Meredith's First Post

Meredith looking down on Cape Town

Twenty days. Enough time to learn to cook. Enough time to make solid friendships. Enough time to feel at home.  Enough time to realize who you are.  Enough time to realize who you want to be.  Enough time to begin feeling your life changing. Twenty days.  The amount of time we have been in South Africa so far.  I never would have thought that half of a month could be this impacting on my life.

It is absolutely impossible to pick one word to describe the past few weeks because they have been filled with a broad spectrum of emotions: excitement, frustration, astonishment, satisfaction, helplessness, hopefulness, and happiness just to name a few.

Though all of these emotions reflect what I have naturally felt since we have arrived in Cape Town on the fifteenth of January, one emotion specifically I have not been able to get out of my mind.  Happiness. What exactly is happiness? I have given this question a lot of thought these past few weeks.  What I have established is that happiness is just a very simple emotion.  Just like any other emotion, it comes and goes as it pleases in you depending on the situation you are in.  A child who looks under a glistening Christmas tree at the presents they are about to receive is happiness.  It is an emotion that is great at the time, but what happens after the presents are opened and Christmas is over?  The feeling of happiness is gone.  Happiness is a temporary, superficial emotion that comes from external situations.  How in anyway can that satisfy anyone’s life?  It is the void that cannot be filled.

Being here in Africa has really helped show me a distinction between happiness and joy.  I made this differentiation after we went to a Baptist Church service in Guguletu.  Before the service, we had the opportunity to drive through a few of the townships.  What I saw was shocking.  Families living in tin shacks that were crammed together on the side of the road, trash everywhere and wild dogs running loose.  This is definitely the hardest thing that I have ever seen in my entire life.  Knowing that they were placed there not by choice but by force made me furious and incredibly disconnected to what is truly going on in the world.  This first impression made me extremely nervous about traveling

into the township the next day for the church service.  In the church though, what I saw wasn’t poverty or even bitterness; what I saw was love, faith, and most of all joy.  They could have very easily spent

there time dwelling on the past and having anger build up inside of them.  Anger is just an emotion though; it comes and goes just as happiness does. The people of the church were not angry because they have consistent joy in there hearts.  They were all just so thankful for their lives and for their families. The amount of forgiveness they have towards the way they were poorly treated is unfathomable.  The joy that I saw in the hearts of those in that church service shined through.  I know for a fact that they are wealthier then any of us could ever be.  Every material possession they owned was stripped away but it really shows that the wealth in your heart is far greater than any mansion could ever be.

I feel like everywhere I go this same message is continuously pounded into my head.  We had the opportunity to start our internships a few days ago and what I have seen has been nothing but pure joy.  My internship takes place at Christel House, a school with the strong dedication to help children break the cycle of poverty they are immersed in.  The school does such wonderful things for these children by giving them a full education, meals and even digs down to the roots of poverty by educating the parents.  For my internship specifically, I have the pleasure of working with Grade R, or kindergarteners.  I really was not sure what to expect with these children especially because I knew I would be the minority in the classroom.  As I entered the classroom, all of my nervousness completely vanished.  Without even knowing me for more than five minutes, they welcomed me into their home away from home with huge smiles and hugs.  What I have learned the past few days at Christel House is that these kids have so much love and joy in there hearts that is just bursting out of there little bodies.  These kids need to give and receive love in order to feel joy and at Christel House the teachers truly make that possible each and every day.  Today the children squealed with laughter as they hugged me so hard that I ended up on the ground and I could just feel the joy radiating off of them.  The fact that the kids want to be in school as opposed to doing anything else was joy in itself.  I know as a child the last thing I wanted to do was be in school, I would rather be doing almost anything else.  These children want to learn and it is amazing how there lives will change.  They will break the cycle of poverty.

Even reflecting on the group of twelve of us living on Loch Road that decided to embark upon this journey reflects joy and dedication.  The fact that we are a mixture of very distinctive people who can come together for a common cause is so wonderful.  Though throughout the semester I’m sure we will all have our disputes and debates, we are all united by a cause because we have joy in our hearts for this place that we can now call home.

Table Bay from Lion's Head