The Stepping Stone

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 if there is anything “illegal” about shipping 50 pounds of stickers and glue.

Most of us have giant bags filled with school supplies. Here’s a breakdown of my bag, alone: “Harry Potter,” “Bartholomew Bear” and 47.5 pounds of other children books, 3.8 liters of glue, empty towel rolls, tissue paper, 4,000 motivational stickers, 2,000 animal stickers, 2,000 fashion stickers (yep), 275 tattoos, nine different colors of Play-Doh, balloons, race car pencils and a bag of pixie dust.

And there are 12 more bags.

To say the school we are headed to is short on funding would be an understatement. Think 10 toilets for a population of 500. The township residents are squatters, meaning the land does not belong to them. They bootleg their electricity from neighboring areas and walk on eggshells when it comes to dealing with the locals, we are told. The teachers have little formal education but are doing their best with what they have.

For the last month our group has been creating study plans under the guidance of two child-development instructors. We will work with children as young as toddlers and as old as fifth graders. Some of us have experience working with students. I have none. We’ve all spent about $2,000 to $3,000 for the trip and while the others work on lesson plans, I mostly think about contingency plans. Plan B: If the kids get bored, scared, out of control—read them Harry Potter.

We meet the children Tuesday.