Becky's trying to figure it all out

Becky

At my internship at Thandokulu I feel like I can’t relate to the kids who go there. I see them at school, but that is it. I know that they come from the townships but it is so difficult to picture their home life. I know where I have come from and I try to imagine if they are even able to do some of the things I did at home. I have different experiences than people who intern at Christel House, I don’t get to talk to my students about their lives or interests because I mostly teach and help classes with practice problems. I feel like there are differences in the kids here versus the kids in the United States, but is there really? Are the kids just the same, but live in different countries and have different amounts of money. What if poverty means nothing, and a teenager is a teenager anywhere in the world and they all love doing the same things. Hobbies could be the complete same, but am I thinking it is different because it’s a black society versus a white society, or a poor versus richer society, or is it because I feel like MAYBE just MAYBE it is because these kids are from Africa and I am from America and Africa is supposed to be different. I don’t know. 

When I was on that bus yesterday going into Khayelitsha it just hits me that holy shit these kids do this five days a week just to get to school in Mowbray It probably takes them hours, not to mention how unreliable transportation is. We were waiting for a bus for 45 minutes at the bus stop and I just feel like I experienced something that can help me relate to these kids because now at least I understand what they do to get to school and a better idea of where they live. I feel like I thought that these kids were just so far removed than anything I found to be normal, but then when I arrived at the place where I am doing my activist project just talking to the girls who are the same age as the kids I teach they seem like normal teenagers. I hate how I feel like they have to be different than teenagers in the US why do I have to think this? Why can’t I just accept that a child is a child universally, and everyone is the same deep down it’s just the external forces that make us a little bit different. So in the end everyone is human, we all bleed the same blood, so why do I feel like I need to understand these kids when I know what it is like to be a teenager. I think maybe I should just stop trying. I am forcing myself to learn things about this place and the people but I want to stop and just exist along with everyone else in this world and be happy and open.