The Difference - Daniel Halverson

South Africa is a different country. The government fancies itself to be first world, although in many ways it is just as third world as Mexico. There are mile (sorry, kilometer) long slums around every major city, and just like in India the government has the right to move or deport them anywhere it wants anywhere in the nation. Trash is everywhere. Many people don't really care wheather or not they just dump trash on the sidewalk. They don't really see a problem with it - after all, it's just one more bit of trash.
We've been helping to create a level soccer/rugby field here for the past few days, and it's coming along beautifully. Two days ago when we were packing up to leave for the night, I saw a young boy pushing a small toy truck along the ground. I didn't really notice anything odd about it until I realized that the two rear wheels were worn halfway down til they were semi-circles. So, that got me thinking: In America, if a kid's toy was worn down like that, it would simply be thrown away into a landfill where some green politician would attempt to pass an expensive bill to make toys more bio-degradable. Here, no one cares. I have only once seen a pair of parents watching thier kid(s) play with us. The parents simply tell thier kids to be back by dusk and assume that they will do anything else needed to survive here. Meanwhile the parents walk miles to get a single bundle of firewood or a peice of scrap metal that can be melted down for selling.
As I sit here typing this blog, I am filled with an oftentimes overwhelming sense of shame and guilt that people are actually allowed to live like this. Our team comes in here like paladins of light, crusading into here for the good of the poor South African. It takes courage to see the slums and shantytowns and not to cringe with horror at the living conditions of these people. One thing I do not want to do is to come back home and not be changed. It's often so easy after these trips to go back and realign myself with my old lifestyle and to forget the many things that happened while I was down here. The difference between changing things and being changed by things is to realize the difference. The numb-er you get to the rest of the world, the more the rest of the world is your world.

Daniel Halverson