After
returning from excursion, I have had a lot to reflect on during the past week.
First and foremost, being in Johannesburg really made me appreciate Cape Town
and I frequently found myself referring to Loch Road as “home.” I imagine I
have felt this love for the city for a while, but being away really made me
realize it. Don’t get me wrong, Johannesburg was great, but it wasn’t Cape
Town. Although, there were a few things I wish I could have brought home with
me, the main one being the Boys and Girls Club in SOWETO.
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| Carolyn with her new friend at the Boys and Girls Club of Soweto |
One of my very
favorite days of excursion was spent with the children at the club, not only
getting to play with and interact with them but also being able to help out
with projects and chores. My intention was to work on the new flower garden but
I realized very quickly that my gardening skills weren’t exactly up to par so I
managed to find work picking up trash around the garden. This was actually a
bigger project than I had initially anticipated and I had my work cut out for
me; even after a few hours of picking up broken glass and candy wrappers it
really didn’t seem like I had made much of a dent. This is something that
really disappointed me because I knew it wasn’t the children at the club
smashing beer bottles everywhere, so why should they have to deal with it?
This
is a pattern that I have seen a lot throughout my time in South Africa (whether
in Jo’burg or Cape Town) and the amount of trash on the streets seems to
strictly correlate with the socioeconomic status of the people living there.
You never see as much garbage in Rondebosch or Greenpoint as you do in
Khyelitsha or Gugulethu. And when I think about it, I’m not sure things are
much different back home; whenever I take the train to New York City I notice a
lot of garbage in the lower income areas. It makes me wonder why that is. Are
there people picking it up in the suburbs? Are there fewer places to put
garbage in the townships? Is there less of a concern due to bigger issues? I
just don’t know; what I do know is that I see a lot of kids walking around with
no shoes and a piece of glass in their foot is the last thing they need. It
seems everything we do and all the struggles we witness seem to lead but to
race and class, both in South Africa and the United States. Even with that emotional
bump in my day, I still had a great time with the kids at the Boys and Girls
Club and I really wish we were able to go back.
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