Kelsey on gratitude beyond words.

Kelsey and Kimmi with their Ocean View Family

I’m sure so many people have written about their experience of doing a homestay at a township called Ocean View; but, I feel it would be wrong if I didn’t share the love and warmth that I was blessed enough to have experienced from such an amazing community. I want everyone to feel like they lived through what I did this past weekend after reading this. So, let’s start with Thursday…

                 

After a forty four minute train ride and 14 minute mini bus ride, we were greeted in Ocean View by Chantel’s wonderful parents (not to mention the delicious muffins that were prepared for us). After initial introductions, Chantel took us to the local hall where an organization of kids had put together a dance show for us. The amount of hard work and time that each kid put in to each dance shined through each of their performances. We were all truly overwhelmed by the talent that surrounded us. As if the performance wasn’t good enough, the kids grabbed all of us out of our chairs – the dance party began. The younger kids kept grabbing my arms to get my attention because they wanted to dance with me and show off all their dance moves. I realized just how bad of a dancer I really am upon seeing kids a forth of my age completely showing me up – it was the cutest thing. At least half an hour later, the now sweaty group of us were assigned to our host families. Kimmi and I stayed with Sylvia and Russell along with their two children, Charleton (14) and Chad (16). We both felt an instant connection to the family. From the first introductions, they were all smiles and just so welcoming. Any anxiety I was feeling up until then was immediately gone at that very moment. We all began to chat about the basic questions of where we’re from, how we like Cape Town so far, what other things we’ve done, etc. Afterwards, we began to talk about life in Ocean View. I learned that the main drug problem the township has is meth and, of course, alcohol. I told her that I hadn’t seen any sort of police or security yet and asked if that was normal. She told me that there really isn’t a such thing as police or anything there so, instead, they basically have the policy of: “what you do to other will be done to you in return.” In other words, if you harm anyone, you can expect that person to do the same right back to you. I found that to be unbelievable but as the weekend progressed I began to witness firsthand how that communal mentality works (which I’ll mention later on as the occurrences didn’t happen on Thursday).  Anyways, come eleven we were exhausted so we headed off to bed excited for the weekend to come.

Kelsey with kids in Ocean View                

I was awaken Friday morning from what sounded to me like a guy singing somewhere around town. Come to find out while eating yogurt and granola, the Muslim mosque has the same guy sing morning, noon, and night at the top of church. The township is small enough that everyone can hear him and, with a good percentage of the people being Muslim, it is part of their religious rituals. I thought that was really interesting because the way Sylvia was describing it to us made it seem completely normal and even welcomed, despite the fact that she is Christian. People there respect everyone enough to not judge or think badly upon anyone else’s religion. After breakfast, we walked to the local Krish (what we would call kindergarten) to volunteer our services from eight to two. The children there ranged in age from two to six years old and they were all such great kids, even the “troublemakers.” On Fridays, the Krish doesn’t teach anything so the kids get to play all day. In other words, Kimmi and I were crawled over the entire day. I have never had so many kids try to get my attention before. The funniest part of the day for me was when I was sitting on the floor with at least nine of the kids sitting around/on/leaning against me. The kids kept rubbing my arm and looking puzzled so I asked what they were thinking. I never expected what they were about to ask me: “what are all of these (pointing to all the dots on my skin)? They are everywhere.” I couldn’t help but laugh a little because it hit me then that these kids have never seen freckles before. It took a couple minutes for me to convince them that my freckles were normal but after they understood, they kept petting my arms. Another interest question I received quite a bit was whether my hair was fake, both in length and color. The kids loved playing with my hair all weekend. It was fun to always have someone wanting to play with my hair. Sometimes, I even had to put my hair up because after a while my head would get sore. Also, after lending my camera out to the kids to play with, they had so much fun taking a bunch of random pictures. One that amazed me, in particular, was an image that a kid captured of another boy doing a twist in midair. I would never have been able to get that snapshot but yet a four year old kid did without realizing it. I was thoroughly impressed.

(I’m going to make this a bit shorter because I realize how long my first day and a half has been in writing and if I continued on with this pace, I’ll be writing a novel. So, cliff notes version it is.)

Highlights of my weekend:

• Volunteered at the local youth center for a couple of hours and began planning my activist project with Chantel – starting a math tutoring program for some of the underprivileged kids.
• Because Sylvia was talking about wanting to lose weight, we convinced her, Chad, Charleton, and their aunt and uncle to go on an early morning walk to the beach. It was about 34 minutes one way but the morning exercise felt amazing and the beach was beautiful.
• Chad took Kimmi and I on the mini bus to the local mall to buy groceries for a braai. Kimmi and I bought dessert for the braai as a thank you to them.
• Saw a couple guys get into a yelling verbal dispute that turned into throwing bricks at each other. I can’t imagine the bruises they got from getting hit. That basically sums up the “police” force there.
• We walked to a local farm that had camel riding and rode a camel! That is definitely one thing that I NEVER expected to be able to do during our homestay.
• A lot of their extended family attended the braai which made for such great company. Everyone was so fun and open to us that we truly felt like members of the family. The food was absolutely delicious.
• A member of their family training to become a hair dresser did our hair. I felt like it was prom all over again because I was so excited to be getting my hair all done up. She was excited to be able to practice on different hair types and I was so grateful for her taking the time to do my hair.
• I ate more ice cream and cake in that night than I have in the past couple weeks combined. As big as my stomach felt, I was still sooo happy.
• Sunday morning we attended church. The ceremony was like nothing I ever expected to be able to experience because the rituals were so different than anything I’ve been exposed to at home. To avoid giving off any wrong impressions to anyone who hasn’t been given the opportunity to share in their worship, I’m going to leave it at that. It truly was a remarkable ceremony – one, in which, I felt connected to every single person in that room (the church consisted mostly of family members).
• After church we hung out and had a pot luck lunch with everyone. The kids that we met at church were so amazing. We danced with them, heard their stories, and genuinely enjoyed their company. When it came time to leave, every single person who attended church with us that morning came over and gave us a hug and a thank you for coming. I literally cannot describe what immense feeling of love I have for them. I almost cried leaving such a devoted, affectionate, and welcoming community of people behind in that church. Some of the kids would let go of me because they didn’t want to see me leave. That broke my heart because to know that I had a positive impact on their lives but was about to leave them hurt me. I want to be able to attend that church every Sunday.
• As we packed up our things and headed to Chantel’s house for the departure, I was holding back the tears that I felt building. I could only hold out for so long because as soon as I began hugging my family goodbye, not one part of me wanted to leave. I knew I was going to see them in a week (as we’ll be going back every Friday before tutoring to visit) but a week felt like months from then and I wanted it to be in minutes. 

I don’t know how to put into words the gratitude and love I have for Sylvia, Russell, Chad, and Charleton. I went into this home stay not knowing what to expect and ended up leaving having found the greatest treasure I could have come across in Cape Town: a family. I was blessed enough to find a real home away from home – a second family that was willing and loving enough to accept and want Kimmi and I to be a part of their home with the utmost love they could have ever given me. This weekend is one that I will treasure for the rest of my life. I am going to do everything in my power to see them as many times as I can before I leave and never lose touch once I’m forced to get on a plane. This experience has not only changed my entire perception of townships. They are not these “terrible, forbidden places” that we’re taught to believe. I’m sure all of them have their pros and cons but we never get the chance to see or learn the pros… until now. Ocean View is a unified community of people who, despite being completely and unfairly underprivileged, who give absolutely everything they have because money doesn’t make happiness, people make happiness. Ocean View, you have my dearest thanks and love. I am more than honored to be a part of such an incredible community.