In starting this next blog, I'm tempted to begin by apologizing for my lengthy absence from the blogging world and explaining how hectic life has been here in Africa. Neither of which would be true, though. In reading different people's blogs I have found that far too often bloggers are apologetic or  have some sense of obligation towards their followers, or, maybe more profoundly, to themselves. I've come to believe, however, that the blogging process should unfold naturally from the bloggers experiences. It, for me, is not a question of forced practice or habitual reflection, it is, instead, a natural progression from experiences in this world to the art of writing. An art that is far too often taken for granted and given less than its due.

Now I could spend the next 500 words talking about my adventures here in Africa, the friends I've made, the daily life I live, or the classes I take. I won't do that though. Not to reduce the importance of these things in my study abroad experience, but I feel that portraying them to you would misrepresent the most valuable lessons I've learned here in Africa. Over the last few weeks, I've been plagued by worries of how to relate to friends and family back home the realities of life in South Africa. I fear that it will be far to easy to casually pass the "Africa was amazing!! Truly life-changing" line on to my partially interested friends. I fear this because I know that no matter how long I spend trying to explain this world,  my friends and family could never fully comprehend what it has all meant to me without experiencing it for themselves. It is easy enough to relate the stories of wild animals, shark-cage diving, safari drives, poor villages, beautiful beaches and things of the sort; but its far more difficult to relate the inequalities I see and feel on a daily basis, and how it feels to see life through the eyes of poverty so severe that it suffocates the ability to hope or to choose; this only scratching the surface. So instead of attempting to tell you what I have been up to or what South Africa is all about, I will share with you a very person journal that I just wrote a few hours ago. Each monday I spend all day with a group of amazing fifth graders at a local primary school. I attempt to teach them about the world they belong to and the beauties and hardships it has to offer. Each Monday, I go to the school in hopes of making even the slightest impact in their lives by planting seeds of hope and imagination. Anyway, after each day, I write journals about my experiences that day. Today my journal was one of the more passionate ones, and in sharing it, I not only hope to help you see the world I've experienced here, but also to allow myself to my writing as a shining light for hope in a world where darkness is far to invasive:

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” For a while this has been one of the quotes that has inspired me most in my quest for passion, truth, and service. Over the last few months however, it has taken on a deeper level in my reflection of my time in South Africa. I feel that this quote is the perfect way to tie in my expectations before coming to this country with the realities I have experienced along the way. On many different levels, my education over the last few months has gone deeper than academic curiosity or knowledge building. For the first time in a long time, I learned with more than my brain, I learned with my heart and with my soul. I’ve spend countless hours worrying over the future of my kids at Lynedoch and about the fate of students all over South Africa. I’ve realized the importance of education in the world, and especially in communities where poverty deprives children of so many essential aspects of the development process. Growing into adults in their world is no easy task. Each and every day, these children, my children, live realities influenced by more despair, anger, violence and more than I will ever experience in my life. Nonetheless, most of them return to Lynedoch day after day to sit in classrooms that preach of a brighter future. All the while, the dust and grime builds on the windows of their classrooms, through which can be seen a murky, unclear world defined by rules of inequality and discrimination. And yet, we teach of hope and imagination and dreams within walls that scream through the cracks and chipped paint the reasons for which these children should never hope for a better world. After the day is over, I return home to my Macbook computer to jot down my thoughts of their lives and their difficulties and how integral the dialectical process of learning and doing is crucial to enabling empowerment in the community development context. Just across the road, a mere 5 miles away, my children return to shaggy homes build of currogated iron, wasted tarp, and old stone to find a list of chores and a house of brothers and sisters to care for until time for sleep. Early the next morning, the process starts all over. These are the cold hard realities of the world we live in. It is not pity I feel for the situation as it is. Nor is it anger, hatred, empathy, guilt, or confusion. In fact, the only emotion that captures the feelings that I have in reflecting on all of these truths is hope. How is it possible that after all of the facts that I just described about the lives my children live day in and day out, that I feel hope for a better tomorrow? Well, today, I asked my children to look around the room and tell me what they hated about our classroom. As they looked around, I received responses such as the dirty walls, the smudged windows, the unorganized bookshelves, the hole-filled floors, and, most of all, as I infered, the stench of inequality and hopelessness. I proceeded to ask them what they proposed to do about it. Without respoding, one child stood, picked up a sponge I had brought, dipped it in the bucket of soapy water, and proceeded to stoop to her hands and knees and start cleaning the walls. For the next hour, my children and my partners and I splashed soapy water all over the walls, windows, and, incidentally, each other. Once finished, I looked around the classroom to find a room that was not too much cleaner on the surface, yet had been transformed in some profound way. I could not grasp what had changed until I looked at the windows. As a looked at the still smudged, streaky windows, I realized in a moment of pure ecstasy, that these windows, which had previously been nothing more than reminders, or mirrors if you will, of lives darkened by tough circumstances, had transformed into windows through which sunlight shone to illuminate the classroom as what it really is: a place where hope is born and brought to fruition. So to ask me where in the lives of my children I could possibly see any shred of hope would be more than insult to me, but an insult to yourself. In asking such a question, you see no more than a mirror of despair into your own soul. In understanding the purpose of education, however, it’s blantantly obvious, as if looking through a window to see the green grass, golden sunlight, and brilliant smiles of children’s faces, that hope lies within, and is only found through education. For this lesson, which is only learned with the heart and soul, I am eternally grateful.  Hope is the thing. Hope is the thing. 


'til next time, ad astras...