Based on a True Story » South Africa Trip

Samuel Lukhele from Swaziland

Nathan Colquhoun — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:57:29 +0000

Rachel and I spent a few weeks in Swaziland a few years ago with the Lukhele family. Samuel stole all of our hearts as soon as we met him. I wrote about some of his quotes back when we were there. He asked so many questions about the most ridiculous things because he was so curious about the world, and this was at his old age. It was beautiful. He knew how to care and he knew how to rest. I just remember watching him sitting on his chair and enjoying life, I loved watching him so much I just couldn’t stop taking his picture. At one point, as I was reaching my limits of physical exhaustion after five minutes of digging a hole he told me to stop because “there is no need to die today.” Samuel’s physical body died this week. May God be with your family and all those who will miss you from day to day.

Pictures From Kruger Park

Nathan Colquhoun — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:53:24 +0000

After a slow to non-existing internet connection, to my flash not coming off my camera, to my laptop busting and having to take it apart to get my files off of it, I finally have all my pictures from my trip. I have uploaded about 200 of them to Flickr, along with the full sizes in case you ever wanted to print them or make them your background. I think the girls want to do a fundraiser with some of the pictures, so just because I’m giving them away for free don’t be stingy.

Here are all the pictures of animals that I got from Kruger. This was definitely the most stimulating environment I’ve ever been in to take pictures. Wild animals in the wild, not sedated tied to a rock that are fed pre-cut steaks. Their steaks are the other animals we see. Nothing can beat it. You can view them all here.

I’ll highlight a few of my favourite pictures or favourite moments and then put the rest into a sideshow so you can just scroll through them quickly.

For ascetics, this is one of my favourite pictures that I’ve taken. It’s such a wallpaper or something of the sort. It just shows to well I think how beautiful it was there. I had to jump out of the car in the middle of Kruger to take it. When I went back to try and take a few more I got yelled and beeped at by park rangers to get back in my car. So the shot is a one shot wonder. Click here to make it your background if you want (just right click on the photo and set as desktop background).

These picture aren’t the best, I know. But if you knew how desperately I wanted to see I lion and a leopard you would be just as proud. This leopard was sitting under a tree about 700m away from where I was, so I zoomed in as much as I could and snapped at air until I could find it and then digitally zoomed in on top of that. You could barely see it with your eyes. The only lions I saw were sleeping on the side of the road after dark, and the only Hyenas I saw were at night also, so pictures were difficult in that setting but they turned out all right, and we were so ridiculously close to them.

Elephants were buy far the most common sighting after the hundreds of thousands of Impala we saw. So we got ridiculously close to wild elephants who were known to tip vehicles if annoyed. So I got a few sweet shots of them. The last shot there was taken when we were about 3-5 feet away from them and they were down about 2 feet cleaning themselves staring right at us.

These birds don’t fly, and they were one of the first animals we saw going into the park. They are physco looking turkey’s called Ground Hornbills.

These things just walk around, and one got trapped in this walk way I was in, so that was kind of cool. This was the very first thing we saw entering the park, he was just peeking over the road as me drove by.

I snagged this shot when we were in this little hut that oversaw a massive pond where tons of animals came to drink. It was called Lake Panic. It was by far the coolest place to view nature because you felt like you weren’t disturbing them and just watching them do their thing by themselves. It was pretty amazing.

Giraffes are just cool looking animals and there was quite a bit of them also.

It’s always cool when you can get two different animals in the same shot. This was at one of the watering holes. Hippos are so massive, but pretty boring to watch. Unless of course I’m sure they are getting attacked by two male lions. The people we stayed with saw this video happen live.

These animals (monkeys and baboons) just hang out and look at the cars. No fear. We also had come monkeys living where we were. Kind of like we have cats here, they just have random monkeys running around, which is a way cooler animal.

This is a picture of the deranged rooster that didn’t know when morning was because randomly every morning he would crow right out side our door anytime between two and six AM. I’m pretty sure he had broncitus too because he sounded like he was dying.

These wildabeast were booking it following the road so we followed them for a few minutes trying to keep up going backwards with me hanging out the car trying to get some shots.

A lot of the birds slept on the tops of trees at night so you could get some cool shots of them at the right time of dusk.

Bald Eagles were some of my favourite animals to read about when I was a kid, so it was cool to see some.

Here is the rest of the shots that I uploaded. I took hundreds of photos and tried to sort it down to my favourites.

Third World Thoughts Being Content

Nathan Colquhoun — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:36:02 +0000

I’m starting to realize how far reaching globalization is reaching. When you are in the mountains of Swaziland and there is a cell phone tower in the middle of avocado trees, you start to think that something is up. Everything is being put on the same page. Culture and uniqueness is going out the window. The time when you stumbled into another land and saw a people who had developed completely different from you is over. Everyone can communicate with everyone else, and everyone is affecting everyone.

The scary part about this is everyone is expected to look the same and essentially be the same. Because we are a democratic society we can’t comprehend and we don’t agree with communist societies. In fact, because we are so connected and so close to communist societies, it’s almost worth forcing our democratic beliefs on them. Not because we want their land necessarily anymore, but because our way is better and we want them to have the best (or so we say). The scarier part about this is the West is leading the revolution. Everyone wants to be like us, especially those that really don’t know much about us.

How else would twenty-year old guys who have never left the rural areas of Swaziland know that they want to study computers and get a nice car? Why else would poor black families be planting grass in front of their shack instead of gardens? Why else would people work their asses off to make money just to waste it? Why else would people who know nothing about my country want to come to it because of watching movies from the 80’s?

The world is flat and we can now see right to the very end of it in both directions and everyone can see us. It is kind of depressing. It sucks to watch students expected to learn and be educated in their schools in South Africa at the same standards we have here in the West but without the environment or resources to compliment it. They give out internet research projects even though most if not all their students don’t have any access to internet. They study in English, not their native tongue. They are crammed in classes 5 times the size of ours. Their teachers are in it for the money, not the students. But everyone is happy because they are “being educated.”

No one is content wherever I go. If I’m here in Canada, everyone wants more. We all want more money, better things and happier lives. We are never content. It’s not really much different anywhere else in the world. People just aren’t content. They want all the same things. We are all in it for ourselves. Taking what we can get, when we can get it.

But hopefully the movement of those that standup and learn to be content with what we have will start to mobilize. I saw it in Africa. Grandma’s on their death bed, with no money, no family around to love them and care for them and yet they were grateful for every breath. People with nothing but the manure they were sitting on, thrilled to just be alive and taking care of their children or grand-children. It does exist. Disease, wealth, physical ability, nothing is getting in the way of people learning that it’s not about them. True life is found in contentment and serving others and not yourself. The joy on the face of the Grandma’s as they take care of the sick everyday proves that it’s happening. There is joy in life, and it’s found so close to suffering and death. It’s found in giving of yourself, not looking out for yourself. It’s found in being content and thankful for what you have not in hope and resentment of what you don’t. Hopefully we can be that here, but I have a feeling that our money and pride will continually get in the way.

South Africa – Last Days

Nathan Colquhoun — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:41:48 +0000

Rachel and I are just starting to wind down from our trip here. We leave in two days. The last week here without Charity and Shane has been a lot more finding out what Hands at Work does as a whole. My IT skills have been used occasionally here in the office so I’ve been able to watch first hand how everything functions here.

Rachel on the other hand has dove right into her nursing. Everyday ends with a massive smile on her face. She is loving every minute of it. She jumped right into work at the ACTS clinic working with patients, taking blood and doing whatever else nurses do. She probably has a million things to say and tell about her work in the clinic but I’ll leave that to her, which I’m sure will all awake her from her blogging slumber.

There is a number of volunteers here now from all the different projects that are all over Africa, so it is a beautiful site. All of them felt called by God to help those in need around them and started doing it, then Hands at Work started backing them up by sending them whatever funds and resources they needed (or whatever Hands at Work had) to help them do their work. It is great to hear their stories and what has been happening where they are from.

When I return I will post all my pictures and probably a few more thoughts that I’ve had. But for now that is all from this trip.

Third World Thoughts – Cleaning Dishes

Nathan Colquhoun — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:19:29 +0000

The story in the bible about Jesus washing feet is about servant hood. However it is kinda of outdated. No one washes each other’s feet here or in Canada. When we tell the story we constantly try to make washing feet somehow relevant. I’ve had my feet washed 3 times in the past at youth conventions or nights when youth pastors were trying to prove a point.

Maybe its time for a new analogy. For our culture, and even the culture here in Africa, I’m realizing that washing dishes would do the trick. Everyone has dishes at some point and they all need to be cleaned. You get your fingernails dirty and sometimes you miss out on the conversation. I don’t know a person in the world that isn’t happy when someone else washes their dishes for them. I know at theStory only a few people every get down behind the sink and scrub away. Men usually leave it to the women.

