One could be forgiven for hardly noticing her she’s so softly spoken, never raising her voice above a whisper. But if you do glance her way and pay attention, you discover a sharp, funny, warm and breathtakingly beautiful young woman.
Her name is Nokulunga.
She is also known as Charity (‘double names’ are a relic of South African apartheid, a lazy alternative for those who won’t speak Zulu).
When we first met, Nokulunga spent her days drifting round The White House, her home since September 5th 2016.
She was twenty years old.
Six months prior, Nokulunga had been brutally assaulted in the culmination of years of abuse. She was beaten to the floor in a not unusual, prolonged and ferocious attack.
The assailant, her Uncle, then stamped on her while she lay on the floor.
He’d changed into his steel toe capped boots for the occasion.
She won’t ever fully regain the use of her arms.
As we slowly got to know one another, Nokulunga’s story unfolded, gently and quietly. Two years later, as I face the prospect of finding her again, I have finally finished writing her tale.
We continually try and make sense of human behaviour and if I could even slightly comprehend anyone capable of such cruelty to a child, then perhaps I would have completed this piece of writing sooner. Still wary of falling prey to the ‘passion for pondering on human misery,’ I think I was looking for reasons to tell her story. It seemed sensationalist, or trivial even, to document her woes without being able to fix anything. I wanted answers. Why was her situation allowed to continue? Why was nothing done once her abuse was exposed? When we tell a story, we hope it will stick in the minds of our listeners. We seek credibility and the power to affect change. It is our voice that gives us relevance.
‘We talk because we must be heard.’ (Jean-Louis Desalles)
That fact prompted me to listen back to my conversations with Nokulunga – discreetly recorded, with her consent, on my phone – and start piecing together all that she’d told me. Once I listened to her words I realised that the reason she’d asked me to tell her story was very simple. It was because she had never been heard.
I believe she spoke only in whispers because she didn’t feel worthy of a voice.
Just prior to my arrival in South Africa, Nokulunga had escaped her dire circumstances. She had been taken in by Russell and his wife Precious at The White House. I was introduced to her by one of the doctors whose charity work I was documenting. Without any real knowledge of Nokulunga’s situation, this doctor intuitively suggested she was in need of a friend. I was asked to provide companionship to this young lady, clearly isolated in a home of mentally ill, physically disabled and elderly residents.
One of the first questions I asked Nokulunga, might, with hindsight, seem rather odd. In the context of spoon feeding her it wasn’t.
Her response proved enlightening as it revealed immediately the extent to which she had been denied basic human needs.
I asked what was her favourite food.
She had no idea.
No one had ever asked her that so she asked me for some time to think it over.
Nokulunga grew up in what she calls a ‘four-room house’ – 9 people, all sharing beds.
‘Tin roof or no roof, depends on the wind’ she said.
Like many of the children I met, Nokulunga was very small for her age. This can sometimes be a sign of long term abuse and in part because many such children slept curled up on the floor. They had never slept in a bed.
Before her attack, Nokulunga had undergone major surgery. Both shoulders had been pinned following a severe epileptic seizure brought on when she was forced to work as a slave for her family. She was made to cook over a hot stove, her hands frequently held to the flames, sweating until she fainted. This ‘domestic training’ was also a period of starvation where she was denied food for several weeks.
In the final attack, the pins in her shoulders were snapped, rendering her condition inoperable.
Suffering from severe epilepsy – a condition grossly misunderstood in this particular environment – meant frequent hospital visits and provided convenient lies as to the cause of her injuries. Her condition also provided her abusers the bonus of increased pleasure in torturing her.
One cause frequently mentioned in literature is the influence of cultural beliefs on the diagnosis and proper treatment of childhood illnesses.. Many people with epilepsy in this community believe that their seizures are due to supernatural forces and consequently spend considerable personal time and financial resources seeking remedies from traditional healers. Specialist care for epilepsy is usually unavailable at the community level and patients frequently need to travel long distances for proper diagnosis and treatment. I can say with some pride, that this much, further on in our tale, I was able to rectify. As my mantra goes, still in place today, it’s ‘one child at a time.’
Early on in our conversations Nokulunga informed me that she had killed her mother. I accepted what she said without reacting and over the next few days, began to unpick her version of events. It emerged that her mother had HIV. While visiting Nokulunga in hospital, following a seizure, her mother had contracted pneumonia. She died shortly afterwards.
Nobody had bothered to tell Nokulunga she wasn’t responsible.
No one had corrected her belief that she had killed her.
So I told her. several times. and then I told her again.
The person Nokulunga called Dad, was a white Afrikaans man. She was a mixed-race child so no one questioned their relationship. Following her mother’s death in 2009, he was revealed not to be her birth father. Nokulunga was the result of her mother’s affair with a care worker in the Grandmother’s residential home. This revelation changed her life. She remained with her ‘Dad’ on and off until his death in 2013 after which she was forced to move in with her Uncle. Her mother’s youngest brother became Nokulunga’s primary abuser.
In South Africa, when a child’s parents die, it is customary for them to be sent to live with a married Uncle. It doesn’t matter if this Uncle and his wife have their own family, nor how poverty stricken they are. It is simply what happens. It’s the cultural norm. This means that 90% of the time, the additional child is made to work for their place in the family, often suffering chronic abuse and neglect.
Now the limitations of my own perspective were very clear to me in our conversations and I don’t seek to dismiss the cultural values of any community, particularly one where the cultural and economic divide between us is so vast. I always tried to keep an open mind but sometimes a reliance on cultural ‘norms’ often surpasses a reliance on our own reasoning. It becomes impossible to affect change, thus improvement and progress in turn become impossible. In cases such as Nokulunga’s the conventions and systems followed by the community were, in my view, a clear impediment to reason.
Michael Freeman, author of ‘Culture, Childhood and Rights’ writes that there are “basic goods of human flourishing,” which must be met whatever the conception of what constitutes a good life and regardless of what other values are upheld in any particular culture. The traditional African family expects childhood to be a time of obedience. For young girls in these rural communities, I’d go so far as to say there’s expectations of servitude and submission, but this does not justify a childhood of extreme deprivation and abuse.
So it was her Uncle, who drove Nokulunga, aged 15, to plunge a knife into her own stomach.
I have some experience of suicidal people. I’ve been privy to attempted and successful suicides. I do not claim to understand, all I could do then and when I encounter such tragedies now, is listen. The account Nokulunga gave of her own efforts to end her life brought upon me a darkness I’d never encountered. There is no need to lay bare details in this story. For such things, elaboration is not needed. Our brains and hearts are built to withstand the maximum amount of pain possible and still survive. This child was hanging on by a thread.
The most influential relative in Nokulunga’s life when I met her was her mother’s eldest brother. Family in south African culture includes the extended family. This extended family are extremely influential. Usually the uncles, aunties, cousins live in close proximity and provide economic and social support. The elders hold great sway over the younger generation and parenting practices are passed from one generation to the next, perpetuating both desirable and undesirable traits. When someone dies, the extended family lay claim to the property of the deceased. So Nokulunga’s extended family all moved into her mother’s house. Her uncle’s children joined in her abuse and she frequently had to run away to her mother’s elder brother to get food.
Social workers are grossly overworked in this area of The Valley of 1000 Hills. There were only two to deal with 250 children. I felt there were improvements to be made with time efficiency but at that stage I was in no position to pontificate. Social workers spend more time processing the social welfare grants with no follow up done to ensure the grant is being used for the benefit of that child, nor that the child is being properly looked after. There is little adherence to procedure (if there really even is one in place) when abuse is reported. There is a clash between traditional cultural family values and the rights of the child in today’s society. In theory the government legislation and the children’s act were moves towards prioritising the rights of the child. In reality local customs had not yet caught up. The law allows the state to remove children from their abusive home (as was the case in my time at the orphanages) but the alternative is often a government run orphanage where abuse from child to child was often more severe than adult to infant.
When Nokulunga turned 18, she qualified for state benefits in her own right. One would have hoped this might be a turning point. Not so. She was forced to the Post Office and her grant collection supervised. Then the Uncle would take it from her. Prior to this her grant was used to support the whole family. She was considered to be at the bottom of the hierarchy. Outside of the home, the money was wasted entirely. In the years before she was 18, when the money was supposedly divided out, Nokulunga would ask for her benefit and get yelled at in response. Such an argument was infact what prompted the final attack. She wanted to buy some food. The result I have already made clear. The neighbours came to rescue her and were shoved to the floor. Her friend’s mother came yelling in the street for the beating to stop. A stranger driving past was the person who finally stopped his car and dragged Nokulunga in. Without him she would be dead but she doesn’t even know his name.
Following the attack, social services asked Nokulunga if she wanted to arrest her Uncle. She feared the anger of the extended family. There had to be a whole community discussion on the appropriate punishment. There was never any police involvement, not even close. Nokulunga told me with complete sincerity that she asked only for her uncle to come to the hospital and apologise. She was upset that he had not. Instead, he ran away. She found that cowardly.
Disgustingly, during my time at The White House, the Uncle did come to visit Nokulunga. The result was devastating. I sat with her for days while she shook, ceased to eat and I watched her delicate mind completely disintegrate. She was made to climb into his car when he entered the premises. It was all to retrieve her clothes that until that point she had made do without. My reaction when I arrived after he’d left was one that wracked my whole body. As I write I still can’t withhold the emotions I felt. How anyone in any community in the world can think that such a vulnerable child could face their abuser alone and so directly is beyond me. So much of what I saw and still to this day feel, is outside of my emotional comprehension.
After his visit Nokulunga sat and talked to me about weetbox. For an hour. She made no sense at all. She wanted to do sticker books together and kept talking about the airplane sticker. The book was aimed at 5 year olds. The difference in her was startling. She became weak and quiet. Her memory was poor. She was asking what happened and she hadn’t eaten for two days. This was the same child I had been reading maths books with and trying to find a direction for her to return to education.
Then came the return of the seizures.
I arrived at The White House to find myself locked out that morning. No one could find the front door key. The residents are all physcially or mentally challenged but as I have written in the past, there will always be some truth in the ramblings of what some call a mad man. If you listen, there is a thread and if you pay attention you can find the reasoning. It worked.
Apparently, the way they cured Nokulunga’s seizures was to put the metal front door key in her mouth and it brings her round. One of the residents was explaining this and everyone thought it so preposterous they ignored him. I didn’t and thus eventually I found the key. Barbaric was the only word I could find to accompany it.
Shortly before arriving to live at The White House, Nokulunga was told she had a brother and a sister and as she put it: ‘a real set of parents.’ Having recently met relatives from my birth family for the first time at that stage, we were able to laugh – a lot – at the strange feeling you get finding people that look and behave just like you. The most exciting part of her discovery she said was to have ‘cousins with cars!’
She said she felt happy and scared.
Nokulunga had never given any thought to her future. She dreaded her continued existence. When I met her she was experiencing hope for the first time. It had come with the discovery of this birth family.
It sounds wrong doesn’t it, to think I shared any of my own experiences with someone who had suffered through every iteration of ‘hell.’ But life was different in South Africa. Several times I found myself in highly sensitive situations with children where it was imperative to share something of myself. It seemed to encourage trust and foster a mutual understanding. When a child decides to talk about what they’ve been through, to share details of their trauma (and believe me it’s rare), it would be highly inappropriate to react with horror. It could be devastating to them if you revealed your utter incomprehension at their circumstance. I suppose it’s not dissimilar to training as a counselor. If the shrink you were confiding in reacted open mouthed it wouldn’t really do you much good. That said, I’ve always been wary of trying to relate to a person when listening to their story. Likening your situation to theirs can often belittle what they’re saying, or worse still, you find yourself waiting to speak rather than actually listening.
In South Africa, the children seemed to seek a common ground. They wanted to share stories and incredibly, they displayed genuine empathy to whatever situation you described. I always say everyone’s hell is their own hell, but I do believe that all our stories are linked; different only in the telling and of course in the context in which they are being told.
Nokulunga told me the knowledge of her new family had made her smile for the first time. So here was a child that no one had cared for in years telling me with such pride and excitement of her biological brother’s reaction when social services tracked him down. It was her mother’s older brother who took it upon himself to trace her blood relatives. A social worker told Nokulunga’s brother that his sister was in hospital, that she had caught on fire during an epileptic seizure, the result of being forced to cook over an open stove. ‘Even in the snow he came to see me. Can you believe it? It was snowing and he walked all the way to the hospital – just to see me!’
Nokulunga was astounded that someone would make an effort – just for her.
Once our friendship was secure in her mind, Nokulunga asked me to accompany her to various hospital appointments. They were scheduled for the penultimate day of my trip. I fell sound asleep in the hospital waiting room. I didn’t know at the time I had a nasty flu and severe impetigo. When I awoke, I immediately moaned that I couldn’t swallow. My throat was swollen and my body ached all over. Nokulunga looked at me totally puzzled (I’d learned by then to read expressions fairly well. It’s hard as Zulu women are dead pan. For roller coaster, explode over life, car crash, emotional me, believe me, that was rather hard to get used to). Nokulunga was puzzled because she automatically assumed my complaint meant I was unhappy being there with her. She quickly started to fret. Of course I didn’t want to be sitting in a disgusting hospital, but right then, I wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else in the world. I had forgotten myself just in that tiny moment. I had put the focus on me and my feelings and not on her. It completely spun her out. I don’t mean that in a way that made her selfish but in a way typical of so many children there. She was worried she’d become a burden. She was terrified I wanted to leave and I was going to get bored of her. I had to retract my moaning so fast it was startling. So me being me, I started to laugh. I stood up and threatened to perform a re-run of ‘Mary had a little Lamb’ right there and then. Singing was the fastest way to diffuse a situation. It worked every time. Once she’d relaxed, she stoically informed me that I could now go back to sleep. ‘Miss Clairey sleeping’ she said, ‘is easier to manage. You’re quiet when you’re unconscious.’
I have NEVER witnessed anything like the events that took place in the hospital that day. The system was a complete shambles, rendering me speechless many times over. The first official person we encountered, removed the chart from the hand of Nokulunga’s carer. He placed it in mine and said ‘How can we help you today madam?’ He was mocking me; playing up to the assumed racism and belittling the Zulu care workers. I don’t actually believe it was a genuine display of racism. It was almost a self deprecating jibe. Oddly, that made it even worse.
After tolerating many such theatrics, we registered the patient and the long wait for a doctor began. We were eventually called up.
The doctor’s first question was addressed to the carers: ‘How many fits has Nokulunga had in the last month?’
No one spoke. I realised they didn’t know the answer. I did.
According to The World Health Organization (WHO), the prevalence of epilepsy is highest in low- and lower middle-income countries, which include over eighty percent of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of people with epilepsy are not receiving appropriate care. ‘In sub-Saharan Africa, shortages of trained health workers, limited diagnostic equipment, inadequate anti-epileptic drug supplies, cultural beliefs, and social stigma contribute to the large treatment gap for epilepsy. The primary provider is then responsible for managing the patient’s condition including: 1) tracking seizure frequency (using patient-maintained seizure calendar), 2) monitoring medication compliance and side effects, 3) ordering laboratory tests and drug levels, and 4) providing education and social support.’
The conversation that followed left me dumbfounded. There was not even a remote chance that the instructions above had been adhered to.
The doctor asked Nokulunga for confirmation on the reason for her injuries. She calmly confirmed they were the result of an automobile accident. I have no words nor punctuation that reflect this moment and I never will.
That’s how much damage had been inflicted on this child; the same trauma as being hit by a car. I stayed completely still. astounded. I feared if I moved a single hair I’d explode. If I released the sharp intake of breath I’d made when the doctor spoke, he would notice my surprise for sure, yet I was almost certain he knew it was bullshit. I believe it’s why he went on to read her notes aloud. To say it was ‘awkward’ is a huge understatement and a lame attempt to put into words the horror of the interaction. Nokulunga’s medical history was devastating. The doctor reeled off her injuries, a seemingly endless list of broken bones, torn muscles, severe flesh wounds, fractures, punctures, lacerations, bruises.
I said nothing.
I still don’t know if that was right but I didn’t want to confront and upset Nokulunga. I was in shock, completely lost in the absurdity of the situation. Here was proof that people knew this child was suffering. They had known for years. They documented it and they did nothing. I had no idea what to say.
The first medical test Nokulunga underwent (4 hours and 3 power cuts later) was taking her blood pressure. They used her leg – a first for me to see.
I recall suddenly being struck by a thought: Where were her friends? Where had they been all this time? Maybe she doesn’t have any? I found myself returning to thoughts of this individualistic society where children are left to fend for themselves. I realised this was where The White House, at least the one here in South Africa, was different. They looked after the people they took in. They sought out the kids roaming the neighbourhood and brought them into the fold. But the absence of friends stuck in my mind. I was fixated on learning how no one supported this child, no one noticed her absence from school, no one was there to help her. It baffled me.
I later learned that Nokulunga was moved around so often she was off the grid. She attended school but with long periods of absence due to ‘illness.’
In a precious moment of synchronicity, not five minutes later, someone walked past the row of chairs where we sat. Nokulunga called out and the woman doubled back. She gave Nokulunga a big hug. I smiled, assuming my questions had been answered. But when I asked Nokulunga the name of her ‘friend,’ she replied ‘that’s not a friend. She was in the bed next to me when I was hospitalised the last time. Her husband had beaten her so badly she nearly died.’ There was genuine sorrow in Nokulunga’s voice. She didn’t even mention what had happened to her.
The next realisation to hit me was that not a single doctor in the vicinity was South African. All the medical staff were foreigners. It was another harsh reminder of a lost generation. It was never as clear to me as in that moment, the importance of nurturing these first-generation AIDS survivors. It is imperative that the children I’d spent the past few months with, receive the support necessary to be agents of change. They are the ones who could study medicine. After all, this is a country that has the highest rates of public investment in education in the world, the government spends more on education than any other sector. The Graduate Entry Medical Program was created by the University of the Witwatersrand to address the shortage of well-educated and highly skilled doctors. Why then, has nothing changed?
One glaring example of stagnation that I have written and made a film on this same year, is that the girls in this part of South Africa still miss a week of school each month because the government won’t make sanitary products affordable nor provide provisions for their disposal. That means a huge imbalance in gender education. In addition to this, educational resources and infrastructure vary radically between locations. Children in rural areas are often attending schools with no running water nor electricity. The books are often there one day, gone the next, provided by well-meaning white folk. Many students are still illiterate in sixth grade. But these children are the ambassadors for hope. So why are none of us doing anything about it?
Once in Orthopedics, we’re told the doctors have ‘gone away.’
‘Eh???’ says I.
‘What does that mean?
Have they been banished? Have they flown away on a magic carpet?
Are they actually at lunch?’
By this point my outrage is visible and surprising even me. It got worse. The administrator sitting at her desk, looked my companions up and down and then completely out the blue says:
‘I was gonna ask you guys a question, but I can see you know absolutely nothing.’ with that, she walked out.
Perhaps she went to find the non-existent doctors.
By this point everyone is arguing. I’m being told I cause trouble then just fly away.
Strictly speaking that was true. I decided it was best if I reverted to silence and I tried but by then that was simply not possible.
In the end I couldn’t stay quiet and I stepped up. I impersonated a doctor.
I am not sure if that’s illegal or not but in that moment it was absolutely necessary. I waded in to the doctors area knowing with complete certainty that as a white female, people would just step aside and I could get the shit that needed doing done. I went on to make follow up appointments for Nokulunga and to get her the treatment she needed. I still to this day feel shit for participating in overt racism; for using the fact that I was white to metaphorically put on a lab coat, to jump the lines, to talk to doctors, to get the antibiotics and to sign her up for the long-term therapy plan needed. But by then I figured if I was going to just ‘fly away,’ I might as well do something right before leaving.
On the car ride home from the hospital I’m once more making Nokulunga laugh. I was so disappointed and angry inside but I’d learned to wear my resigned calmness with a little more conviction. ‘One child at a time’ I kept repeating. One tiny step, one small difference. one smile is enough. A prescription was a MASSIVE bonus.
As I glanced over at her I was sharply reminded of her fragility. She was holding my iPhone like it was made of glass. The driver was playing the most obscene church music at a ridiculous volume. It was offensive.
‘My Mum would’ve been 43 yesterday’
That’s the first time she had mentioned her mother in casual conversation.
I am suddenly aware that she no longer whispered and felt glad for small mercies. She meets my eyes and it feels like she’s staring right inside of me but her fragility had been replaced with what looked like anger.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
No one uttered another word all the way home.
The communities I seem to criticise here are still suffering the social fallout from AIDS and a dark shadow is cast over the futures of these first-generation survivors. They are still at the mercy of a sickness that severed human bonds and social ties, destroying relationships crucial to the development of children by removing the very members of society meant to provide them care. Help is needed to reverse the downward spiral of negative development for children growing up without the structure or protection of a family unit. The role of local government and community organisations is crucial to changing the situation but there is a vast gap between policy and practice in South Africa. These communities torn apart by AIDS do not yet have the capacity to cope with additional issues of neglect and abuse.
No one seemed to take responsibility for the children I came across in my time there (expect Russell, his staff at The White House and the incredible people running the Children’s Villages). The kids I got to know displayed a resilience uncharacteristic of childhood. They have determinedly moved beyond their enforced victim status. They are loudly vocalising the need for change, participating in efforts to alter the behaviours and cultural traits around them.
