Freedom

Volunteering in South Africa, and Grabouw in particular, open your eyes to situations and circumstances that we all hear about may but seldom act on. Here we volunteer to work along side local communities and with kids from all over Grabouw. Each afternoon, out reach sport programes are run by sports mentors and ourselves. The significance of these programs is huge, as  we use sport to brake down all sorts of barriers. It doesn't matter is you speak English, Africans, Corsa or Dutch; sport is universal, and a unique way to build relationships, with children who's lives are worlds apart from ours. The love and the joy that they show and give to us is overwhelming, when we show that we care. A tap on the back or simply passing the ball to them, will make a friendship and someone to hold your hand. 

Running sport programmes gives us the opportunity to teach life skills and pass on biblical messages that apply to every day life. Key life skills from the past few weeks have been, respect for oneself and others, wound care, purity and HIV.  Although at times it is difficult to know weather linguistics have been over come. We work alongside the sports mentors who are instrumental to the running of the clubs, and are able to relay what is said in English. It is of my experience that all of the children who attend the clubs, listen intensely and can reflect on the message the following week. 

All of the sports mentors are teenage boys from the townships, and without them sports would not run  the same. It is nice to have the opportunity to show appreciation. Yesterday evening, we all met up in CapeTown. With the boys in their 'sunday best', we had dinner before heading to Cape Town Stadium, to watch the Cape Ajax play Orlando Pirates. 

Grace, Heather, Jess and I had been exploring CapeTown all day. We wonderer around the famous GreenMarket and enjoyed lovely burgers for lunch. This meant we where still filled to the brim by dinner time. So i at least picked at my meal while i watched the mentors savored every mouthful. 

Most of the mentors come from homes without running water, electricity or a fridge full of food. A concept that i struggled with as a child, when my dad would tell me, 'you don't know how lucky you are, to be able to go the the fridge and make a meal'. 

As we walked towards the stadium, which was lit up like a space ship, the crowds gathered. We formed lines and waited to be frisked. Through the gates and up to the steps to our entrance. I had never been to a football game before, nor a stadium this big- seating 64,000 people. When we could see the pitch, i was filled with excited. So i cant begin to imagine how the mentors where feeling, with only having seen or heard of their football fans and the stadium in the newspaper or magazines. 

The match score was 1:1, the atmosphere was unlike anything i have ever experience before. Tickets costing less that $10.00, we where of a minority, surrounded by enthusiastic Cape Ajax and Orlando Pirates fans. 

21 years post-apartheid, there is still a marked division between black, colored and white communities. Like a lot of the time, i find myself the minority group. Freedom Day, observed annually on April 27th as a bank holiday. To celebrate freedom and commemorate the first post-apartheid elections held in 1994. These were the first national elections in South Africa in which the franchise did not depend upon race.

Being in South Africa, the rainbow nation. A place where lots of different charities are working towards the common goal, to truly make this nation, a nation of 'one people with one destiny'. Freedom Day, strives to bring "Peace, unity, the preservation and the restoration of human dignity"