When you show up in Africa, you really want to make an impact. You want your skills to be used and you want to help out in the best way possible. Then you get here and you realize that most of your skills don’t transfer and you feel pretty useless most of the time. On top of that the last place you want to be is cleaning dishes. Anyone can clean dishes right? You didn’t fly all the way from your country to come here and clean dishes. It’s a waste of your time and money to just clean dishes.

Yet here is where I think we are called. To come here and clean dishes. To do those little things that we don’t think are good enough for us.

Hands at Work is an interesting organization. They spend all their time and effort supporting local people serving their community. They don’t walk in and step on toes and take over programs and hire more white people for all their good ideas. Instead they see what God is already up to with the people that already live here and then they support them however they can. They wash their dishes, clean their feet, serve the locals so they are supported.

This is the beauty of our mission. It isn’t complicated. Those that don’t think they have anything to offer are wrong. Serving really is simple, but be prepared to feel useless and not be noticed for it. It is in this kind of service that your work will go the furthest in the kingdom.

Swaziland – Day 16-18

Nathan Colquhoun — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:20:19 +0000

I’m writing this a week later, so I will probably skip over a lot of things without thinking. The rest of the week in Swaziland was a slower pace but we got a lot accomplished. Shane and the grandchildren filled in a 3 foot deep hole that was dug for a new water hole. It only got to be three feet deep because they hit a rock. So they filled it in and then started a new hole. This hole ended up being about 10 feet deep, 10 feet by 10 feet also. They had to use a ladder to get out. I was quite impressed.

I spent a good chunk of the beginning of the week helping Lindiwe with her computer teaching her Excel, Word and what to do on the Internet. She is going to be the administrator of that area so we started getting her organized and prepared for all the work she was going to do.
Charity and Rachel got involved in the kitchen as much as possible. They also helped scrub dozens and dozens of eggs because Nomsa was able to get a client in the city to sell her eggs to, and she wanted them to look perfect.

One night we made them another meal, hamburgers and French fries. The girls cut up potatoes and baked and fried the French fries and Shane and I made hamburgers from scratch and cooked them over an open fire. They were absolutely amazing if I do say so myself. They all liked it better than the spaghetti. Rachel also made some great oatmeal/chocolate/peanut butter cookies. They were hardcore and great.

We visited a few more homes also. One mother had just buried her son a few days back and was distraught because she had no one around her house to do things to keep it up. So she would hire neighborhood kids to pick her avocados and then give them each a few of the avocados as payment.
On Wednesday we headed back to South Africa and drove through Kruger of course on the way home to see if we could see a lion or some other animal attacking another. It never happened, but it was still a lot of fun. We also bough some Fat Cake in Swaziland; think the best and most fattening donuts you’ve ever had.

Swaziland was a beautiful experience and we are all glad we got to go. We really couldn’t have asked for a better experience in rural Africa.

I’m hopefully going to be able to upload a bunch of pictures to my flickr over night tonight.

Swaziland – Day 14 – 15

Nathan Colquhoun — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:03:17 +0000

The last few days have been a lot slower pace. Jayme and Heather left back for South Africa. Jayme and her husband Lynn were our contacts to get here and Heather works for Global and is up here on a 6 month leave doing some video work for Hands at Work. We drove in off the mountain and into the nearest town called Manzini. We ate in a restaurant and all agreed that Nomsa and her grandchildren cook way better. We didn’t spend long in Manzini I think we were all frustrated when we all of sudden could walk through malls and advertising coming from where we were staying. So we grabbed some groceries and headed back.

Nomsa and her grandchildren have been cooking masterpiece meals for us three times a day. It has made me realize how bad I am of a host. Not only are they taking care of all the food for all the volunteers when they are at work, the children at the camp they are running they are also bringing us these meals every day. They are brilliant cooks and there is always something new to try; especially because almost all the ingredients are grown or raised right here where we live. We eat the chicken and cows that wander around our room, eat their eggs, eat the fruit and vegetables growing all around us and the only things they buy are small necessities for their meals like rice and bread. On Saturday night we made them the only dish I am proud to make, a massive batch of spaghetti sauce complete with three different kinds of meat. It was a small repayment of everything they have been doing for us here.

Samuel is Nomsa’s husband and I think he is the cutest old man around. The first day we asked him what he did and he replied saying he “just loafed all day.” Loafing is now a new term in my vocabulary. He is full of questions like how did the Australians get on that island, to wondering things about Canadian culture to wondering how in the world you spin spaghetti onto your fork using a spoon (he looked like me with chop sticks.) They really are a beautiful family here.

