"Can-Village" Venture

The week before last, I volunteered in a township north of the city called Blikkesdorp ("can village," in Afrikaans) -- a far cry from the neighborhood I normally work in, which, quite honestly, isn't that nice to begin with. Picture a sea of shacks, all crowded against each other in rows upon rows upon rows. That's literally what it is. Blikkesdorp is a "temporary" housing area where the government has forced thousands of people to relocate, like refugees in their own country, while they endeavor to build cheap housing for them elsewhere. Around 14,000 people (men, women, and, unfortunately, incredible amounts of children) crowd into these tiny tin and plastic shacks under the pretense that they'll eventually receive a shoebox-sized house from the government on the "other side of the tracks"… but some of them have been on a waiting list for YEARS. Seriously, years… “temporary” years of squatting and waiting and wondering, sometimes patiently, sometimes not.

Every morning, Monday through Friday, two friendly, weather-beaten locals -- Oaty and Stanley -- sat and chatted with us before all the children of Blikkesdorp seemingly popped out of the sand like dessert daisies, ready to play. Oaty is fifty years old and a resident HIV/AIDS awareness volunteer in the Blikkesdorp community. He and his family have been on the waiting list for government housing for TWENTY-THREE YEARS. Can you imagine? Twenty-three years of being told your house is “on the way,” with no end in sight. The system is so corrupt, it's ridiculously sad.

The nearest library, shop, and/or community center is a kilometer’s walk away, so resources and jobs are slim. As you can imagine, there's a lot of unemployment, illness, addiction and crime issues in Blikkesdorp (Oaty’s own son was murdered by another Blikkesdorp resident… but Oaty decided to put his bitterness aside and forgive his son’s murderer, so as not to promote future hatred and violence)... so it's not a prime location to have a quality childhood, to say the least. Thus, an organization called Safeline (which fights to prevent child abuse), recruited myself and another relatively new CCS volunteer, DeAngelo, to help them do a week-long program with the kids during their week off from school (effectively making sure they got a solid meal and had something safe and fun to do, instead of being cooped up in their sad/dangerous homes all week, hungry and at risk for days on end).

It was a challenging week, to say the least -- mentally and emotionally more-so than physically. On any given morning, we were surrounded by 100-200 children, ages 0-12, some without shoes, some without shirts, and all with empty stomachs. We worked outside in the dirt, sand, and sun, the first half of the day devoted solely to Awareness lessons/games. This largely involved us discussing difficult (but necessary) topics like how to avoid and protect yourself from physical abuse (“What do you say if Uncle tries to touch your private parts?”), don't play with knives (“They’re meant for eating time, not for play time”), and what number to call if you are in danger (“1-0-7!”). Sad, sad, sad, but the kids seemed to get a lot out of it. After the awareness programming, we played sports and other games with them to get them moving and having a good time -- this was a challenge merely due to the huge population and age differences, but a blast just the same.

Afterward, we handed out pears and sandwiches in spades and sent them on their way. Ravenous little honey bees, swarming all over us. It makes my chest hurt to think of it now.

To see where these kids are coming from... the "homes" that they live in... that really hit my heart hard, you know? It broke a little more for them every day, and in the weirdest ways. One afternoon, I came home and deliberated endlessly about how much I wanted kids of my own someday, just so I could love the shit of out them (excuse my language). Many of these kids, if not all of them, have been robbed of what we know as a true childhood. You can see it in their attention-starved faces, their skinny arms, their blistering aggression. You can see it as the wind blows sand and garbage around their legs and into their eyes. You can see it when they dangle from the nearby dumpster, looking for extra food or things to play with. One afternoon, I finally gave way to tears upon finding out that one of my very own students from Cypress, a beautiful first grader who has 7 siblings, lives in Blikkesdorp/ Delft. That was too much for me. I see her every day, and I didn’t KNOW. What’s more, she’s talked about seeing me there, during holiday – the songs we sang and the games we played – every day at school since. Hell, I’m crying again now.

Anyway, it was a long but worthy week for me, and for DeAngelo, whose actually from West Chicago (holla, homeboy). He got here only the week before, but as he's volunteer teaching in a school, he had the week "off," as well. A quality guy with a terrific story – I’m honored I had the opportunity to volunteer with him. For all my readers who are people of faith… please give a little shout out to D, as he’s most definitely deserving. Due to some extremely unfortunate and terrifying medical issues, much to everyone’s surprise and chagrin, he and his lovely girlfriend Toy have gone home to the States early (just yesterday, in fact). My heart goes out to both of them.

From Oaty to Stanley, to the Blikkesdorp kids and DeAngelo… it’s been an epic week for models of perseverance, strength, patience and forgiveness. I’m a humbled and heartened buoy in the raging sea of injustice.