My week in Gugulethu has given me experiences that I will take with me in life for years to come. Even after I return to the United States, I will continue to grow and learn from all of the emotions, thoughts and feelings I encountered during this short but intensely jam packed week. From the hospice visits to the knowledge gain of apartheid/TRC to seeing people starving and living in shacks to meeting people struggling with HIV/AIDS, I seem to struggle to put my thoughts into words that make sense to others. How do I communicate my feelings when I do not even know what my feelings are myself? I do not know what I am feeling or why I am feeling certain ways; all I know is that my experience has changed me as a human being and has challenged my role in community. While my feelings seem to be currently unapparent, there were many observations made this week about the community of Gugulethu and its inhabitants.
Although there were many emotional moments throughout my stay in Gugulethu, there were some experiences that stood out to me as unique to the community. I so frequently noticed the strength of family bonds between blood and non-blood relatives. Every single night we had dinner with all of the other host families and their friends. It was a full house every night, full of laughter and conversation. We would all gather around food, talk and dance to house music. It felt warm; it felt surprisingly comfortable. People in Gugulethu do not seem to enjoy being alone. They are constantly surrounding each other whether that is at dinner, at church or at a local hang out spot.
I found it especially interesting that these bonds were so close considering the amount of deaths the average person experiences throughout his or her lifetime. For example, my host mother, Noxie, experienced the death of her mother in 1998, her father in 2001 and her 17-year-old son in 2003. No matter whom you talk to, they have lost someone in their life of great importance. Many children my age have no parents; many have lost children, aunts, uncles, brothers or sisters. Every single person I met no matter what age had a story about a death of a loved one. I think about my life, and how I have only lost two grandparents. I was not extremely close with them and therefore this has not dramatically affected my life. I have my parents, all my aunts and uncles, cousins and friends. I could never imagine losing some or all of these people at a very young age. Many teenagers in the community live with their grandparent because their parents have died. The generation equivalent to my parents has been dying due to HIV/AIDS and left behind is their children.
I am grateful to have my parents, to guide me through my life experiences and help me figure it all out along the way. When you have such a large generation gap between grandchild and grandparent, it seems it would be difficult to discuss everyday issues such as relationships, sex or normal teenage struggles. This is a large issue concerning HIV/AIDS because these children cannot openly discuss the safe ways to go about having sex in their lives, leading to higher infection rates and higher teen pregnancies. Not even that, but the sadness that I would experience in my life without my parents would be unbearable. Who would walk me down the aisle during my wedding to support my decision of a life partner? Who would be there to guide me in raising a child or making important life decisions? I have realized through this trip that although I am a very independent individual, I still need guidance from the important people in my life such as family and friends. Losing them to a deadly disease such as AIDS would be difficult and I give much recognition to those in the community who had to go through that and come out with such a positive attitude and outlook on life.
The experiences that are a stab to my heart seem to be the hospice visits, home visits and seeing the living conditions of those in the community (see previous blogs). The problem, maybe not problem but struggle, that I am having is that these experiences have hit me the hardest but I do not know what to necessarily think, feel or interpret from them. Of course I have become exponentially more grateful and positive in my own life but I know there is something deeper there; I know this because I can feel it. I just do not quite know what it is yet. I don’t know if it connects to leadership, the way I go about my life or my viewpoint of the world. It could be one, it could be all three or it could be the infamous: none of the above. I have confidence I will figure it out in time but until then I see it as a struggle in the back of my mind.
So how do I sort through all of these emotions? How do I make sense of everything I have experienced? It appears to me that it is too soon to completely do just that. I have breached below the surface of these emotions but these feelings are stuck much deeper. As time continues and my life progresses, I think these emotions will have a way of unraveling themselves to teach me more about the world and my life. It doesn’t all have to connect right now. That is the beauty of this trip; I will continue to learn from it for years to come. I will only be here for three weeks but it is a trip that will last much longer than that. I look forward to what I am about to learn in the future.
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