One world to another. Friday.

Friday.

I am tired. This weekend was intense but really fun. Friday was spent with the KwaZulu Natal Youth Empowerment Project. The project is run by kids, mostly recent high school grads, who live in the shack area in Cato Manor. The kids do a couple of things. They feed school children, try to empower the youth by talking about problems that children in SA face and set up activities like sporting events to keep kids busy and off the streets. While many people tell me that Bonella is bad, people in Bonella talk about the shacks as bad. I was happy to walk through the neighborhood which is huge with shacks running over top a large hill. We were split into groups with 1 KZN YEP leader. We saw the conditions that many were living in, and helped a man clean his shack and wash his clothes. I picked up a lot of medication packs which I thought might be for AIDS, which is rampant amoung the community. What I did see other than the poverty, was the strenghs of humans to live in such conditions, and how everyone seemed to know eachother(there weren’t walls and barb wired fences sourrounding the houses which is seen with almost all the houses that I have seen so far other than shacks. After helping the man, we went to a kindergarten and played with the kids. The kids were awesome and I loved playing with them but wished I knew isiZulu so I could communicate with them. The children were so cute, and the few that I saw with their body covered with sores made me extremely sad.

After playing with the kids, we went to meet with the whole group. There we were informed that we would lead a group discussion with about 30 kids on different subjects. I picked substance abuse and began to talk about with my group. Waiting for the bus to be shipped to the school where we would have the discussion, I began to talk with Malusi, who is the leader of the group. He is really smart, and went over his thoughts on the current South African political problems. He also invited me to play soccer which would be a nice way to meet some kids my age.

After the discussion with the kids, me and three of my friends, Nick, Bryan, and Etan hoped on a minibus to go see the rugby game. We took a minibus to downtown Durban, caught a bus to the beach front, and walked about ¾ of a mile to the stadium. The atmosphere was crazy, but the first thing I noticed was there were 40,000 white people. Where did they come from? It was an interesting experience, and one that I have experienced often in my short time here-going from the 3^rd world to 1^st world. I think both are important to see, I just wish there was more interaction. I have to admit the atmosphere for the rugby game was great. You could buy pitchers of beer inside, or a piece of cardboard which could hold 8 beers-people had one or the other. I enjoyed the game and found it confusing but very exiting. After watching the game, which the home team won, we headed outside where, as we were told by our teacher John, the party really begins. Live music, beer and food were served and the parking lot was filled with cars having a brie(barbecue). I headed home quickly not wanting to alarm my family, and because I had to wake up at 6 to travel to South Coast.