Sunday morning was church. They start late, like we do. Yet it was a surreal experience. We all went to church with Lindiwe and were driving down the road and she told us to take a turn, so we did and then she told us we were here. The church consisted of about 20 tree trunks that made the frame of a small 15×20 foot shack. That was it. There was about 15 adults and 35 kids all huddled under pieces of wood with no roof and no walls. They were all singing, all facing a direction but no one was at the front. When we showed up since we were guests they gave us the cinderblocks to sit on. So picture 55 people crowded under some sticks singing their hearts out. Then all of sudden Lindiwe got up to speak, and then thanks to her, she called us up to speak. So I threw a quick thing together and stumbled through it. I get all on the spot prayers/sharing from the Bible situations, seems that is my major contribution to the trip.

I totally forgot the memory card in my camera for Sunday morning, so we tried to get some pictures on Charity’s disposable camera, and I’ll go back and take pictures of just the sticks. It was a moving morning to see a church function the way they did. A church the size of theStory, about 20 dollars or so in the offering, no building and yet still extremely passionate for God.

For the rest of the day we all loafed. Charity and Shane went for a walk and I laid in my bed and didn’t move.

Third World Thoughts – Awkwardness

Nathan Colquhoun — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:32:14 +0000

One of the major things that threw me when I got here, to Africa, was not even being remotely prepared for the awkward situations I would be in. I’m a fan of awkward usually. The Office is one of my favourite shows and I thrive on making people’s faces go red. This kind of awkward is different though.

Home Based Care is awkward. Imagine walking into a home, where everyone is usually scrambling to get you some sort of mat to sit on. The home’s floor is usually created out of hardened cow manure, the walls out of rocks and sticks and the roof out of grass. The home is no bigger than 10×15 feet and you are sitting on the floor. The baby chickens are pecking at your feet, the flies are everywhere. There is a deep odour, one that you know they don’t smell anymore but it is just so strong you can’t ignore it. You arrived either by yourself along with three or four other volunteers, all who barely speak English or you are there with three of your friends and one lady who will translate.

The home is dark, so you have trouble seeing who you are talking to. There is an older lady speaking in a language and you can’t make out a word, and then someone who is deathly ill lying either on the ground or a makeshift mattress. They probably have AIDS, or TB, or a few of a hundred other diseases that people get here. The same kind of diseases we don’t know about because we cured it. The one lady explains what is wrong, and how sick this person is and you only know that because someone is translating here and there when they feel like it. Then comes the silence. Not sure what is ever happening but we all just sit there, and you feel like people are waiting for you to say something. After all, you are the tourist, the one just visiting from another country, a white, rich country at that. The volunteer you arrived with looks at you and says “you can say something now.”

What do you say? Jesus loves you? I hope you feel better? I’m praying for you? Words don’t work here it feels like. They barely understand your words anyway. Yet there you are, with all eyes on you and they want you to say something.

I found myself in this situation almost every day that I’ve been here. Some people that were sick were sitting up and engaging in eye contact while others haven’t looked someone in the eyes for over 5 years. Four year old granddaughters taking care of their grandmas with no one else around. Grandma’s taking care of orphaned children because the entire generation between 25 and 50 have mostly died. Most were getting sicker because they couldn’t afford medicine, never mind the bus to take them into town to buy the medicine.

I have nothing to say. I feel sick to my stomach that I live in a world where we allow people to suffer like this. I feel even sicker that I’m being served by these people and sitting in their huts while they suffer. I have nothing to give. So I fumble out a few useless words, something about grace and being thankful that they’ve kept a good spirit thus far. I’m not even sure anymore and I’m sure they don’t remember.

Something happens always though towards the end. I say a prayer and people start humming and hawing like they did back home to my prayer. Then they look up at me and are so thankful. They are thankful that I came from my country just to visit them, they are thankful that I would pray for them and that I believe in them. A few of them gave us gifts when we left because they were so thankful. They were giving us something, after all of that. I graciously accept their gifts and fifteen minutes after I stepped foot in their home I am leaving wondering how my presence could bring them so much happiness. I leave feeling more broken then when I arrived, yet with a glimmer of hope knowing that they have something that I don’t have. The awkwardness stays with me for each visit and some are rougher than others.

