After today’s experience in working on developing The Homestead–Grassroots/CYCC, a starting area for kids who come from abandoned homes and/or lives affected by “gangsterism,” I felt kind and generous for helping kids less privileged than me fix their soccer field, clean their garage, and build a basketball court. I also felt accomplished because as a group, we set a goal on what we were going to do and by the end of the day, everyone played their part. We completed at least 90% of the work in one work day, which left us with going back on Saturday just to finish painting a memorial bench. Overall, I was very pleased with how the day went, and very thankful for the opportunity to give to a less fortunate community.
During the day, I covered two roles. My first job, with a group of boys from EME and LaunchPad, was to clean out a garage. We were tasked with removing all the bags out from the back of the garage, placing all the towels found in the garage in to one bag, and all copy paper found moved into the new supply closet in the building.
After we completed these tasks, we waited for our next instructions, where I had a unpleasant experience. A white woman who was in charge at the organization, came out and gave use further instructions, but she spoke Afrikaans. That alone was uncomfortable after thinking of the relationship between the Afrikaan language and blacks in South Africa…She then proceeded to give orders to us all ordering us to stop with the garage and move to a different garage where we were supposed to remove bricks. The reason this experience was unpleasant to me was because earlier in the trip, we learned that the Afrikaan language is an oppressive language used by whites in part to divide blacks and ignore the native languages spoken within the country. This made me uncomfortable and also drew me to make a comparison between that and slavery in the U.S. We ultimately moved to a different task after consulting with our trip leader who agreed that there were better ways for us all to use our time at the facility. I was pleased that our trip leader recognized our discomfort, and considered our thoughts on the matter.
Our next task was to clear the soccer field of weeds, which was quite a simple task. The purpose of this was to get rid of the safety hazard of the kids tripping and hurting themselves while playing soccer. This task went by smoothly with no problems and at the end of the day, the kids expressed how the soccer field looked better to them, weed free and with fixed nets. Although this task may seem trivial, it was significant to me and the people of Grassroots and Launch Pad because of how dominant soccer is to Their country.
While these tasks where going on we had other groups installing basketball courts into the courtyard, while others painted games on the ground that we learned from Naturena, a school we visited on our first day in Johannesburg. A final group of EME and Launch Pad guys, painted and decorated a memorial bench that spelled out our name: LearnServe EME South Africa.
Everyone played their part and helped to complete as much of their task as possible within our limited time. At the end, I’m proud of all we accomplished and how we all stuck to our plan.
Sincerely,
Carl P., Eastern High School