"In seeking happiness for others, you find it for yourself." - Unknown

I've just completed my first week back at Amasango, and I've begun to realize that, as that old saying goes, the little things...aren't so little.

I was cautiously optimstic about what the new year might hold at Amasango. By the end of last term, all of the fun I used to have at Amasango--and all the joy that came from working at the school--had vanished. All I saw were desperate, violent, miserable kids. I, myself, became miserable, not because all the kids around me were, but because I focused too heavily on the failures, and not enough on the small successes.

The first stabbing of the year occurred Thursday; just a couple days into the new year, but, I've learned if one dwells on the negatives too long, one quickly becomes disheartened and loses sight of all the good that's going on. So, I've discovered I must acknowledge it, deal with it, and then move on. So, in that spirit, yes, there was a nasty fight Thursday. The weapons came out, the guards rushed in and carried away two angry, agitated struggling boys into the passage. But there was more than just a nasty fight this week. This week also saw:

- nearly a dozen guys and girls trading in their Amasango uniforms for a pair of slacks or a skirt, a sweater, a tie and heading off to Nyaluza and Nombulelo High Schools. When everything around them told them they couldn't make it, they ignored everything around them. They're in high school. Not prison. They're getting their education. And I couldn't be prouder, or happier, to know them.

- a 7th grade student--red-faced and clearly on the edge--who's been very violent in the past, running up to one of the school's security guards and pleading with the guard for help. This boy said another student wanted to fight with him but that he wanted to keep the peace. The guard and the student talked. A fight, potentially a violent fight, was avoided. A small success, but a success.

- Zukisani Lamani, a 22-year-old 12th grader fighting through the bureaucracy of the Department of Education. Lamani had been fighting hard to be transferred to a better, higher performing, township school. He wrote letters, he met with the education deparment, he followed up with the education department, he wished, more than anything, to be transferred to Nombulelo High. On Wednesday, his wish was granted.

- a boy who's been very difficult, very full of drugs, very untrustworthy in the past became a boy who seems to have turned over a new leaf. He came to school every day this week with a clean face and clear eyes, rather than puffy eyes and a face riddled by drug abuse. He turned in a fellow student who was stealing books from Amasango. In the past, he would have been an accomplice. Now he's an informer.

The people who come to Amasango amaze me at their uncanny ability to come to school and smile; to be happy, to not let all the bad bring their spirits down. They see the fighting, the stabbings, and its aftermath of blood and tears, but they have learned, perhaps, the only way to survive in these conditions is to focus on the good.

I'm learning too.

Here's to an amazing first week at Amasango, Grahamstown, South Africa.