These however, are the people that I am called to be with. These people are the ones that Christ came to free and deliver. These are the people that Jesus wants to comfort and bring love to and bring purpose to. These are the most vulnerable and broken and poor people in the entire world. I have learned that it is in this awkwardness that I am learning what that exactly means. I have started to see why Jesus spent so much time with these people when he was on earth. How far I have come from where I’m supposed to be when I can’t even look someone that’s poor in the eye. How far I am from the heart of Jesus when normal people are my preference because it’s easy and comfortable.
If I can’t be around people that make me feel awkward than I can’t be around those that I’m called to be around. So whatever it is that makes us feel awkward whether it be compassion, sadness, curiosity, difference, language, hygiene or personality let us learn to embrace it because most likely underneath it all is exactly where we are called to be.

Swaziland – Day 11-13

Nathan Colquhoun — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:20:57 +0000

On Wednesday we went to a garden that is being started up by Nomsa and her volunteers. The garden is probably 75 meters by 50 meters and we helped put a fence around it. They were waiting for a pipe to be put in so they could get water from the top of the mountain. The garden wasn’t nearly as cool as all the grandma’s (they call them GoGo’s here) and how they worked with us.

Nomsa went to a conference in South Africa (where we stayed when we were there) and felt like she needed to start taking care of people here in Swaziland where she is from. She couldn’t stomach that there was people who didn’t have any food to eat or maybe not any parents to take care of them. So she came back to Swaziland feeling like God was to have her start to take care of the weak and vulnerable in her area. She sent out a call for volunteers to help her and she now has thirty volunteers working with her to take care of people around these mountains. The crazy part is that most of these volunteers are at the age when we put them into nursing homes. They were all women. I am now convinced that the future of the world lies on black women’s shoulders.

These were a group of fiery women, all probably the age of my grandparents. The most fascinating moments were watching them work. The oldest lady there with a cane was the first one up to grab the heavy logs for the fence posts. She put it on her head and led us all in amazement. One of them brought a plastic bag full of water that they all shared. Some of them were swinging pix axes to soften the ground. It was an amazing beautiful site.

It is these same women that work along side of Nomsa all over these mountains . They all feel called by God to take care of the orphans and those that need care. So they split up taking care of over 800 orphans and tons of other people that are sick and dying. They go visit with them and remind them that they are loved. If they can bring medicine, they do. These women are the most inspiring people I have ever come in contact with. They are driven by their passion for the hurting and their passion to serve God. The amount of people that would die alone, and children that would head their households alone would be too much to handle without them here.

Thursday and today we went along with some of these volunteers to visit some of the people that they were responsible. We went to one house where the man being taken care of has not wanted people to look at him for the past 4 years. His mother has been taken care of him but his daughters have abandoned him. He has been lying in his bed for years with no hope of recovery, shaking and dying. Another family we visited was headed by children for the last four years, ever since the eldest who was 12. There are 5 children, and they take care of each other and try to manage.

There was a number of houses that we visited, and I’ve never felt so hopeless. We sit there always in a big circle crammed into a small hut. The floor is usually made out of dried manure and the walls out of sticks and stones and mud and the roof out of grass. We don’t understand much of what they are saying unless Nomsa or Lindiwe (one of Nomsa’s daughters) translates for us. I usually say a prayer for them, trying to form sentences using words that couldn’t even begin to explain my feelings. Then we sit. They are usually speechless that guests from another country are there with them and we are speechless because we can’t believe how much we cared what colour of shirt we were going to where that morning.

One family gave us a massive bag of bananas for saying a prayer. Another family filled up our water bottle. They all lay out mats so we can sit on the floor with them. Their hospitality reminds me of how much I have to offer, and how much I hold on to what I have. They give whatever they can, even when they don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. It’s hard to write about these experiences because there isn’t much to say. It feels sort of like I’m a tourist visiting poor homes, so it holds me back a bit and makes me feel uncomfortable, because the last thing I want to do is give off the impression that I’m just there to observe out of interest. Yet they are usually thrilled we are there and mention they want us to stay longer or come again. So I keep going, despite the awkward silence that ensues each visit, hopefully just to remind them again, one more day that we love them, they are valued and we honour their humanity with our presence. In these communities people that are sick can be seen as contagious and people try to keep their distance from them because there is such a strong stigma to the sick and dying.

Shane and I went to a soccer game down the road last night also. They are all very good. Sat with a few of the younger kids while we watched the game. It was great. Today we did more home based care and Shane and I are filling in a hole that some of the kids dug to catch rain water, but they hit a rock so it won’t work. Then I will sleep. Then it will be tomorrow and we will see what that brings.

