One Year

One year, 365 days. That’s how long it has been since I have been able to hug my parents, take Butch for a walk, or go to Starbucks with my friends. A lot can happen in one year, a lot can change. When I was preparing for this experience everyone told me that I would end up learning a lot about myself. They said this experience would change me, and they were right.

When I got on that plane a year ago to come to Africa I wanted to save the world. I think most of the 43 other volunteers on that plane had the same intention and naive expectations. It took two days of being in country before the first person realized this experience was going to be way harder than any of us expected, and she was on the next flight home. Over the next few months of extensive training more and more people said goodbye. Now, a year later 16 volunteers from my training group have gone home, and I'm pretty sure that all of us who are remaining have seriously considered leaving at one point or another. This journey is hard, by far the hardest thing I have ever done. It didn’t help that coming into all of this I had expectations that just didn’t add up when I got here. The world is a really big place and I'm just one person. Maybe saving the world was not the best goal to have, but maybe it was the disappointment of not being able to fulfill that goal that taught me my first major lesson here. Change takes time and sometimes, when you are the one who is attempting to instigate that change, you never get the chance to see the end results. I think the one year mark is often a time for reflection for many volunteers, and as I look back on what I have done this year I don’t see very much. I still have learners who can’t add, and others who still get in fist fights every day. There are teachers that still take sticks to class and others who don’t even bother showing up. Maybe being here won’t change them all, but maybe, just maybe some of them are learning something. Maybe by not hitting kids when I get mad I'm teaching some of them compassion. Maybe by showing up to class on time everyday I'm teaching some of them work ethic, and maybe someday, if I'm lucky they will be able to teach those lessons to someone else. If one person ends up having a better life because I taught them something, then maybe it will have all been worth it.

Right before I left a year ago my family and friends threw me a party. Family from up and down the west coast came to wish me luck and party it up in true Lynch fashion. In between the horse shoe tournament, the big bonfire, and consuming too many drinks my mom had everyone sign a journal for me. Before I got on the plane she told me to save it for when I'm feeling lonely and it would remind me that no one back home had forgotten me. Over the course of this year I have turned to their letters of love and encouragement to get me through some of the rougher days. When you are alone in a small hut for days on end without being able to really talk to anyone it tends to run you down emotionally. It’s at those points when I realize I haven’t spoken a single word in over a day that the isolation really sets in. I'm in the middle of nowhere! The closest American is over an hour away and everything I truly know is half a world away. My greatest fear has always been being alone, and here I am. I'm stuck in my worst nightmare, but what I realized last night, when I reread the notes from my friends and family, is that I'm still alive. I’ve spent a year completely alone and I haven’t given up. There have been days where I have been close, days where I’ve sat on the floor and cried thinking I couldn’t keep doing this, but in the end I battled through it. So many people wrote in their letters to me how brave they thought I was, how they were proud of my courage to go off into the unknown, and looking back on this past year I am starting to see what they saw in me. It’s one thing to be told something about yourself, but it’s another thing to actually believe it. I don’t think most people know what it means to truly be alone, and I think fewer people could handle the feelings that come with it. I'm proud that through all the really hard times I have found the courage to stick it out and keep moving forward. This has been my dream since I was 17, and even though there have been a lot of times I wished I had come up with a different dream, I have more faith in who I am now that I have accomplished part of this one.

While I have learned that I am a lot stronger than I thought I was before I came on this crazy adventure to Africa, I want to take this opportunity to thank my friends and family. Family here in South Africa is not the same as back home. Fathers basically done exist and mothers are never shoulders to cry on. Support is not something that is freely given and love is something that is hardly shown. Seeing people who have nothing shows you what you take for granted in your life, and after this last year I can say with confidence that I can live without running water, a car, electricity, and even Starbucks, but I would not be who I am or where I am without the love and support of my family. The number of letters and care packages I have received over the last year have made me feel so supported and cherished in a time when I feared I might be forgotten. It is hard to know that life at home is continuing when you are so far removed, but every time I start to feel left behind they have reminded me I am still in their thoughts. If anything has gotten me through this chaotic experience so far it is them, so thank you to everyone who has supported me! I love you all!!!

What Do You Say To That?

You know that moment when someone asks you a question and realize your immediate response probably isn’t the answer you should give? My time in Africa has been filled with answering the same questions over and over again, and the longer that I am here the more complicated those simple questions become. While on vacation this past week I realized that the answers that I want to give are not always appropriate, and that learning to filter my thoughts might be the greatest lesson from this experience.

