Thank You

I have never been a morning person. In grade school after attempting to gently wake me up, my mom would have the rip the sheets off of me shouting “THE BUS IS GOING TO BE HERE IN 10 MINUTES KELSEY LAUREN, GETTTTT OUT OF BED, I AM NOT GOING TO BE IN HERE AGAIN!”  I honestly was convinced that my mom hadn’t come in prior, trying to wake me up like a civilized person, but instead  just liked to see me rush around like a wild woman. 

Once I reached high school, my desire to be an early riser did not take a turn for the positive.  And in college I MAY have even been known to keep a spare tooth brush, travel tooth paste, and deodorant in my bag just in case I didn’t wake up with enough time to get ready. But this all changed once I met the sweet little munchkins at Sunrise.

Their zest for life is something I cannot even begin to describe. As I walked into our classroom all the kids would pop up from the green area rug they were sitting “proper” on and run and hug me shouting “TEACHA KELSEY! TEACHA HOLD ME! TEACHA TEACHA!” Now if that isn’t motivation to get my behind out of bed I don’t know what is! These precious children gave me purpose.

Photo: Kristi Reynolds

 I now know what it is like to wake up in the morning and love life.

I went to Cape Town to help “fix” things, try and do something for others but instead THEY changed me. Those kids left a mark on me more permanent than any tattoo I could have received. This experience has really helped be categorize things that I have into “things that I want” and “I need”.  My world was rocked and drastically put into perspective.

My biggest fear is that I will forget the feeling that I was blessed enough to experience; a feeling of complete joy, a feeling of carefree go with the flow, a feeling of peace, and a feeling of purpose all rolled into one. It is this fear that drives me…this experience has given me a hunger for more. I shouldn't have to get on a plane and fly 25 miles to feel this amazing feeling. I now know this feeling is possible and now it is up to me to challenge myself once again to find this feeling here.

I feel so lucky to have experienced something that made it so hard to say goodbye.

I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who made donations to the kids. Because of you they had full tummies and were able to read books and play with toys just like kids should. Thank you to my fellow volunteers for being such great companions, for all the great laughs, and for the unforgettable nights at karaoke. Typically when you have 25 people living in one house, with one bathroom, they have a camera in every room and it is aired on MTV but we somehow made it work! I love you guys!  Thank you to Tim & Ivi for making ZA feel like home. 

But most importantly thank you to Class 9 at Sunrise, my little ones, you have given me something that I could never repay you for, you have given me purpose. 

Your Brown Eyes

Tuesday March 6, 2012

I have naively thrown around phrases with the word “love”;  To guys when I had no clue what love even was, to “family” when it was an expected response, and even when describing an experience or food. Of course I love my family and I love my friends and would do whatever I could to help them in anyway. But it was not until last week when I was rocking Phindlie to sleep. I looked into his eyes as I hummed songs to comfort him. (I would never dear torture him with my singing). I felt a feeling like I had never felt before. 

I was sitting on the ground next to the mat that he shares with two other little boys trying to rub his back and calm him down. Since he was new to the class early last month and is one of the youngest, the teacher let me rock him so he wouldn’t disturb the others trying to rest. I scooped him up in my arms started to sway back and forth. He kept one hand around my neck and the other tightly gripping the back of the shirt. 

After a few minutes of him fighting sleep he was finally out. As I attempted to release from his tight squeeze and lay him on the mat, Sazola made a loud nose and woke Phindlie. He began screaming and huge tears started rolling down his face, he latched onto my neck. When I finally got him off, the teacher told me to leave because there was no way she could get him to calm down with me in the room. As I stepped out of the door to our classroom (a metal container) I looked back and Phindlie was walking after me with both arms reached out crying. I wanted nothing more than to scoop him up and take him with me. 

Everyone joked before I left “Kels, remember you can’t bring any of them home!” and I would respond saying I already planned ahead and brought and extra suit case to bring a few home. It honestly wasn’t until this moment that I realized how hard it is going to be to say good-bye to their sweet little brown-eyes. As I walked down the streets of the township heading home, it all hit me and I began to cry. Not a cry for my pain but for theirs. They didn’t choose this life. They didn’t choose to be victims. They don’t choose to go to bed hungry or to walk barefoot on sidewalks covered with broken beer bottles.  

Things that I would have previously said “Ohh that’s only TV” have become a reality. Kids in the township are being used to run drugs for gangs in exchange for food. To some it’s a “win-win” situation, the kids get food (some only get fed at school and many only come to school for the food) and the gang leaders in a sense keep their hands ‘clean ‘ because if the kids get caught or shot while delivering the contraband it’s no sweat. Parents are upset but by no means can they stand up to the drug lords of the township. 

When I initially found out this was happening it made me sick to my stomach, then anger set in. These kids are just kids. They do not like the peels of apples. They love getting their picture taken and cheer when the flash goes off. They are always without fail, all members of the Clean Plate Club. Bananas are a favorite across the board. Something as simple as bubbles puts a look on their face like its Christmas Morning. Knowing that someone carelessly takes this innocence from children is honestly one of the hardest things I have tried to wrap my mind around. Who is in their corner? Who is fighting for them? 

We all know that kids are sponges and pick up things from their environment and that then transcends into their play. So when after a weekend of people lighting car tires on fire in protest in the township with four casualties, it should have been no surprise to me that the popular game of Monday morning would be “Police and Fire”. The kids were all in the corner of the room when the panic set in, they started shouting in Coosa. When I asked the teachers what they were saying she responded “Sazola just said ‘why did you burn my car you fat cow? I’ll shoot you!” I put the game quickly to an end once it was translated but it still came to a shock. This is their normal. This is not “just TV”. 

I walk a fine line of trying not to come off as disrespectful of their life but at the same time tenderly encouraging them that there is so much more life holds for them other than township life. Education is really the only way out of the township. But some parents struggle even providing food let alone paying for an education (payment is standard for public school, grade 1 through grade 12). I wonder constantly which kids will make it out, not fall victim to the gangs, the violence, the hunger, the diseases.

I know I am only temporary in their life. They aren’t going to remember me. But I will never forget them.  The look in their sweet brown eyes when we play with bubbles, the joy on Vergill’s face when he counted to 10 on his own for the first time, Mary-Ann’s giggles when she swings on the tires, and Wayne’s cheers when its fruit time and he get a piece of banana is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. This is love.

This is Their Tuesday

Sunday February 12, 2012

Week one is complete. No travel guide book from Barnes and Nobel could have prepared me for what I was embarking on.

Tuesday, on his way walking to school from the other side of the Township with his best friend, a 1^st grader, Pabpallo , was hit by a taxi. As the two were walking across the street, a cab came flying around the corner, disregarded the stop sign, and hit the little seven year old so hard that he flew across to the other side of the sidewalk which was littered with trash while his little shoes stayed firmly planted on the ground where he was hit.

 The impact was so hard that Pabpallo’s stomach and spleen exploded out of his stomach cavity. 

As he lay there, his little friend stayed by his side as bystanders went for help. The cabbie was arrested and the Pabpallo was rushed to the nearest government hospital. He was in a coma for almost three days and has gone through two procedures thus far. He went into complete organ failure before his second surgery but is still fighting.

 By some miraculous miracle after they did scans, they discovered his has a fractured skull but otherwise NO broken bones. Principal Mike ran from the school after he heard about the accident and said the entire front end of the cab was completely smashed as if it had hit a hippo, no a little seven year old.

His mother is a wage worker and only gets jobs here and there cleaning houses as things come up and his dad is a laborer. If they don’t show up to work they don’t get paid. So they have been torn between sitting by their son’s side as he clings for life or going to work so they can provide for the rest of their family. The directors of our program went to visit little Pabpallo at the hospital to send our best wished and bring cards that all the kids and volunteers made. As they started to show him the cards his eyebrows rose in excitement and he put on the 1^st smile that his mom had seen since the accident.

As the little 1^st grader was fighting for his life with his best friend not leaving his side, Clifford a 6^th grader was also making his way to school. Clifford is an excellent student, always does his homework and behaves in class and is excelling at track at after school. He rode his bike to school and as he was approaching school, a gang member shoved Clifford off of his bike. But instead of just taking the bike and leaving, he threw a few punches. When Clifford didn’t fight back, the guy started hitting him even harder.

 Clifford was late to class which is very unusual for him, the teacher started class and when she turned around from facing the blackboard, she saw a battered Clifford, blood all over his white uniform shirt, black eye, and a fat lip sitting at attention with his homework out ready to turn in.

As the teacher was getting Clifford cleaned up, Principal Mike was notified that a little 3^rd grade girl was being sexually abused by her step father and started filling out the necessary paperwork .

This was just Tuesday. I continue to be amazed by these kids. They are fighters and resilient. 

One hot South African summer: Orientation, Township Tour, Cape Town

Monday February 6, 2012

All the new volunteers were to meet at 8am for orientation at apartment 11. Kamryn (my savior from the Amsterdam airport) and I left in time to make sure we could find it. Apparently flying 22 hours does not give me any more sense of direction than I have in the states, so needless to say we wandered around a bit and actually ended up finding a few other new volunteers who were also lost. We phoned Iviwe (the director of Dreams to Reality) and she ended up fetching us. It worked out because everyone else was late too so showing up a half hour late was not an issue.

Once we got all the paperwork out of the way and Tim (the director of Dreams to Reality) gave us a nice fatherly spiel about staying safe, we were off to tour “The Township” (slum). All 19 of us packed into a 12 passenger van. Formerly strangers, we were not more. Our first stop once we reached Capricorn Township was Mary’s Creche.  The last wave of volunteers painted the front wooden gates sky blue and helped put up siding on the tin and wooden rooms where the kids play. 

Glass lined the walkway and a dog was tied to the tree barking as we walked up and we were welcomed with open arms by Mary and her family.  We walked through her house and in the back area are a few added rooms from tin and wood that serve as the rooms for the childcare. I was the first to walk into the room with the little toddlers and one little boy just ran up and gave me a huge hug. My heart completely melted! He started talking to me in Africans but when I responded he quickly switched to English.

Malory a volunteer who has been working with the kids for about three weeks now brought grape scented bubbles for the kids to use and you would have thought they all won the Golden Ticket from Willey Wanka the way they were shouting.

We stayed there for about 15 minutes and then were off to the next Kreche around the corner. Jolene’s runs the Creche called “God’s Gifts Day Care”. We pushed open a piece of tin that usually serves a roofing material that they used for a gate to keep the children contained and the stray dogs from the Township out. There was absolutely NO air flow when we walked into the center, there were about 30 kids running around in one tiny room, 2 infants shared a mattress on the floor sleeping. All the kids were soaking wet with sweat, as were the volunteers who were currently helping there. One tiny ceiling fan, that only works on the lowest setting slowly turned. None of the windows opened so the front door stood wide open to try and help with the air flow.  Many of the kids sleep on the floor with no blankets, which maybe fine in the summer but in the winter it is very rainy and chilly and the room sometimes floods.

The next stop was a more formal child care center in the Township called Sunrise. The government subsidizes food and supplies for 97 students.Tthere are over 300 kids at the center at any given time. Within the last 2 months, a daycare nearby got into  trouble for abusing  kids so Sunrise built extra rooms for the 50 extra kids after parents came to the center asking for help.  The government will not recognize the new buildings or approve them and therefore, Sunrise has to ask local businesses and locals to help with food and necessities to help run the center. But local funding isn’t always guaranteed.

Last on the Township tour was the elementary school called Christian David’s. The school shares the property with a church. The pastor of the church doesn’t want the kids to come or worship.  When we first arrived, we were greeted by the principal and then shown the grounds. We went into a 6^th grade class when they were having their math lesson and they all stood in attention in their school uniforms and greeted the volunteers “Hello Teachers, welcome to our class.

They have a storage container that they converted into a computer lab for the older kids. There were six computers with the basics to help prepare the kids for computer technology in high school.  Recently all of the hard drives were removed from the computers so the kids haven’t been able to go to the lab. 

In the classroom they have for the fourth graders there are 55 students in one non air-conditioned trailer that they have converted into a classroom because non of the classrooms in the school are big enough to hold all but the trailer itself is not much bigger.

The First Grade has a 50% failure rate. Many of the kids do not know colors, letters, numbers, or any of what we would consider the “basics”.

After our Township tour we took the train from Muizenberg into Cape Town which was about a fourty minute ride in 3^rd class. We walked through greenmarket square where they have all sorts of street venders. I resisted buying anything for the time being but I will definitely need another carry –on for the plane ride home for the souvenirs and the kids. Everyone has been more than welcoming. 

Seat 19 J

I am one. I am just one person. I am the student who has to start writing the paper the night it is assigned and take the online quiz the moment it’s open. I am the sister who is the 1^st to come to my brother’s defense because ONLY I have earned the right to make his life hell, no one else. I am the daughter that has promised to clean my room and help with chores but the sink is still full with dirty dishes and my bed hasn’t been made in years. 

I am the granddaughter who calls and the instant my Grandmas don’t answer I think the worst, so I call and call, until finally they answer, I am in a panic, and they go on about their new anti-swelling cream they just picked up for their ankles and how they accidentally swallowed their pets pills again. I am the friend that falls asleep at 9 o'clock on the couch in the living room and drools all over your nice throw pillows.

 I am the nanny that loves the kids I watch as if they were my own, sometimes ice cream for dinner is a must to get them to behave but nonetheless I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I am the co-worker that takes the last cookie on pitch-in day and denies it as I brush the oatmeal crumbs off my blouse. 

 I am all of these things but not confined by these parameters. I am adding a new definition to who Kelsey Steuer is. I am embarking the journey of a life time and am so grateful for every person who has made this possible. I am so blessed to have such an incredible support system. When I meet new people and they ask about my family it shouldn’t be as complicated as I make it. Many would just say I have a Mom, a younger brother Sam, and two grandmas who I love dearly.

 My actual answer is “Well I have my immediate family: mom, brother, two grandmas (one on each side of the family, they aren’t married or a couple like one of my brothers friends asked).Then we have family in Minnesota (who really isn’t technically our family, they’re our neighbors family but now were all one big family unit), then we have The Neighborhood, we all are just one big family…” After a few minutes of processing my ramblings and their eyeballs pop back into their head, “WOW!” is usually the standard response. 

But just saying I have a mom, brother, and grandmas doesn’t do my life story justice. I have been raised by a village. I have countless people cheering me and encouraging me along the way while also keeping me in check and holding me accountable. This is something I am more than blessed to have. I am a firm believer that every person that I have met and who has been involved in my life is there for a reason.  

Through all these incredible people, I have been taught how to love unconditionally, how to forgive, and how to express gratitude. I have been show that there are still good people in the world. If it was not for my ENTIRE “family” I would not be who I am today. 

I by no mean have had a terrible life, I have run into a few hiccups and bends in the road along the way but was taught from a young age to push forward and hold my head high while at the same time,  reminded that it is more than okay to pull over and cry whenever needed. 

If I can show just one child this unconditional love that I have been so freely given, put a smile on an innocent toddlers face, put food in a hungry baby’s belly, or just show them that there are people who care about them then I couldn’t ask for more. Sometimes all it takes is a simple smile across the room to change someone’s day, a compliment instead of criticism, or just a hug.  Just knowing that someone cares is INCREDIBLY powerful. 

Life has an amazing way of working out. I could have never even dreamed it would be better than I had it planned (obviously I don’t control The Plan). The most important thing I have learned is that as much as I dislike it, the fact is, the ONLY human I can control is myself. Trust me I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t regularly forget this or mistakenly convince myself that this fact has change but when I remind myself that only I hold the power to let others bring be down or uplift me, life becomes a little easier.

I choose to be thankful for both the good and bad that I have experienced in my whopping 21 years of existence. If it weren’t for the bad, what would define the good? I may  come across as a  Miss Goody-Two-Shoe for thinking this way but this is how I survive. I don’t want to look back on my life and regret  missed opportunities because I was not able to be a big enough person to move forward.  

So as I sit here in Seat J19, about 14 hours into my travels, I finally realized this journey and adventure started long before I got on this plane. Life is a journey. Every pitfall and peak of my life has shaped who I am. I may not know what profession or title I want on my business card. But I am found my purpose in life.

it all comes full circle

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson