Developing a Broader Vision

by April Sizemore-Barber

When I went to South Africa the summer before my junior year in high school, I wasn't looking for anything beyond an average school trip. I had a certain expectation of what it was going to be. There would be poverty, obviously. It would be life-changing, certainly. But, all in all, I thought it would just be an elongated chorus trip, like when the chorus and jazz band had gone to Disney World a few years ago.

But it was apparent when we left the airport that we were in a whole different world. On one side of the road there were beautiful houses, like any that I had seen in Potomac, Maryland. On the other side, however, shanties made of wood, old garbage bags, and, at best, old tin, sat crowded together. It was a township. Shivering blacks in light tee-shirts hovered around fires in garbage cans, straining for heat, while being ignored by the whites in warm down jackets walking down a boulevard less than 100 feet away. This image, my first of the country, stayed with me for the rest of our trip. It literally symbolized the great divide between the lives of the people of South Africa.

On one hand there were the extremely rich white families that hosted us at the Bishop School, the posh boys' school where we spent our first few days in Capetown. The men of the Bishop school escorted us to parties, restaurants like the Hard Rock Cafe (where we dined our first night with our host families), and malls such as the Victoria and Albert mall where we saw a lot of trendily dressed teenagers shopping at places like J. Crew. On the surface, these teenagers seemed exactly like us.

But when I finally had a real conversation with Claire, the girlfriend of our host, at a trendy Capetown coffee shop (not unlike Starbucks), she admitted that though the ending of Apartheid had been "obviously a good thing, a wonderful thing, it's been sort of a nuisance. Nothing has really changed for us." I stared at her incredulously, unable to believe that she couldn't see its importance because it didn't affect her. It was sort of a shock that an intelligent woman like Claire could honestly say that she didn't know anyone who didn't have a pool.

After seeing how incredibly rich (and how horribly ignorant) people can be, we went to perform at the largest black township in Capetown, the one that I had seen that first day. Entering the town, I began to feel outrageously guilty. Here we were, these white kids from America, coming to perform for people who lived in poverty that we couldn't even begin to imagine. What could we possibly give them?

Their reception blew me away. 50 kids, dressed in holey, torn sweaters, hardly protection from the brusque winter wind, stood in a line to sing for us. The room was silent, until the leader waved her arms and one note pierced through the air, cutting it like a warm knife through butter. The singer began to sway, the other children opened their mouths, and suddenly this overwhelmingly beautiful noise washed over us. You've never lived until you've heard South African music. The closest I can come to describe it is being harmonious fire.

They sang joy, and then they started dancing it---two steps to each side, stomp, and clap, in a line perfectly fitted together. These people weren't miserable because they were poor---they were happy to just be, to worship God. This was true wherever we went---no matter what they've been through, homeless or working, South Africans can sing in perfect harmony. Even though our trained performances seemed dim after that, they cheered for us loudly, jumping up to dance with us. When we had performed at the Bishop School, the students had seemed bored and embarrassed when we tried to get them to dance with us.

Later in the trip, we stayed with a white couple who had given up all of the belongings and privileges that come from being white in South Africa to found health clinics in the black village of Winterveldt. When we visited Stephen and Mary-Ann Carpenter, we realized that there would be no pampering for us here. We would live like those at their troubled youth center, and we would like it.

As I ate my dinner of chicken feet by candlelight (due to a broken generator), the discomforts all became small as I looked at the happy faces on both Stephen and Mary-Ann when the children whom they had perhaps saved from a life on the streets sang a song for us. It takes amazing strength to cast off an entire society's expectation of you and to do what you know is right. If there are any commissions for modern day Saints, Stephen and Mary-Ann have my support, as well as that of, I suspect, the thousands whom they helped find a better life.

South Africa is such a beautiful country, with its mountains, and wild lands, and seacoasts. But in a lot of ways, it's a country with ugly intolerances that is still adjusting to the new rules while dealing with the old race lines. It's been such a powerful experience that now, almost a year later, I still have vivid memories of the people we met, places we saw, and way it changed my life.

The strongest memory that I have is of the hope that black South Africans have for their future. There was no bitterness about past wrongs; there was no hatred. Prisoners from Robben Island now work there as guides, alongside the same guards that used to torture them. Truth and Reconciliation are not empty phrases there. So in the end, it was extremely life-changing. We gave them our music, but they gave us a chance to look into the human spirit and see how resilient people can be. And I honestly feel blessed to have been a witness to it.

April wrote another article for Faith@Work in 1999: The Day in The Life of The Archangel.

Photo of children by Margie Nea.