2585 words of late reflection

I had neat and tidy plans for this blog and left my last post saying that I would have a more serious reflective post up the following week, when I had actually left work. Well I left work and went straight into a crazy holiday with my family. I sat down a couple of times to write about the 3 goals I had for part two of my trip and typed bits and pieces but found it harder and harder to make sense of.
So I left it for a while and then a bit longer. I am now home. And am starting again. It has been four weeks since my last post, and I have had lots of thoughts run through my brain since then.

My plan is still the same, but will be slower coming together then I wanted. After this blog post I will do one about my family holiday, I imagine a lot of it will be captioned photos of our travels. I want to maintain the order so that when I look back on these posts in the future they make sense.

So this is my reflective post, similar to the one I did at the end of part one.

Let’s get started!

T1) To have my eyes opened to the way God sees injustice in South Africa, and walk in step with what he is doing.

Well I think I can tick this one off. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of injustice people face. It truly feels like the world is against so many of them. Born into poverty, growing up in a township with 50 kids in a class and non-existent parents/ poverty and few role models, the lure of crime to get by and the sense of belonging in a gang. It is easy to see how one thing leads to another. Whilst this is a logical series of events, it is absolutely unnecessary.
Generations come and go and the pattern of life remains depressive for so many people here.

Moments that stick out when I think of deep inequality include going to a lady’s shack in Khayelitsha to do my first home visit. The case came to us as a problem to do with housing, but escalated to very sick children needing to be removed from their Mother.

Going into the shack I immediately became aware of the lack of space, and the fact that it is literally walls made from rubbish. Random bits of wood, sheets, corrugated iron and broken objects surrounded me. It took me a while to notice all three people in the room. Nontsasa the lady who runs Siyakhathala begun asking the lady we had come to visit a series of questions, to try and establish the current situation. They spoke in Cosa, so I listened and tried to notice as much as possible about the environment.

All three people were covered in insect bites, scars and scabs, flies were in the air and landing on the youngest child. Whilst none of them were physically healthy the youngest child was incredibly sick. When we left Nontsasa told me that I needed to get Social Development to refer a social worker to the case as soon as possible, so the children living there could be removed to a place of safety before the youngest child died.

I can imagine that reading this information is distressing even from miles and miles away, imagine at 19 years old you experienced this and then was told to play a role in solving the problem. When I spoke to friends about this later in the week, I was taken aback, I felt small and inadequate. I followed up on a previous volunteers work and chased our contact in Social Development, found out the information they needed to get a social worker involved – and left knowing that the case is in the hands of the emergency intervention team.

But I will never know what happened to those children – will they get moved? Will they get places again at school with fees paid regularly? Will they have any contact with their mother in the future? What will happen to the mother? Will she stay in the shack or get her house back?

I have a list of questions like this for all of the 35 or so cases I worked on during my time here. From my first day I took over work other people had started, as time passed I opened cases, closed cases and have now left up to date notes for the next volunteer to pick up.

When all my life up to now has been exam orientated it is a huge step to leave something unfinished. The majority of my work has been in preparation for a test which I have then done and got the result back for. It is a neat and tidy system with no lose ends!

Have found this hard to deal with in the my first week of holiday. Every couple of days both me and Tom thought about what we would be doing at this time if we were on our projects. I am still yet to really think through what I have done, I allowed the whirl wind of the holiday to give myself a bit of a break from thinking.

Now I am back home, part of me feels like Cape Town was a dream, I am struggling to hold both the fact that I spent 3 and half months in Cape Town and the fact that I am now home as both true. When I think of the me I was when I stood in the shack, I feel sadness that I was unable to feel then.

Yesterday I did my first of four presentations on my trip. It was at Arden and to a group of yr12’s about 20 people came. I really enjoyed sharing my experience and comparing PSHE lessons at Arden on gender equality, human rights and drugs/ alcohol to the reaction I got in Bonnytoun. Initially they laughed at the absurd response the boys gave me, but then as I talked about the culture they had grown up in and the kill or be killed mindset they looked at me with shock.

The point to this tangent was that as I was describing my work and particularly the case work I did, I realised just how depressing it all is. I assured them that I also did some happy things in Cape Town and showed some photos of my weekend site seeing.

Look forward to doing more presentations and catching up with friends, am sure that I will see new things in my trip through discussing it with others.

Got to this point and am realising this is going to be pretty long post, so if you don’t have a cup of peppermint tea and some peanut butter toast (things I lived off in Cape Town) then now would be a good point to pause and get supplies.

 2)   Build empathetic trusting relationships both with fellow volunteers and the young people I am working with.

Well, I think I can say maybe to this.
I have been so fortunate to meet so many weird and wonderful people, some I truly hope are friends for life.

Fellow volunteers have come and gone, creating an almost episodic feel to my trip. I have learnt lots from lunchtime conversations, preparing group presentations and site seeing trips with people from all over the world.

I am already looking forward to meeting up with Sophie, my house mate from Manchester when she is back in the UK. I know from my previous trip to South Africa how lovely it is to reminisce with the group I went with about the amazing and challenging the moments that made up our trip were.

When it comes to the young people I met it is harder to tell if I managed to build empathetic and trusting relationships. Whenever a volunteer leaves the team they go round the facilities on their last week and tell the young people, ‘I’m off now, really good to have met you!’ but in my experience this never sinks in until the next week. I would go back in and a few of them would ask me ‘where is so and so?’ they are confused when I tell them that they have gone back home.
And my goodbyes went no differently, it is very odd, I know that I will soon be miles and miles away and it is unlikely I will ever see them again but they look at me with smiles, as if to say ‘we are listening to your goodbyes, ignoring them and look forward to playing chief with you next week!’. This was true in all of the facilities but my penultimate Wednesday in Bonnytoun.

