community stay

i’m back!

this past week, i’ve been able to stay in one of the homes in the masoyi community. 4 nights and 5 days with no running water, no real bathing, minimal food supply, minimal living accommodations. i can’t describe to you all that has happened because it has been so eye-opening. the level of poverty is blatantly apparent in the community, yet it is so humbling to see people persevere through such conditions.

i stayed with one of the pre-school teachers at k2. her name is cindy. she lives with her two younger sisters and two year-old son. she is 23 years old and has taken entire responsibility to care for her sisters and child. her only job is the one she has at k2, which gives her a very small incentive each month – 600 rands, she says, which is roughly around $86 per month. her house is made out of bricks, cement, and metal roofs, and all four members of her family sleep in one bedroom. it seems her family lives on a day-to-day basis; everyday is a challenge for survival. this past wednesday, we ran out of water. knowing that i was there to spend the week with them, cindy seemed reluctant to burden me with carrying the buckets to and from the community well. so cindy borrowed water from her neighbor, who was also reluctant to share water. none of us washed that day or had much water to drink.

daily chores are also so much more work than i experienced them to be. washing dishes is especially a big task since water needs to be conserved. a small amount of water with a few squirts of dish-washing soap would be poured into a small bucket to wash all of the dishes of the day. by the fourth dish, the water would already be brown, and there wouldn’t be any soap left to clean the dishes. on wednesday, we had to use water that settled down with sediment in metal tubs at her house. i could see more than a few dead cockroaches floating on top, but we still used that water to clean the dishes.

food is also very scarce. most of the meals consist of pap (maize meal) and a gravy mixture of beans and vegetables. during the last night i stayed at the house, cindy told me she wanted to cook a nice dinner. when i got to the dinner table, there laid on the plate pap and chicken’s feet. i’ve certainly heard of people eating chicken’s feet, but never have i tasted or much less seen them. the foot on my plate looked especially grotesque; it had everything attached to it – toes/claws (?), pointy nails on the toes, etc. i’ve gone through 22 years of my life not even tasting shrimp or any kind of crustaceous seafood because they resemble insects. but how could i refuse? This was their nice dinner cooked that evening because i was there. so i smiled and found myself nibbling on the chicken’s foot. tasted the same as chicken, only less meat, more skin, more cartilage. but it still felt like i was nibbling on… someone’s hands and fingers *_*

the general lifestyle in the community is also readily different. i was surprised by the large amount of time spent in doing nothing. school and work end around 2:30 to 3:00pm, and supper isn’t until 5:30 to 6:00pm. bedtime is around 8pm, and we wake up around 5:30am. during those hours in between, we just slept or sat in the room talking with the tv on in the background. during hours like these, i would normally go out with a couple of friends to watch a movie or grab a cup of coffee. but those activities are not even considered because watching a movie, grabbing a cup of coffee, and casually going out to town are for the lives of the wealthy. experiencing such idleness helped me understand just a little of why so much of the youth become involved in crime or sexual activity. parents are dying, jobs are difficult to find, money is scant, and there simply isn’t anything to do.

but it’s hard to explain such things as a foreigner. who am i to say anything of the matter? i’ve only experienced 5 days living in the community. i would always have a life to return to in the states, but for people like cindy and her family, this is their life. it was hard to explain such things to cindy.

“hannah, why does it seem that white people don’t suffer like the black people do?”

i tried to explain things in terms of the differences in government, job availability, and pervasion of disease/illnesses in africa. i even tried to explain how things in the states aren’t that glamorous either, that a lot of people in america are suffering, too. but at the end, it seemed that all my explanations were useless. i couldn’t communicate what i felt deeply in my heart.

then, as ingrid, one of cindy’s sisters, explained to me her family situation and struggles, she said to me, “i think it was God that you came.” i replied with a shy, “oh, nooo.” but she continued seriously, “no, really. i am telling the truth. i was praying to God everyday that things might get better. and then you came. cindy and i really believe that it was God that you came.”

just listening to what she said, i was taken aback quite a bit.

Me? I am the answer to your prayers?? you’ve got to be kidding me! because boy, there isn’t much that has been answered. even as i listen to the Hands’ country representatives sharing their prayer requests for new volunteers to come into their region, i can’t imagine that i might actually be the physically-manifested answer to their prayers. what can i do? what can i possibly do to make a difference?

but after mulling over this and my incapabilities for some time, i finally realized,

God, it isn’t me. it isn’t us. it’s You, oh God. You are their hope and answer.

oh Lord, all i ask is that You use me. all i ask is that they be able to see You in me.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
- 2 Corinthians 2:14