So I had the chance yet again to go back to visit my Peace
Corps community. When I left 2 years
ago, I never thought that I would be back to visit every year. I feel incredibly lucky that I have been given
this opportunity to see the kids that I worked with (although they are all
growing up!) and hug the women who were my family, and get up early to run in
the quiet village while the sun rises over the beautiful Drakensburg mountains. I think about my Peace Corps service and the
quiet (and stressful, amazing, life-changing) living that I did there for 2
years. I was telling someone about what
it’s like going back and never in my lifetime will I get to experience being a “celebrity”
but when I go back I definitely feel like a celebrity. People embrace me in warm hugs (okay, they
basically trample me) and smile like nothing I’ve ever seen before..my Peace Corps community will forever be a part of me.
I helped with what is now an annual event of bringing a
group of girls (all in Grade 11) from Johannesburg to live and help in the
community where I stayed in Limpopo. They
get to see what I experienced (only that it’s a much shorter time period – a week
isn’t enough time but at least it’s something).
And basically one of the girls summed up so very nicely one morning as we were talking. Everyone is the same whether they grow up in
a rural area or a big city or in Africa or in America. Maybe we don’t all look or sound the
same. But we all just want to be happy
and free. To live in a world where we
can have an education and play with friends and give and receive love. I think that we sometimes believe that with
poverty there is only sadness. And I am
not saying that it is easy or there aren’t difficulties that are maybe part of the reality that go along with living in rural area and we need to work to figure out a way forward for the many challenges that exist such as poor education systems and a lack of clean or available water and limited health services. But there is also happiness there. And the girls get to see that happiness…
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I hope you can see some of that happiness in my pictures. xoxo
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