I’ve had a lot of “I don’t knows” lately.
Here are just a few of them:
I don’t know how to respond to the poverty of the children I’ve seen at the care points.
I don’t know how I can go to the grocery store up the hill every other day for luxury items like snacks, chocolate, and anything and everything….and see the same children just a mile down the road eat the same mealevery single day – sour porridge for breakfast, & pop and beans for lunch (fyi: pop/sadza/ugali is this white, pasty, flavorless, play-dough-like substance made from corn meal).
I don’t know how to respond when the kids treat an orange like a piece of gold.
I don’t know what to do when kids at the care point will steal or physically fight each other if one doesn’t share the snack they brought from home.
I don’t know how to respond when the Swazi teacher tells me to give one particular boy an extra scoop of porridge because he’s starving.
I don’t know what to do when we’re constantly told not to give food, money, or objects to the people of the country, in order not to encourage the mindset that they can get anything from white people or Christians – especially when it’s little kids asking for those things.
I don’t know how to respond to the deaf child in my class who will probably never receive any sort of assistance in school or life.
I don’t know how to feel when I’m the one playing with and holding the children sponsored by families in the states.
And perhaps the biggest thing I’ve always wondered about, even prior to the race, is this:
I don’t know why they had to be born into these circumstances.
Why not me?
I know I’ll never know the answer to that question, and perhaps I wouldn’t even want to know if there were one.
You see, I didn’t have to experience the Africa I’ve read about in other WR blogs.
We’ve had nice accommodations the last 2 months, as well as the convenience of grocery stores nearby with anything we could want.
We didn’t have to live in huts, eat ugali for every meal, shower once a week, and preach for 2 hours every night.
I wasn’t challenged in those ways.
What I was challenged by, however, was seeing impoverished people every day and then having them on my mind as I go back to my nice house and eat a nice meal.
I know I can’t blame myself for being born into my circumstances, and I also recognize that some of this guilt may be from the enemy.
I also don’t think the solution is for me to starve myself and sell all my belongings.
What I do know is that I can’t continue to live with the same mindset I’ve had for the last 22 years.
What this change of mind and habit looks like, though, is what I’m still figuring out.
So, these are just a few of the “I don’t knows” I’ve had on my mind this last month. I wish I could end the blog with more closure than this, but I guess some things are better left open-ended as food for thought.