I did a lot of filming, at their request; audio only at times because as they put it: ‘that way we don’t have to do the ‘flies in yer eyes’ pose.’ Vocalising their stories is important to them. They don’t want to be pitied, they want to feel proud. Their stories end in achievement and success despite seriously bad odds. Acquiring language enables a child to voice their narrative of life. Story telling cultivates their awareness of the world. Eventually, this helps their efforts to make sense of reality.
Nokulunga is one of the bravest people I have ever met yet all the while I was with her I found her mild manner almost disturbing. It could at times have been mistaken for resignation. Vulnerability and the desperate need for acceptance can make a child emotionally repressed. A neglected child, denied love and care, is unable to properly develop. Learning and accomplishments in life are rooted in our need for attachment to one another. Children hone their intellectual, social, and cognitive skills through learning. ‘To reach their maximum potential they need a basis of physical, emotional, cognitive and social supports.’ Children the world over have similar needs and are dependent on adults for care. We abuse this role every single day.
I have written before that humans are social beings and as such, most of us get the chance to express our feelings openly, be it through childhood tantrums within a safe environment or through adult communication; talking to friends and family or even writing in the public domain like this. We can cathartically release our traumas, sharing our experiences and stories as we move through life, helping us make sense of past, present and future concerns. Relationships to one another are constructed around these shared stories. Stories affect what people see as achievable and they often illustrate opportunities worth pursuing or situations best avoided.
Nokulunga’s then, was the real Cinderella story – with an inevitable twist. There are always different types of narrative to a story as each individual’s experience varies. But stories are always based on something and I find that’s usually other stories. A situation might feel unique to you but more often than not, and somewhat tragically, telling the tale sees a recognisable plot and familiar character types emerge. Cinderella is a so-called Fairy tale, spanning generations and transcending cultural boundaries. Traditionally, Fairy tales are based on someone discovering something extraordinary and we are then able to witness them use that discovery to transform their world.
For Nokulunga, that part of the story never came.
Much of my time at The White House was spent reading traditional fairy tales to the residents. I was reminded how horrible those tales are; stories which are in fact horror stories. They are stories of unwanted children, of neglect and abandonment. Fairy tales weren’t actually created for children but for some reason they resonate with them. Perhaps they are useful in providing early warnings to serious issues we might face as we grow up. Or maybe they provide us early on with the necessary knowledge to fight social injustices and conflicts we later find in the real world. What they definitely do is communicate alternative realities. They also help affirm societal norms and define what we accept and are willing to listen to or be controlled by. The tales that span generations are the voices we choose to hear. Those who create the tales enable us to picture different lives, different societies, alternative behaviours.
In short, they offer us hope.
Nokulunga had never been read a story until we met. No one had ever told her a Fairy tale.
She wanted me to make her one.
When we tell a story, we are creating something. Creativity comes from a place outside our everyday consciousness. We use reference points, gathered through our interactions. We embellish, elaborate, exaggerate, telling our story, giving texture to our life. Language gives us power. It enables us to form relationships. Narratives allow us access to different worlds. The absence of knowledge provided by stories, the inability to articulate your own, ultimately prevents your ability to relate to the world. Without reference points, there’s no way to make sense of your reality. Our modes of behaviour are learned, ingrained in us and perpetuated with a series of narratives told over and over again.
A year after I left and my messages had been unanswered, I assumed for Nokulunga that ceasing contact with me was a method of self-preservation. If you’ve been let down your entire life, why would you trust in some stranger who popped by one day and decided to get to know you. I didn’t leave her side for three months but in the end, I was no different to anyone else in her life. I still left.
I feel like I took her story and gave nothing in return. But should I not have participated in it? Sometimes in South Africa the problems seemed insurmountable and the suffering too much. My feeling was shared by many volunteers I met; feeling that you can’t do anything as the issues are too complex and the problems too large. Is it better to not torture ourselves over things we cannot change? The question of why can’t you address problems ‘closer to home’ was frequently uttered upon my return and I have a whole lot of words to say on that matter but for now I will say that sometimes it is simply fear that blinds us to the times when we can make a difference. It’s fear of responsibility, of starting something you know you have to stick with forever. If that fear can be overcome then for a short while, just one person’s life is changed forever.
‘We are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.’ Tahereh Mafi
References
Jack Zipes ‘The Cultural Evolution of Storytelling and Fairy Tales’
Shonkoff & Philips 2000
Philip Cook & Lesley Du Toit
Tomasello ‘The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition’
Walter Burket ‘Structure & History in Greek Mythology and Ritual’
Michael Freeman ‘Culture, Childhood and Rights’
mewsers 