  But my hope is that after this year, I will continue to “simply be” amongst people unlike myself.   

I’ve learned that you don’t have to do something tangible or big to make a difference.  You simply have to be in ways you’ve never been.

Tears of the Street

Last week I had the opportunity to spend the week serving at Towers of Hope, a NGO that focuses on providing resources to the homeless, especially homeless youth.   Towers of Hope is located in the heart of Bloemfontein and serves three meals daily.  In addition to providing meals, clothes and food parcels to the homeless of the city, Towers concentrates on rehabilitating homeless youth, or “street kids.”  I spent most of my week meeting many of the homeless youth in the streets, as well as working with some of the teenage boys who are now off the streets.  The week was an eye opening, yet heartbreaking experience.

Every morning Steven, an employee of Towers and a former street kid himself, does his rounds around Bloem.  Over time, he has developed quite a rapport with many of the youth, and knows them all by name.  He would take me to all the usual spots where they spend their days, as well as where they sleep.  The two main areas where the homeless youth sleep are under a bridge in the center of town and in the “white house.”  Both locations are ironically placed and in unimaginably harsh conditions. 

The bridge location is directly down town and right next to a shopping area called ‘Central Park.’  The irony lies just 50 meters away where the Central Park police station is located.  The police used to allow the boys to bathe there until they deemed them “too old to bathe at the police station.”  So now the boys remain unclean, relying on the flow of water under the bridge.  Many of the boys sleep under this bridge, where running water flows from city run-off and drainage.  There are copious amounts of garbage heaps and the only way down or up is to climb the steep stone wall and jump over the palisade fence.  But for more than a dozen teenage boys, this is home.

The “White House” is a place that I will never forget.  Also in the center of the city, it is located in a large plot normally used for the Macufe Festival in September.  Once a large brick house, after an uncontrollable fire it was condemned and abandoned.  There is no roof, no windows and no doors.  But inside, young girls make it their home.  The girls living here, some as young as 13, prostitute themselves at night for survival.  In the waking hours of dawn they have to come back to a house of ruin.  Their rooms, if you could even call them that, are dark, damp and full of soot.  The mattresses are lumps of garbage, and their blankets are tattered and torn.  My heart ached upon seeing this and imagining the daily struggles these teenagers and children have to endure.  As I walked out the front entrance of the house, Steven pointed something out to me.  To our right across the street, loomed a tall and powerful building.  It is the government building for the Department of Social Development, starring down at this structure that embodies so much struggle and pain on the streets of this city.  How could these people go to work every day and peer out their office windows and not do something about this place?  This extreme irony and apathy from the general public sadly encompasses more than just this scene.

As my week continued and I met more and more of the boys of the streets, I started to see them in a more human way.  Unfortunately, the homeless have lost all dignity and humanity.  We don’t see homeless people as people, we simply don’t see them at all.  This is a universal problem, not just a South African one.  But despite the boys seeming to be dangerous, constantly huffing glue, wearing tattered clothes or sleeping under a bridge, I felt their youth.  I could see in their eyes and youthful smiles that they are just boys, many of whom have been abused.  They love playing soccer, dancing and creating art.  They are people.  I constantly thought back to my years as an adolescent, and how much I took for granted but also for how blessed I’ve been.  After experiencing this, I will never see a homeless person the same again. 

Every night since I’ve left Towers I pray for the comfort and peace for the children living on the streets in Bloemfontein.  When I hear the rain, I can feel it as it falls on the boys under the bridge and sweep away their only comforts.  As I huddle under my many blankets at night, I feel the bitter cold on the emaciated bodies of the girls in the White House.  I do not deserve anything I have.  I have been blessed by God’s grace, and I can only pray that His grace will befall the children on the street.  But until then my tears will continue to fall, and my fight for the hope of the poor and marginalized will rage on.