Back home

Back Home- Coming home has been a joy because I learned so much during my time in South Africa and I have truly enjoyed sharing my experiences with family and friends. My recovery from the jet-lag was quick and painless and this only further reinforces my feelings of strength and renewed energy to get back into my routine. As I have interacted with my friends and family, it has been interesting to put my learnings into practice especially relating to white male privilege and the things I’ve learned about expressing emotions as a male. So far, I feel very comfortable giving up space for others to live into. I have had many opportunities to take an active listening role since returning to my job coaching climbing. I’ve enjoyed seeing my coworkers thrive with this space. I am continuing to work on expressing emotions as a male in a safe way by naming my emotions instead of defaulting to anger, as it is socially acceptable for men to be angry most of the time. I find it interesting and freeing to be able to name something like frustration instead of not knowing what I’m feeling and expressing anger.

White male privledge

White Male Privilege- Going into this trip, I wanted to learn about my white male privilege (WMP) on a deeper level. This is mostly due to the lack of opportunity to discuss my questions further with my peers given the nature of the online program to create a bit of isolation. South Africa is a country where WMP awareness is heightened because of the historical context. Some key learnings I gathered on this course through great feedback from my professor and others in the course centered on how I want to allow others to take up space in society. As a white male, it is very easy and often expected, that I take up the conversational real estate. Recognizing this and allowing others to have an opportunity to take up this space by taking a listening role, rather than talking breaks down the power dynamic of WMP. I also struggled to recognize that in many situations I am a representative of white males so I need to intentionally be aware of the damage that others have experienced from white males. This awareness changes how I can choose to show up in situations and can bring healing to everyone.

Job Shadowing

I was more than delighted to learn that I would be able to shadow at the homeless shelter called The Haven. My interest grew once I figured out that the shelter is a high barrier shelter rather than where I am interning in Colorado Springs because it is a fundamental difference in how the clients receive services. This experience has given me a broader view of interventions for people experiencing homelessness. In Cape Town, a person seeking shelter at The Haven is given 3 days to commit to a personal development plan (PDP) that is progressed by meeting with a social worker and following what is outlined by the PDP. At the end of 3 months, if the client has not made progress towards the goal, or has not worked well with the social worker, then they are terminated from that particular shelter. If they have made good progress and need more time, then they are allowed 3 more months. Keep in mind that there are about 23 different Havens in Cape Town so if a client wishes to seek shelter, then they must go through the whole process again at a different location. A client can return to the same location but only after a 3 month waiting period. According to an estimate from one of the social workers I talked to, about 30% of clients return to the shelter after completing a 3 or 6 month PDP. Additionally, clients must pay a small amount of money each night to stay at the shelter. This is usually covered by money given to a person experiencing homelessness by the government. This is a specific allowance for homelessness. If the person, for whatever reason does not have money, the shelter allows the person to work at least one hour a day at the shelter to pay for the bed. Interestingly, each shelter attracts a certain type of client so I was able to visit a shelter that had more clients needing mental health services and another that has more clients with substance abuse concerns. These two shelters offered specialized programs to match the clients. In the Cape Town homeless community, the different shelters have a reputation for helping better with certain issues and are referred to by those in the community, thus specific shelters attracting specific needs of the clients. From what I saw, in Cape Town there is a beautifully complex web of lots of smaller moving parts that covers for the needs of the whole town. This is different from the shelter I intern for which tries to be a big shelter that does everything. Given the comparison of these two types of shelters, it really makes sense for Springs Rescue Mission to be low barrier because there would be no safety net for many people if the admission into the shelter was more restrictive. Given the life-threatening nature of the cold weather in Colorado, it also makes sense to be a low barrier shelter. Some things that left an impact on me are how much work the social worker at the shelter has on a daily basis. I was impressed by the level of detail that the client files included and appreciated that level of work once learning that the social worker that I observed also put in 20 hours of group therapy sessions a week. I also really like the required participation in the PDP and meetings with the Social Worker because it really gets the client thinking about getting out of homelessness instead of just relying on the free handout. Although this would not work at Springs Rescue Mission for a myriad of reasons, I am left wondering if there is more we can do to encourage case management. The last big learning was how well the South African social workers empowered their clients by being direct with areas of improvement, especially during the assessment and PDP. For me as an intern, and very new to doing assessments, I was challenged to say what needs to be said to a client rather than being afraid to offend or overwhelm the client. The key here is that when I am direct, it should be in a way that is empowering not demeaning or dismissive of their story

