Danika takes PE: Feb Five

It has been a whirlwind month of emotions. It is setting in that my date of expiry is quickly approaching but I am not yet ready to be cast away. There are still relationships to forge, and trips to the beach to make, and computer lessons to impart, and English papers to edit, and frantic Sundays to muddle through, and Gospels to interpret, and Xhosa to learn, and home visits to make, and curry with chutney to eat, and filter coffee to hunt down and hide from anybody and everybody, and life to live. I see my MN friends who have started their adult lives, or want to be adult lives, and I just am not ready to join them there.

Anyway, such is life, and I will prevale.

Here are the top five things this month which have spun my world.

One:
New drug on the street! Well maybe it’s not new? But it came into my realm only recently. ARVs. That’s right: Anti-retroviral medication. Same such pill is the little dream tablet which keeps HIV stable. It doesn’t prevent a person from being infected, but it has worked miraculous for people to maintain a normal life once inflicted. ARVs are sometimes hard to come by. Occasionally, and some places a lot more than occasionally, clinics and hospitals cannot fill prescriptions fast enough, leaving people to wither away.

Ok, anyway, we have this issue. Meanwhile, we have the other big hood issue of meth; tik as it is know here. We all know this sad, destructive story of broken dreams, and shattered lives which meth leaves in its wake, but in New Brighton, it’s a slightly different. Often people get addicted as tik curbs the pains of hunger. And the new travesty that we must face is the introduction of tik laced with ARV. The new (or as I said, new to me) thing is to boost the ARV from the clinic and sprinkle it in the meth. When smoked, it is supposed to be some crazy new experience to remove someone from the daily struggles to which they face.

So now we have a shortage of so called miracle drug, being used for very dangerous bodily experiments, creating even more crime on the streets. And in my schools. And the absolutely worst part is if a person takes an Anti-retroviral when the antibodies haven’t been introduced to their body, it renders itself ineffective for the future (in other words, if they take this when they do not have HIV or AIDS, they can never take it if the person ever gets infected in the future,). And as often happens stateside, people are taking the drugs without realizing the consequences, or are so addicted that any future consequences becomes inconsequential. For obvious reasons, this hits very close to home. I know that I can’t put a stop to this, but shoot, I’m going to try to help the one who brought it to my attention.

Two:
Myself and 4 other youth leaders from the church youth group were able to go spend a weekend in Cape Town training with the head honchos of Life Teen. I could type for days about how rousing these guys were. There were 150 youth groups all crammed in the most beautiful holding you can imagine, discussing God, and how to get teens interested. It was really good for me, because as someone who imagined myself in ministry, I took a huge leap of faith coming to lead a youth group. I have often felt very isolated, and Google has been my close friend.

This conference did two things for me: Completely validated my work! I am someone who has always taken pride in not needing a lot of affirmation to get a job done, but this ministry has been a whole new ball game. I really needed someone to say, wow! You accomplished that! And that’s a great idea that you had for this! Second, and probably more novel, I was surrounded by people so on fire about God, and youth, and where the two collide. I’m talking hands in the air, sink to their knees, happy clappy, Jesus lovers. AND IT WAS GREAT. And I am so inspired to make this program the best it can be! I want to be the best that I can be!

Three:
A little Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s came to my hood. As I have tirelessly mentioned, my alma mater sends 30 students to PE annually to study at the local university. This is how I fell in love with this city, and two years later, I hope to offer these new fools an additional facet of my city.

A few weeks ago, I went to speak to the new kids in their intercultural class and told them that when I was sitting in their chair, I could have hugely benefited from having someone there preaching at me. I could have used a break from the bar, and a bit more meaningful service. As many of you most likely know, the three months after I returned from abroad in 2012 was by far the darkest time of my life. Among many things, I felt as though I made zero sustainable difference in the lives which I encountered. And that’s part of the inherent issue with all volunteer programs that are based on 6 hours of service, and throwing money at a situation, then leaving. I digress.

I offered these guys a chance to make service more a pillar of their short time here. Really make connections, and hopefully make those connections lasting. I thought maybe 4 or 5 would want to give it a try. 20 emailed me with excitement to give up their time to come join forces with me. I’m absolutely blown away! Some of them are working on a reading program at the primary school, some are working on girls sports, a few involved with developing an art club/studio, and some are tutoring in math and physics.

It has only been two weeks, and kids come up to me every day saying when is that guy with the big hair coming back? I have a question for him. So incredibly inspiring to see how vibrant bennies and johnnies can be when given the opportunity. But let me just say, volunteer management is quite the task!

Four:
An old student surfaced a last week. There is boy that I use to be invested in. In fact, he made several appearances in my blog in the early days. Life had an incredible plan for him to walk, a huge potential within his reaches. I’m talking a needle in hay stack kind of kid. I spent many, many hours with him trying to get him to capitalize on these gifts.

Lots of things happened, as things usually do happen in a teenagers life, and he drifted. Drugs and chasing money became a pillar in his life, and school and his future took a back burner. Lots of tears in his living room, and a final straw from school, and he fell off my radar. Occasionally I heard his name from the other learners, but it wasn’t affectionately, as once would have been. I convinced myself that I did what I could, and I couldn’t lose anymore sleep over somebody who didn’t want me to love them.

Until last week. I heard through the grapevine that he was pressed up against the fence and wanted to speak to me. His jaw was busted, hanging loose, and a gash above his eye which a hue of blue. The worst part was I didn’t even recognize his emaciated body. He had always been thin, but it has gotten to a scary malnourished, wasting away, poor kid from Africa that they show on TV to make you cry, kind of body.

There is no deep lesson here. No pivotal point that I can try to spin into some happy ending, or some revelation that I had. This isn’t some history paper that I got so good at cranking out. This is a boy. And his life is fragile. And death is imminent. And I allowed myself to accept that this was the path that he choose. And I didn’t save the day because I was this philanthropic American here to save Africa. And that is hard to chew.

Five:

I found a fantastic spot for coffee. Like I mean a barista who really gets it! This man can craft the best cup of coffee I have had in a long time. And for me to admit that he is better than me takes a lot. And I met some company to share said coffee with. Said company gets my struggles of 1-4, and so much more, and he encourages me strive to be a better. Feeling blessed. And all of this make the coffee taste even more decadent!!!