Johannesburg

June 6th

Jo'burg looked nothing like Durban or Cape Town. It was the metropolitan powerhouse of the country, as it was where 10% of the GDP of all Africa is accounted for. However, there was a flipside to this metropolitan sovereign. While a white minority gloated in their gorgeous homes, the country's starkest urban poverty existed in hopelessly destitute townships. Millions lived in shacks without electricity and running water. And the crime problem was unreal. As the coach drove down the six lane freeway, which separated the rich from the poor, I was struck by the dramatic dichotomy.

June 7th

After some more ward rounds at a public hospital specializing in dialysis, we headed to the Othandweni Family Care Center.

I have made orphanage visits before, but I knew that this would be especially difficult since most of the children had lost their parents to AIDS and might even have the disease themselves. I quickly befriended two young boys. One wanted to be an actor when he grew up and asked me copious questions regarding Hollywood. He had such a charismatic personality! The other, much more reserved than his buddy, wanted to be a writer when he grew up and was eager to share his work with me. Here are two of his incredibly eloquent poem's:

With Every Tear

I try to come to terms with my loss, yet the tears keep coming...falling. With every tear I wipe is a memory I erase. I suppose what they say is true, just because you love someone it doesn't mean you can't let go.

I never thought it would be as hard as this. I try to cope, yet still the world lies heavy on my shoulders and the tears keep coming. A part of me feels as though this is the end, as the road ahead has just suddenly been erased. I feel so empty inside. I feel that I have nothing left within me and the tears keep coming.

My heart beats with pain. My lips? All they utter are their names. Every minute that passes visions of them echo through my mind and then I lose all control. It feels as though I'm going out of my mind. Nothing seems to make sense, even when I speak I am unable to articulate my thoughts. My feelings are dead yet lie dead in a grave of sorrow. Everything seems to be blurred by visions of them telling me that they love me.

The death of all of my family came as a shock.

Although most would like to believe that I am a strong young boy, no matter how strong one becomes, accepting the death of someone you loved is very hard, and accepting the death of someone who left so much unsaid and unheard is impossible. All of my family died 7 years ago and yet the tears still keep coming. Africa! Africa! Africa! What have I done to you? Why me?

The Tears Keep Coming

Well, here I am a 16 year old boy. Confused, coming to terms with himself. Unwanted?

What have I done or accomplished in my short life that I can look back upon and think, wow, I did that! I'm lonely, complicated, depressed, and complex. I hurt and ache for love, but the love I crave is far beyond that of a simple girlfriend (if I get one I won't complain!).

No, this love is a love I crave for myself, just to know that I'm exactly like other people who live, who love, who breathe, who cry.

My tears usually come at 2 o'clock in the morning when I've just woken up from a bad dream and I sit thinking of my life. Half of my life I want to live over. Then a single transparent tear starts to journey down my cheek, soon accompanied by its friends.

I sit there in darkness, silent...confined within the walls of my mind...thinking. I think about the years and years I've tried, but it's amounted to nothing. I think about how I've tried with friends, how I've been hurts by their actions. I think in my silent prison about how I've tried to be more "social"...ended up crying, because I’ve never been as alone as in a group of friends.

No one knows my heart, and my feelings about life. I value it, I cherish it, but my life is another story. In my past, I was strong and carefree, but after years of my family dead my spirit and strength seem to have faded. It's funny how I start off life with joy then as time goes by I shrivel up, as if my life juice has been lost along the way.

I'm left to say the lines, "I get knocked down, but...should I get up again?" Especially when life mercilessly and viciously tears at my legs to weaken me when it has the chance to?

My failures hurt me and I should learn from them, but when my heart is bleeding I can’t handle the pain and focus on the good aspects of my life. I'm not ashamed of my tears no more, because they show strength. Facing my emotions is harder than boiling them up.

I am a 16 year old boy with intelligence and good, but no family, no home to be thankful for. Health and love is what matters now, but no matter how many times I tell myself this, the tears keep coming.

After another very emotional day, Sarah and I wanted to be alone so that we could process everything we had experienced up until this point. We found a restaurant called, Yum, and without expecting it, it ended up being our best meal in Africa.

June 8th

The entire day was spent learning about apartheid. The first visit was to Soweto, South Africa's largest and most well known township. It is famous, because both Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived there. As I walked around the shanty town I was able to observe the "4 D's" that are always talked about in reference to Africa: death, disaster, disease, and despair.

..which have made the continent the sorrow child of the universe. Despite this, I still found that the people's spirits were alive and they were unwilling to give up. A recent survey found that 93% of the country’s citizens were proud to be South African. Along the walk, we stopped at Mandela's old house (definitely one of the proud South African's). A true hero, just being amongst his stuff inspired me to greatness.

On the next visit we paid our respects at the Hector Peterson memorial. Peterson, only an innocent child, was the 1st causality of the Soweto uprisings in 1976.

The final visit was to the Apartheid Museum. This historical site takes a hard, long look at South Africa's era of segregation. With plenty of attention to details and overall effect, the museum uses film, text, audio, and live accounts to provide a colorful insight into the architecture, implementation, and eventual unraveling of the apartheid system.

On the coach ride to our farewell dinner for the half of the delegation not going on the safari, I read a quote by David Lamb in his book, The Africans, that I thought was perfectly fitting for the day.  He said, "But troubled as these early years of nationhood have been, Africa need not dwell forever in the uncertain twighlight zone. Its dreams have been only mislaid, not lost."

June 9th

Off to Kruger National Park...