No matter where we go everyone in this country somehow knows that we aren’t from here. Even in the big cities where there is a super high population of white people, people just know. Sometimes I feel like I have a flashing neon sign above my head that reads “Ask Me Why I’m Here”. No matter who is asking the questions, the first four are always the same. Question one, where are you from? That answer is always easy and people’s reactions are usually always the same excitement and people gushing about how they have always wanted to visit the United States. Question two is where things start to get a little complicated. This is always were people ask “How are you enjoying South Africa”? This is where the first filter pause comes in. My mind is filled with images of no windows in my classrooms, kids getting in fist fights in the middle of a lesson, and fetching water from the river, and I just can’t help wanting to blurt out that it kind of sucks most of the time. Unfortunately I don’t feel like that is an appropriate answer, so I usually go with the smile and say it’s great and leave it at that, but let me tell you, nothing about washing your clothes with river water full of cow crap is great.

So once the pleasantries are exchanged we get down to the real questions. Question three is usually some form of “How long are you here”? If I could just walk away from the conversation at this point I usually would. Unfortunately, most of the people asking are taking care of me in some manner whether it is the taxi driver, waiter, or the cashier at the supermarket, so for the most part I am trapped until they are done with the inquisition. So at this point I can either lie, and say I am here for holiday if I want to get out fast, or I can tell the truth, that I am living in South Africa for a little over two years. The latter answer then involves an explanation of what I am doing here and where exactly I am staying. This inevitably leads to question four, which is often delivered in a tone of shock, disgust, or concern.

“Why?” It’s such a small word, and you would think that the answer would be so simple, because in my mind it always was. I wanted to go somewhere that I could give back. I wanted to help people that could really use it, so I packed my bags, said goodbye to everything I have ever known, and shipped off to Africa. Apparently when you tell that to a South African they just don’t get it. Volunteering and giving back just isn’t a thing in this country, so there in lies problem number one with that answer. No one understands why I would leave home to come help in a different country, and they sure as hell don’t know why I would essentially work for free. They all want to know what I am getting out of this experience, and I have absolutely given up trying to explain that it isn’t about what I get out of it, I didn’t come here to get anything. So now my go to answers are about growing as a person and that it looks really good on job applications. I usually still end up getting looked at like I have lost my mind, or like I am a child that just doesn’t understand life.

Once people somewhat wrap their head around the idea that I am making no money for teaching we move on to their main concern of where exactly I am working. Strangely enough I thought the concern about this topic would only come from the white South Africans, who have most likely never set foot in a rural village, but the black South Africans have shocked me here. Turns out that most of the black people living and working in Durban grew up in the rural villages, and they have no intention of ever going back. I don’t really blame them there, but I find it funny that they are so shocked that people would choose to go there to help. The black people cannot fathom how we survive living in the rural villages as white people. Initially I thought maybe they were talking about safety issues, but no, they are concerned about how we live with no running water, whether or not we do our own laundry, and how we don’t die of boredom. It’s like they don’t see the two hands attached to the end of my arms and they think that I am a baby lost in the big bad world. I forgot how much I hate being treated like a little kid who can’t get dressed by herself yet. It actually starts to make me mad, and that is usually when the filtering starts.

Aside from the four main questions that literally every single person asks, there are a few others that are fun to try and filter before I say something super offending. My favorite is when people ask how the people are treating me. What I really want to say is that the men here are pigs! I have never wanted to tell more people to f**k off in my entire life put together. Anyone who thinks it’s ok to grab someone as they are walking down the street, or make inappropriate sex noises when they walk by should get hit by a car (I’m a little bitter about this subject, in case you couldn’t tell). Sadly, I don’t think that would go over very well and I defiantly know that is not the answer that most people are looking for. So normally I smile and say that people have been very welcoming, while in my mind I'm envisioning kicking a whole lot of people in the nuts.

My other favorite is people asking about how I enjoy South African food. The first thing that crosses my mind is the image of a dead cow laying in the dirt and covered in flies for multiple days at a time. Then I think about walking through the meat section at the super market and coming across a full cow head, hairy ears and all. At this point I'm trying not to gag as I come up with a reasonable answer. How do you politely tell someone that you would rather eat anything other than traditional South African food?  I have enough stomach problems here as it is, I don’t need to combine meat that has been out of the refrigerator for multiple days into the mix.