Swaziland – Day 8-10

Nathan Colquhoun — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:36:02 +0000

The internet here moves at a lightning fast 30 bytes a second, so I e-mailed this to Ron for him to post for me, we head back to South Africa tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some more posts up, possibly some pictures but I don’t know, but I have lots of great pics so far I think.

On Sunday we went to a church in White River, it was a church plant of sorts whose vision was to never have a pastor. It was abnormally (to what I am used to) populated with older folk (all white) but it was cool to see a church plant in South Africa. After church we drove to Swaziland which is about a 3 hour drive to the border and then another 2 hours to get to where we were going. I remember I used to tell everyone that we were going to be working in the mountains of Swaziland and I just thought there were mountains in Swaziland and we were working there. I never actually imagined that we would be up in mountains. But we are and I’ve never really seen anything quite like
it.

Houses are much more spread out here and they are everywhere. People live in almost like little villages with their family. Older sons (at least some that I met) build little homes out of mud and sticks beside their parent’s homes and they live there. It is one of the most beautiful sites to drive through these mountains. Picture the Rockies, but a bit smaller with houses, livestock, farms, roads, markets and people everywhere. Very very few people have cars and if they need to go down the mountain for anything they can catch the one bus that comes in the morning and catch it home at night. The way of life here is completely different.

We are staying at a lady named Nomsa’s house. There are chickens everywhere and it is this family’s livelihood (the family has cattle too—the chickens are Nomsas way of earning money and the cows are
Samuels). We get a friendly reminder of that every morning around 4am when the rooster crows. The grandkids are the labourers of this place. They have done all the amazing cooking for us, skin chickens, garden, fetch water and basically anything that the grandparents (Nomsa and Samuel) tell them to do. Like the one girl we are staying with says, these children (ages 5-15) are like a well oiled machine, they never stopped all day long and we have been treated like royalty while being here. Family sticks together here, children don’t grow older and leave and are left to fend for themselves and the elderly run the houses and everyone else works under them.

We have spent the last two days working with the young orphan girls from the community at the Chief’s Royal Residence, which is basically used as a community centre, which is basically a big plot of land with a few open huts on it. There are about 28 girls in all and there ages
were from 12-25 and six of them had babies. When we first met them we walked into a big open room and they were all in chairs facing the front in one of the corners singing a song, with no one in the front to lead them. They sing often here and it is never front lead. Someone in the group leads the song by singing the words or the beat a few bars ahead and then everyone follows them. Every time they break out in song it is beautiful and the few times the song is in English or there are actions we try to go along with it.

It is the week of the Reed Dance so the kids that would be normally be in school aren’t. So there is organized lectures everyday for these 28 girls. The first one was a three hour lecture on how to start a business; it was like first year economics in three hours, so much information in so little time. The second day was teaching the girls about abuse and about their bodies (Shane and I took a walk to play sports with the kids). The girls learned songs about staying a meter away from their private parts, it was pretty funny. I got to do a little sharing with the girls and talked about loving your neighbour and what that meant. The highlight of my day came when every body usually went home but we all stayed at the place with the kids to hang out. Shane played soccer, the girls played games and learned new songs, and I sat with 5-6 guys my age and got to talk with them. We sat there for three hours and talked about everything, school, work, money, life, marriage, friends, opportunity, games…and it was in these conversations that I started to realize how much the
Western world really has affected negatively their world. (I’ve been try to save some of my posts that are thoughts on the laptop also, so I’ll hopefully be able to write a bit about this soon).

I went down one of the hills to see one of the guy’s house. He was 21 and lived in his own hut built out of mud, sticks, rocks and grass. Families live together here. When a child is old enough they build a new hut on the property and they move into it. They have chickens also, a big Avocado tree and goats to keep them alive. He was happier than anything else and he had no idea that he was missing out on air conditioning, big mortgages and dishwashers. Or maybe he did, and he just didn’t care. Can’t blame him.

The other guy we met is trying desperately to get into school. He hasn’t had much luck. The university here are government funded but he hasn’t got accepted and the colleges are just too much money. He spent a lot of money once to take a computer class to help him get his skills up and they guy took off with the money not to teach them a thing. He is spending another year to try to get into school, which he probably won’t, then he said he was going to give up and figure out another way to live. He was 23.

The way of life here is beautiful. We have been eating the chickens that have been running around every day, eating the fruit and vegetables that is growing all around us, and living life and taking
care of people that are in need. I’ll tell you more about Nomsa’s story tomorrow, it is my favourite story and deserves more space. Tomorrow we are of to a community garden that Nomsa and her volunteers are starting to help build a fence around it so the animals don’t get in and eat all their plants.