Learning to Balance Two Worlds...

South Africa is definitely a country of contrasts. Rich and poor, black and white, big city and safari wilderness... It is so strange sometimes to think that, according to global economy standards, South Africa is a first world country (the first heart transplant was done here, and it's the only country to have voluntarily disarmed its nuclear weapons arsenal) and yet by far the vast majority of people live in third world conditions here. Almost all domestic workers who are employed in middle and upper class homes (including ours) go home to a shanty made of tin and plywood. Most domestics make about R100 per day (about $13). They work so hard all day for less than most Americans (including me) make in an hour. So many are in their 50's and 60's, and have experienced infinitely more under apartheid than I will in a lifetime, and yet they have to ask me for permission to miss work for a day so that they can wait for hours in a clinic line to get medical care. Others are mothers who leave their children home alone so they they can go take care of another person's children - just to put food on the table.
And then there is the other side of South Africa, the night club I went to last week with a friend here, where you would think everyone had just walked off a runway in Paris - Fashion TV is the name of the place! We just got dinner and drinks, but watching the people there gave me such conviction for how, though I am here to serve these kids, my world is still so different from the vast majority of South Africa's black population. You see the evidence of apartheid here everywhere only 14 years after the end of such terrible oppression. Many of the streets are still named after leaders in the apartheid government, though slowly they are being changed to traditionally African names (which DOES add a lot of confusion if you don't have a new map!).
Just a few thoughts for the day...