The Capacity of the Human Spirit - Week 9 in South Africa

Molweni,

Well, I’m now in my final week in Cape Town.  And the reality that I’ll be back in the New York City area almost exactly one week from now looms so large that I can no longer pretend to not think about it.  Truth be told, since I’ve returned from my week of traveling, I’ve reflected more on my entire time here than I had prior to my trip to Jo’burg, Kruger and Victoria Falls.  And this posting will reflect some of that thinking . . .

The Employment Help Desk (EHD) at the Scalabrini Centre reopened to clients last Monday, the 8th of November, and we were busier than I’d seen since my arrival.  Part of the reason was simply a result of the fact that the EHD had been closed for an entire week, and that had lead to some pent-up need for the desk’s services.  On top of that, last week was the deadline for foreign-qualified teachers to register with Scalabrini to be considered for part of the centre’s teachers program for the upcoming term, which places a select number of teachers as sort of “teaching fellows” in South African schools.  There’s a shortage of teachers in South Africa, and a sizeable number of refugees and asylum seekers who were teachers in their home countries (many of whom have been working as waiters, cashiers, housekeepers or nannies since they got to South Africa); the program acts as a way to address the local teacher shortage, while serving as a possible route to suitable employment for some of Scalabrini’s clients.

I worked on doing new client intake all week, and there were between 35 and 40 of them who came through.  Not only did the new client intake work keep me focused on the very real, and in some cases almost desperate, need for the EHD’s service, but it also was a vivid reminder of the enormous capacity of the human spirit.  I’m sure that probably doesn’t make much (if any!) sense, so let me explain by sharing a v-e-r-y watered down version of what I was told by two clients last week . . .  Each client came from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where each had been living in close proximity to his or her extended family (i.e., they lived in the same neighborhood or town as their parents and their siblings’ families).  In the continuing violence that has engulfed the eastern D.R.C. as part of “Africa’s World War,” the client saw his or her entire immediate and/or extended families killed.  The client was “spared” to tell the tale, was hidden in the back of shipping trailers, and then was driven overland (or, more appropriately, “shipped”) to South Africa.  Each arrived in Cape Town around the time that the 2008 xenophobic attacks against refugees flared in South Africa, so each spend several months in temporary refugee camps here in the Western Cape. 

Each client shared this story with me neither with detached emotion nor with emotional outbursts; the stories were relayed in a quiet, deliberate and determine way.   And their desire for a better life – to my American way of thinking, a brighter future – was conveyed to me with this same quiet and deliberate determination.  And it is because of this that the resilience of the human spirit is so fresh in my mind.  I have said it many times since I’ve been here, but I’ll say it again – I have been spiritually humbled and reborn as a result of my time here and my interactions with Scalabrini’s clients and staff.  This last week, a week which I had thought I would not have much to write about, was no different and I am a person further transformed as a result.

Before I go any further, I feel that I need to back track a little bit, sorry.  Up until this posting, I haven’t even tried to share any client stories with you.  I have a tremendous respect for all of Scalabrini’s client and, as a result, I have been and am hesitant to share the details of their stories here online (after all, who am I to tell THEIR stories?!).   So, the collective story that I just shared with you was only the bare minimum of facts – devoid of the personal details that make the individual stories all the more compelling and the clients’ determination to move forward all that more profound.  At this minimal state, the story I just shared reflects the basic facts of stories that were shared with me by no less than four clients during my time at Scalabrini (and not just the two who happened to come in during the same week).  By stripping out the often horrid personal details from the stories, I don’t feel as if I’m conveying an individual’s story to you.  Rather, I am trying to voice concern over the level of atrocities that are being committed by our fellow man and, in so doing, hope that both your and my consciousness are raised ever so slightly.   My apologies for the digression . . . now back to the main stream of thought in this posting.

When I decided to volunteer in South Africa, I was more aware than your average American about South African history, culture and current state of affairs.  But that was still woefully inadequate, and I have to thank the South Africans (and Africans from elsewhere on the continent) that I’ve met for opening my eyes and my mind to some of the complexities that have existed, and still persist, here.  As I’ve thought back over my time here, I keep noticing many odd similarities between South Africa and the United States (I’ll try and pull together a list for my final pre-departure posting for you all next week).  I will leave here more convinced than ever that the similarities that we all share all as humans – no matter where on the globe we live – by far outweigh the cultural, ethnic, language and religious differences that we all too often focus on.

So, with that, I’m going to finish this posting and try to get some of the safari pictures up for you all.   I hope to post again just before I leave on Monday, so best wishes to you all until then.

Sala kahuhle,

Troy