Once in a while you'll go to a new place that's so different than what you're used to: different languages, different faces, different ways of doing things. You spend the day looking and looking, and you draw that instant connection with all that's around you. Deep inside, you repeat to yourself "wow...this is amazing..."...And you're right.
It's nearly three months since I unpacked my backpack at the volunteer house. Out came my clothes, some personal belongings, and a million question marks of how my life at Project Endlovu is going to unroll.
It wasn't long before I settled into the community and the project; I soon found comfort and hospitality in the volunteer house. Besides watching Tshabalala score the beauty at the world cup opener and Spain winning it all, in my time here, I also witnessed the community center going from bare-skin to near-completion. In years, I'll come back here and recall that afternoon we put up those dry walls upstairs, or that morning we plastered the exterior wall. Maybe I'll look at the moon and remember the days gone too soon.
As the days flipped by, volunteers and guests like you and I came and went. If you stay long enough as I did, you'll meet and get to know many interesting people, like those written in the previous pages; we've become part of each other's experience. I've always felt the day I make my mark in this notebook is a long way to go, but it came.
Tomorrow I'll wake to a piece of electronic rather than the sound of nature's morning, I'll watch sunset from a different balcony. The sun will be the same sun, the sky will be the same sky, but there won't be kids running around till dark. There won't be sounds of pure joy without a slight trace of worry. I'll be reminiscing this room you're in, the sounds you hear right now, those two ladies named Buyiswa and Hazel,...and that smell from the kitchen when they're cooking ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment