March 2010
6 posts
Cruisin' in my 6-4... Wire car
I was going to write something profound in this blog entry. Like about how I am on the verge of making a giant scientific discovery, proving that the children of Red Hill Township have organized to overthrow us, including the establishment of a chain of command, code words/slurs and special ways of communicating through high-pitched crying sounds. Yesterday, I swear, I saw a three-year-old...
Backwards
South Africa’s Cheetah Outreach has 16 cheetahs, but the entire time I find myself looking at a dog. The center has dedicated itself to saving the fastest cat on the planet, and has ironically found that the best way to do so is with a Turkish dog called the Anatolian Shepherd. The center raises money to place shepherd puppies on local ranches with the agreement that the ranchers will...
Heads up... Stickers equal gold
You cannot patch a soccer ball with duct tape. I’ve learned this twice over the course of my service trip to South Africa. Today the situation came up again as we played a game with the school children of Red Hill Township called soccer/keep-the-ball-away-from-the-stray-dog. I lugged 47.5 pounds of books across the Atlantic Ocean only to find out that the township was most in need of a...
DIGNITY
Today we only lose complete control of the children twice. Somewhere during the melee I am turned into a train. A 50-pound five-year-old rides my shoulders yelling “go, go,” kicking me in the ribs and prodding me forward. A line of children grab the back of my pants, yelling “choo, choo.” Only seconds before I had dignity. My situation is no worse than the 12 other Southwestern...
WHY AM I HERE?...PLUGGING POTHOLES WITH PIPE...
Today I use a small stick to sweep through sand in one of Red Hill Township’s playgrounds. I’m on my knees looking for shards of glass and every time I shuffle forward I do it deliberately and slowly. I am a soldier making my way through a mine field.
The situation seems futile. We have already pulled up 10 trash bags of debris and still there are little glimmers of glass in the sand ...
TO SOUTH AFRICA—HARRY POTTER, PLEASE SAVE ME
By Sean Campbell I’m about to travel 12,500 miles, sit on a plane 21 hours and pass through multiple security checkpoints that have me counting the ounces in my aerosol deodorant. I am one of 13 Southwestern College students traveling from San Diego to South Africa to help a preschool in an illegal squatters township outside Cape Town. Right now I am standing in line to check my bag, wondering...