Reflection: Mother Africa Mending

It has been an entire year and more since I visited South Africa. In the last week or so, I have been reading up on the current Marist group's experience in South Africa. Just today I read an entry they posted about their first day of community service. I was reading on some updates about the location I served at, a shelter for battered women and children named the Dusk to Dawn Haven. It really pulled my heart strings in the wrong direction reading about how little has changed over the course of a year.

When my group and I first encountered the shelter last May, we found a house in disrepair, and a yard that resembled a garbage dump at best. The shelter was horribly overcrowded. There was about 21 children there in total, about 15 women as well. I only know these statistics because Rob and I had reviewed our video footage extensively in the creation of our documentary (which is completed and will be distributed in the next 6 months).



What we encountered...

Our primary focus ended up being on the yard as it was littered with trash, glass, and assorted rotting piles. We tried our best to clean up the place as best we could but it seemed like every time we solved a problem another larger problem would come about. We cleared out a structure as well, but there was so much unused materials, bed linens, cloth, and other house hold items, it was hard for us to believe they were ever short handed of anything.


What we were able to accomplish...

This is simply a rash retelling of my service and you can read more about the first day here and the last day of our service here.


The whole thought behind this entry is that I assumed within in a year, things could change for the better. What I have learned through hours of documentary production, essay writing, reflecting, and talking is that it is not easy for people in the developing world to change the situation they are in, and it occasionally takes the intervention of a positive helping hand to give them the push needed to foster change.

A part of my heart will always reside at the haven because so much of my emotions - empathy, love, hope - is still residing there. I will never forget what I experienced and I felt like I left the shelter in a better place than I found it, and I can confidently say that. I hope that the group working there now feels the same way when their service is over.

My heart and thoughts are with the children there and the praxivists working to better their situation.

Peace and Love in the spirit of Praxis,
-mike

Article: Shunning His Holiness

Another article written for Marist College's weekly The Circle. It should be out on campus March 26.

It saddens my heart to hear that the South African government will not allow the Dalai Lama to participate in a peace conference in Johannesburg. In a statement, the South African government wrote that they did not want to stress their relations with China, an important economic ally to the country. Although it is difficult for the country to rectify its role as a leader of the developing world, I would expect better from their government.

Although South Africa has only been a democracy for 15 years, they have demonstrated great pragmatism in the field of human rights and peace. As the spiritual leader of millions of conflict ridden people and one of the most respected peace advocates in the world, the Dalai Lama is the symbol of harmony and hope in the world; barring him from participating in the conference would be a distinct step back for South Africa.

This decision on the part of the South African government is being described by some solely as a “business” decision. This is quite clear as the South African government is engaging in a very poor attempt to please the Chinese government, one of South Africa’s largest trading allies. As a nation that has overcome so much oppression and segregation, South Africa should understand the importance of peace.

Many Nobel peace laureates who were planning on attending the conference are now planning on not attending because of the absence of his holiness. Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel peace laureate, is one of the absentees who was quoted in saying that excluding the Dalai Lama is “disgraceful.”

One issue that is clearly not being addressed here is that peace is not something that a government can deny on the basis of business. Although the Dalai Lama advocates for a free Tibet, it doesn’t mean that he is going to slander the Chinese government during the conference nor does it mean that South Africa’s relationship with China is going to be jeopardized.

More than anything else in the world now, peace is something that we should all be striving for. Through all the turmoil of the global society, with the interconnectedness of the world becoming ever clearer, peace is becoming more of a necessity. Excluding his holiness from the proceedings at this conference is not going to achieve any additional positive outcome for the world.

We will only achieve peace if we all strive for its attainment, people and government.

-mike