One of my frustrations in the middle of my trip, turned out to be a blessing at the end.

For about a month we saw blue group every single week instead of fortnightly. This meant that we had to prepare extra presentations because we couldn't rely on seeing the group we planned to see. This was stressful but it meant that they got to know me better than the other groups.

So when I said goodbye to them, they understood and cared that I was going. They thanked me for what I had done and wished me well. I sat in the room listening to the music at the end of the workshop and tried to soak it all in.

Then on my final Wednesday I saw green, and at the end of the workshop they all shouted goodbye to me. We then walked past the courtyard where I think blue were chilling, they all ran over to say goodbye, one of them said ‘Amy I loved you the first day I met you and still love you now!’, whilst I have never received a marriage proposal here, some of my friends have. It is common to get declarations of love and if their crazy plans go ahead then potentially one day some of the boys will come and visit me in the UK. I told them that when they get here just walk round shouting my name they will find me eventually.

What was crazy on this afternoon is the shouting didn’t stop at the courtyard. We left the main area and were stood by the minibus waiting for Natile the driver to open the doors and some of the boys ran over to a different part of the court yard, I think a mixture of green and blue and started shouting my name again.
They saw that one my friends Lea was smoking and they told her off, saying she was killing the ozone layer! Maybe the environment presentation we had done that afternoon had some impact! We then got into the minibus and went to the gate of the facility. We got out because they wanted to search us again, and once again the boys ran over to another corner of the courtyard and continued to shout my name. 

I have never experienced this before.

It was amazing to see their persistence and eagerness to get my attention, I thought about it as I travelled back to the office. Why did they do this? What impression had I given to them in all my time there that prompted them to give me this farewell? Ultimately I hope that they saw something in what I said, the way I acted and the person I am that conveyed to them I care. I have no idea how much they will remember of the workshops I did, but if they remember that a 19 year old girl from the UK came every week and chatted to them and she cared then wow that is a big deal.

These are photos from my final day of work, a mix of goodbye party, office photos and food market with friends. 

Stephanie and I at Blue Bird Food Market, enjoying falafel. 

Playing jenga as a drinking game whilst we waited for people arrive for the kitchen party. 

Bought cake for everyone at the office on my last day.

Very cheap white wine, just over a £1. Earlier in the day the legal volunteers had done a MOOT court, a mock legal trial about drink driving, note this bottle of wine warns that drinking will impact your ability to drive.

Very bright photo of Lea and I.

Darwood and I pausing to take a photo then resuming debate on prisons, human rights and terrorism. 

Very full kitchen, many volunteers and even more bottles!

Found a big empty space on the wall and wrote my goodbye, as is tradition.

Sophie and Miriam (volunteer supervisor, lovely lady I worked with on my legal cases) also lent her my west wing DVDs so she could introduce her husband to them!

Outside the office with my certificate.

Sophie, Martin and I at MARTINS PARTY! Had a wonderful evening, was tough to say goodbye to so many great volunteers I got to know over my few months.

33) Depend more and more on God for my energy, provision and guidance. Trying to be compassionate and patient with each day and the rate of change.

When I think about my trip as a whole I get a bit lost in all of the days and weeks. Right now I don’t have the head space to read my journal from the beginning but look forward to the day when I can. I know that from my first day I have been praying for wisdom and a sense of purpose to ground me in my trip. I have tried to give God control but have definitely not been consistent in this. I wish my worth wasn't still so much in my work. Factually I know that my identity is in God and not in the world. He loves me and I am enough.

But I also know that I feel a sense of failure, walking away from so many vulnerable people’s lives, in exactly the same heart breaking mess as when they became part of my to-do list.
Most of the cases I worked on, where just sheets of paper in pink files with names on the top that I couldn't pronounce. I met only a few of my clients face to face. It is unbelievable that in their time of crisis and utter desperation, they turned to Siyakhathala and they turned to Projects Abroad Human Right Law Firm who set up the social justice project who let me come and work as a volunteer.

The rate of change is something that has always frustrated me from the moment I became aware of social justice. I read my Amnesty magazines in instalments because it is so desperately sad it is too much to read all in one go. Since I have got back people have asked me if I managed to change the world – my response has been , I tried but I don’t think I got very far.

My reason for taking a gap year now was to fill up on experiences before I returned to filling up on knowledge at university. I loved doing politics A level and I wanted to see some of it in action, I think this year has certainly provided me with plenty of politics units in action! Last year I studied: terrorism, human rights, poverty and development, the power of the state, globalisation, the environment… and the EU. Now I have the summer to read books on gang culture and justice in South Africa and do research into prisons before going to university.
There are so many thoughts still to think!

Prayer requests:

- To have the energy and motivation to keep working through my very long and boring to do list of university, job and random bits of paper work stuff.

- To balance living life back home to the fullest and giving myself time out to breathe and remember what I am coming from.

- For my friends and family to be patient with me as I talk almost non-stop about my trip or politics in this country (bear in mind that I missed out on a fair amount of UK politics chatter and had to watch the general election unfold from a game drive at 5:30am in the morning, so I am now catching up!).

So there you go, I think I am finished for this update. I have set three new goals for part three and will finish off this blog in September with that.

Thank you for making it to the end of my ninetieth blog post. Have a wonderful week!