“Our lives are made in these small hours, these little wonders, these twists and turns of fate.”

I’ve been thinking for more than a week what I should put in this last entry; how to sum up three trips to a place that has become a kind of second home. To try and gather my thoughts, I looked at what I wrote during my final days of trip one and two—and I discovered something.

I’m in a very different place now.

The first two trips I felt terrible about leaving, about saying good bye to the kids, about leaving a place where I felt I was doing a bit of good.

Fast forward two years and I’m ready to move on. I don’t hate it here and I’m not leaving defeated—but I just know I’m ready, ready to leave, ready to try something new, ready to move on. I won’t ever forget the kids, the seemingly small moments at Eluxolweni, at Amasango or on the dirt roads of the township that have had such an impact on my life. I’ll never forget, and perhaps someday life will lead me back to South Africa—but it won’t for a long while.

I’m ready tomorrow, for the first time of these three trips, to board flight 6261 with non-stop service from O.R. Tambo Johannesburg International to Washington Dulles with no regrets, knowing I’ve done the best I can, knowing that some of the kids I’ve become so close to over the past two years will make it—they will. I also know some won’t.

I’ve never really known—or accepted—that some kids you’ve poured time and energy and your heart into won’t make it. It’s a painful truth; but it is the truth. You can’t save everyone from years of neglect or abuse or even from themselves. You can try—and should, but you won’t win them all.

I feel that is one of the most important realizations of trip number three: some of these kids will somehow find the strength to break the cycle of despair and of hopelessness that’s gripped generations in their families; some of the kids somehow manage to keep that fire within themselves alight; they can see beyond the poverty; they know they’re not guaranteed a future, but they won’t stop fighting for one.

Others will drop out; some (if they haven’t already) will become alcoholics and drug addicts. Some (if they haven’t already) will become fathers and neglect their children the same way they have been neglected. Some will never make it out of the tin shack and some will forever be stuck. Some will forever be victims of circumstance and of themselves.

I’ve said farewell to the students of Amasango and will be going this afternoon to say good bye to the guys at Eluxolweni. I wish them the best of luck. I hope they figure out how to piece together their lives. I hope they don’t forget the times we’ve spent together over these past two years. I know I never will.

But for the first time in two years, I’m ready to move on. I’ll never forget—but I’m ready to leave.

"As we go on, we remember, all the times we had together."

"Night on the town with Nyaluza students"
Outside Spur restaurant
Grahamstown, South Africa


"All aboard"
Shamwari Game Reserve
Near Port Elizabeth, South Africa


"What up"
Mendilakhe and I in Shamwari
Near Port Elizabeth, South Africa


"Road block"
Shamwari Game Reserve
Near Port Elizabeth, South Africa


"Farewell grade 8B"
My students and I
Nyaluza High School, Fingo Village, Grahamstown East, South Africa


"Goodbye 9A"
My students and I
Nyaluza High School, Fingo Village, Grahamstown East, South Africa


"Not quite a good-bye card, but good enough"
Our classroom's chalkboard
Nyaluza High School, Fingo Village, Grahamstown East, South Africa

"People are fundamentally good. We are made to reach for the stars."

My head was down, scanning the sand for any colorful shells or smooth glass that the tide had tossed onto Port Alfred’s windswept beach—about an hour from Grahamstown.

I saw a boy leaning against the wooden barricade that separates the beach from the parking lot. The boy, about 5 meters away was staring intently in my direction, seemingly watching my every move. A bit intimidated, a bit confused, a bit curious, I walked closer.

“Jason!” said the boy.

It was Lindispho: an Amasango student/Eluxolweni shelter boy who left Grahamstown in December for Christmas—and never returned.

I’ve often wondered what happened to him. I’ve always hoped he was okay, but I’ve never been really all that certain he was okay. Here he was, more than three months later, looking good. Sure, his clothes were worn and dirty, but he didn’t look addled by drugs, and he wasn’t drunk.

Lindispho would approach me each day at Amasango and, with an enormous grin, say “I hate you.” He’d pause for a bit of dramatic suspense—even though I knew what was coming—and then finish: “Because you’re white!”

The thing is, the smile never left his face and, by the time he’d get to the word “white” he was laughing hysterically, and, reaching into hug me, continue with “What’s up my white papa?”

It began that way every morning. I’ve really missed his inappropriate, yet well-meaning, remarks.

But here we were now, not having seen him for three months, not having known what had happened to him, not knowing if he’d still be the same, I walked a bit closer and said “I hate you” holding out my hand to shake his.

A grin formed across his face, then a laugh, then “because you’re white.” He pushed my hand out of the way and reached in to hug me.

I invited Lindispho over to where my three friends were. Lindispho and I chatted for a while about nothing in particular.

Then I asked the question I really wanted to, but didn’t want to ask initially. “You coming back to Grahamstown?”

He put his head down, “After Easter.” I don’t like it when they put their head down. Lindispho, most of the kids actually, can’t lie looking you in the eye. Some of the more hardened ones can. Some of the more hardened ones could probably stick a knife through you , looking at you double over and feel nothing. But many of the kids who haven’t lost everything still can’t look you in the eye and lie. “After Easter” means nothing if it isn’t said with a bit of eye contact. Lindispho’s wasn’t.

I asked him if he’d be willing to show my Swedish friends around the township. I told him I needed his help. These Swedish students were leaving Tuesday and had never seen the township and I thought he’d be perfect. None of that was a lie. He agreed to be our tour guide and we loaded into the car. We drove into the township passed signs like these announcing the expansion of low-income housing.

You know you’re in the township the moment the pavement ends. Crater-size potholes replace the tar; people dressed in third and fourth hand clothes walking everywhere, emaciated dogs wandering the streets shared by goats and cattle. We passed the AIDS clinic, the school, some homes and got to his street.

He looked at me and said “You want to see my house?”

“Do you want to show us your house or would you rather just show us around the township?” I replied.

“I’ll show you my house,” he said.

We parked on the side of a dirt road that has seen better days. I put the gear lock on the shifter, rolled up the windows, told the girls to keep their purses in the trunk, locked the doors, set the alarm.

Lindispho looked on “When you going to realize it’s fine here Jason?” he said with a laugh.

“When you going to come back to school,” I answered.

“I told you, after Easter,” he said, again looking away as he said it.

We walked down a grass path, passed a couple other shacks and arrived to a one-room building that had been pieced together with random pieces of metal.

“Come in,” he said.

The dirt floor was met by cardboard boxes that had been sliced open and put against the walls to cover the holes. The roof had dozens of small holes where the metal had been slit open, Magazines dotted the floor: Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, African Leader. Magazines, I’d discover, he found at the garbage dump. It was Hell-on-Earth. And it was this 15-year-olds home.

We spent the next twenty minutes in the township, before setting off to lunch. I invited Lindisipho to come with us, never thinking for a minute he’d turn down a free meal. He didn’t.

We arrived. We talked. I told him how he needed to come back to school. He said okay. We left. We went back to the township.

I said, “When you coming back to school?”

“After Easter, I promise Jason,” he said looking me straight in the eye.

I looked in the rear view mirror as he walked back into the township, the dust gathering at his feet as he made his way down the dirt road.

I felt defeated. I knew he was going back to that one-room shack from hell.

I felt vindicated. He had looked me in the eye. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe he will.

"Sometimes you need to lose yourself to discover who you are."

He came to the fence with a half-smile on his face. His left hand gripping an overstuffed suitcase that looked like it might split in half and spill whatever clothes he's managed to get his hands on.

*Masiduimse is leaving Grahamstown. I don't know why. I'm not sure he really knows why either.

He graduated from Amasango last year and recently began at Nombulelo Secondary School in the township. Since December, he's left Eluxolweni Shelter, dropped out of school and has spent his days in the township attempting to drink away his misery.

The once proud, clean, put together Masiduimse has, of late, become just another dirty, dodgy-looking character who's presence makes you grip your bag just a little tighter. He's begun this downward spiral and I hope, for his sake, once he arrives in Port Elizabeth, he hits rock bottom so he can start rebuilding his life.

He's begun his path of self-destruction, but until he bottoms out, his days will be spent in some shack with the bottle.

This is a guy who came with me last year to wish me good bye in Port Elizabeth; a guy who walked or hitch-hiked back to Grahamstown; a guy who's mother was murdered by a drunk boyfriend; a guy, who, despite being embarrassed by his background, pressed on; a guy who inspired me; and a guy, who, at the moment, has decided to give up the fight.

It could be a temporary thing. I know that. But, the heart-wrenching thing is that by the time this lost 18-year-old has discovered his mistakes, it could be too late. I'm convinced that while there is always hope, a 25-year-old with three kids addicted to alcohol and drugs doesn't hold much hope for the future. Maybe Masiduimse won't be that person. But maybe he will.

I said good-bye to him. He reached his hand through the broken piece of the fence, shook my hand, smiled, swore at me (as he always does), then turned and walked away.

I hope he loses himself soon--and discovers that he can make it.

* not his real name

"...The youth of the nation." - P.O.D.

Enjoy the article from today's Buffalo News.

The article has to end, but the conversation is just beginning.

Read, react, respond by posting a comment on this blog, or by logging onto AmasangoAmerica to read more--and interact with--the students of Nathaniel Nyaluza Secondary, Fingo Village Location, Grahamstown East, South Africa.

"Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out.That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself."

I pass by the train station every morning. The old brick building is only a couple hundred meters from Amasango's main gate. While it isn't decrepit like many of its neighbors, it has certainly seen better days. Usually, the station is quiet.

There are a couple ladies always selling fruit at its front door. I see them every morning. I also see dozens of people walk past it, pouring out of the township into town to begin the day's work. There's always movement around the station, but there's rarely anybody in it. Today was different though.

The activity and the energy that surrounds the station each morning poured over the invisible demarcation and the station itself was unusually alive. I could see through the open door and the windows a train parked on the tracks. The train was more than a dozen cars long and people were scurrying around from car to car--a most unusual site in Grahamstown at 7:30 a.m. The train curved half-way up along the track stretching toward the township.

This isn't just an ordinary train though. It's a movable medical center, it's treatment-on-the-tracks, it's doctors on wheels--call it what you may, it's some of the only medical treatment the poorest members of South African society get. In a country where millions of people still suffer from extreme poverty and don't have the means to get to, or pay for, the hospital; the hospital is brought to them.

It arrives, stays a day or two, helps potentially thousands of people and moves onto the next town.

It's certainly not ideal, but for the people who receive medical treatment on that train, the whistle announcing its arrival to Grahamstown is as good as it gets.

All aboard.

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."

"Bird's eye view"
10th grade pupils watch drama from the third floor of Nyaluza.
Fingo Village Location, Grahamstown East, South Africa.



"Friends"
Nyaluza pupil Sanele (my favorite student) and I outside Nyaluza Secondary.
Fingo Village Location, Grahamstown East, South Africa.



"Unarmed response-but just as effective"
My friends/students/security team with my laptop walking across town.
Near Eluxolweni Shelter, Grahamstown, South Africa.



"Drama"
Nyaluza learners perform for the school's culture day.
Fingo Village Location, Grahamstown East, South Africa.