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One of the things
we have felt this year is that we have been extremely privileged. At some
point during the year, after watching a World Vision advert on television,
we felt that we wanted to do something for someone less fortunate than
ourselves and so we started to look into various organisations that
arranged "child sponsorship" to see what we could do. We talked about how
many children and decided on two, we talked about in which countries we
would like to sponsor the children and what age, etc.
However, when you
start to think about it and, worse still, look on the websites it becomes
painfully hard to make a decision. You suddenly realise that your
decision is, in some way or another, going to potentially end up being
prejudice. You are going to pick a child of a certain age and sex, from a
particular country, you are then going to be shown photos of a number of
children so you can pick one! You may laugh at the following comment
initially, but afterwards think about it, are you going to pick an ugly
child, or one that looks cute?
This was
something that really bothered us and was how we ended up not sponsoring
any individual child, as we didn't want to have to "pick.” Surely the
child that you sponsor should be the one that needs help the most
urgently? How can you tell that from a photo? On most websites you can
sponsor a child without selecting any "criteria," and I wonder if this
should be the only way, but would they get as many sponsors coming forward
if people could not choose a child?
Anyway, our
dilemma was solved by Angela having her second brainwave in two years!
The first being to leave work and go on holiday for a year! Angela
suggested that we find a school that needed help and that we look to
support them in some way, spending the same amount of money that it would
have cost us to sponsor a couple of children.
We knew that the
villages near Thula Thula were not the most affluent so we contacted
Lawrence, Françoise and Mabona to ask if they knew of a school that needed
some support. The local village has a Pre-School which only receives
enough money to buy the children lunch and they suggested that we might
like to look at helping them. After a couple of emails back and forth we
decided what we should buy and off we went, as mentioned in the Umhlanga
diary entry.
Mabona took us up
to the village and as we approached, on the right-hand side of the road we
could see the Primary and Secondary Schools. Both looked to be in a
decent condition and most of the children were wearing a school uniform.
They were also outside at the time playing on two bouncy castles that had
been provided for the National Holiday the day before and not been taken
down yet. As we approached and I saw this I wondered if we had made a
mistake with sponsoring a school like this!
Instead of
turning into this school we pulled up alongside a dilapidated shack on the
other side of the road. As we got out of the vehicle I don't think either
of us thought we were going into the building we could now see in front of
us and it certainly wasn't going to have thirty children in it! Boy, were
we wrong! I cannot tell you how we both felt as we walked into this
place! However, for a short while our feelings were distracted by the
wave of emotion that was sent our way by the teacher and helpers in this
building. One of the things we were told was that these children all have
to sit on the floor, which in the eating room is just a hard mud floor and
the other has a flimsy small piece of "carpet" on it.
We thought about
what we could buy for the kids to sit on and we couldn't afford to buy
that many chairs, or the tables that they would then need to go with
them. It was a good job as there would not have been the room anyway!
What we did buy was chair-seat cushions so they at least had something
padded to sit on. We bought enough to make sure that everyone would have
their own and there would be a few spares as well. We also bought a rugby
ball, football, cricket set, a plastic bowling set, "tennis" balls of
different sizes, a ball pump, crayons, plain and coloured pencils,
rubbers, rulers, pencil sharpeners, kids scissors, plain and coloured
paper, cardboard, bluetack, exercise books, colouring books, learning
books and wall-charts, etc.
I can promise you
that they had none of these things in this building! How the teachers and
helpers were meant to keep the children occupied all day is beyond us! We
got all the children outside so that Angela could give them some sweets
and whilst she was doing that I took some photos of the school. If you
think I have been exaggerating look at the photos! We also made sure the
teacher and the other adults had some sweets as well! We then tried to
get a photo of all of us together, but I think everyone, including us, was
so shell-shocked that it was a bit like organised chaos! The teacher had
no idea we were coming or that she would be getting anything for the
school, so you can appreciate why she was so overwhelmed. Apparently she
kept saying, "Thank you God for bringing these people to us, I don't know
why you have sent them, or chosen us for these wonderful gifts, but thank
you, thank you!” Mabona told us this on the way back to Thula Thula, as
well as the fact that they were probably extremely surprised to see white
people in the village in the first place!
What were we
thinking on the way back? Funnily enough pretty much the same thing! We
both wanted to spend more time there playing with the kids and helping the
teacher. Most of all we wanted to go back and paint the school, repair
the roof, put in some proper windows, decorate inside and make the outside
playing area look less like a building site and more like a playground!
Somehow we will
make this happen, we might not be able to get there and do it ourselves,
although we would prefer to and we are going to try to, but if not we will
get someone to go and do it for us.
The kids were
hysterical, I rubbed one of the little lad’s heads and he ran off, looked
at his mates and gave the biggest belly laugh you might ever have heard.
This of course started something and they all then wanted me to do it to
them, or they just wanted to touch my arm to see if it felt different to
theirs!
As we drove off
the teacher ran around the building waving goodbye frantically, probably
wondering who the hell we were and why we had done what we did!
We realised
afterwards that we should have spent more time talking to the teacher
about why we had brought the stuff and that we want to help in the future,
but we were all so stunned that the conversation never happened. Luckily
with Mabona and Lawrence's help we will make sure she knows what we would
like to do and with her permission get something sorted out so that we can
help out on a regular basis. |