The wilderness experience

The Wilderness Experience- This is the part of the trip that I looked forward to the most because it is something I never thought I would ever do in Africa. I fully expected myself to travel to Africa at some point in my life as a tourist but never as someone sleeping under the stars in the mountains. This was mostly due to my misconceptions for what the mountains would look like. I expected a straight forward, flat, plateau environment. The reality was a dynamic boulder field that was certainly anything but flat. This perception is indicative of my personal growth in the wilderness as well. I expected to reach a predictable amount of growth due to my strong connection to nature going into this experience. Fortunately, Educo Africa does some small things to subtly add to the experience that made it different from anything I have ever experienced being in the wilderness. This was removing all devices from the participants that tell time. Additionally, the Educo staff would not share the time since they still had timekeeping devices for safety reasons. Any time the time needed to be communicated we used the phrase “half-past two”. So, if we wanted to know what time we were eating dinner, the response would be “half-past two”. To me, zooming out on the measure of time was incredibly freeing because it caused me to listen to my body for basic needs like sleeping and eating rather than deciding what I need based on the exact time of the day. Rather than setting alarms, we woke up when our body was ready. Since I didn’t know how many hours I slept, I would decide how well I slept based on how I felt rather than deciding that I didn’t sleep well because I may or may not have gotten a full 8 hours. I probably slept 6 hours and had I known, imposed anxiety on my mindset because I ‘must’ have 8 hours to be functional. This was a small piece of structure that the staff implemented that really helped me understand how to connect by disconnecting. This connection was spiritual as well. Before the trip, I assumed that the African wilderness would be dangerous because of all types of creepy crawlies. Once we were out there, I soon discovered that we were quite safe from these creatures and I think the only crawly we saw was an armored cricket. Laying on the ground the first night was incredible because I got this deep sense that humans have been laying on this land for a very long time. This gave me a sense of safety and security that had a spiritual aspect as well. I’ve never been one to give any thought to ancestors and the connection to the land, but I felt watched over when we slept. Then, waking up in the middle of the night to see the milky way as clear as I ever have in my life made me feel small and weak but in a good way. I got a sense of the fragility of life and how as a social worker, I can be an agent of change to improve the quality of life of those I connect within Colorado Springs. So out of this weakness, we can be strong when we are connected as healthy communities.

First Impressions

My first impression of Cape Town is how this city is a land of contrasts. Obviously the historical context of race relations bring a contrast of white and black with a new dimension of colored as a description of race. With this context there is the contrast that every city experiences which is the difference between the rich and the poor. This is easily seen when looking at the informal settlements also known as shack towns. Then there is the difference between city and mountain. Adding to this is the element of verticality since the mountains sharply protrude steep cliffs out of the city, or rather a city build around these cliffs. This vertical dimension also contrasts the rich and the poor because the poorer communities live further out from the mountains on the more flat part of Cape Town. Usually, the higher and closer to the mountains one is, the wealthier. The people we have interacted with have all been warm and friendly with the occasional contrast of a person begging and even threatening the group with a knife.

South Africa pre-departure

The day has finally arrived for the trip to South Africa! I have been managing my expectations well and feel like the reality of this trip has finally hit me. I am letting myself get psyched sitting here at the gate. It is a foggy day here at DIA and I’m sure there is some kind of metaphor for traveling out of the fog into the clarity of what this experience will be. I am looking forward to getting out into the wilderness and am terrified of the possibility of baboons. Something about those naked butts just creeps me out. I am looking forward to the learning that will happen while shadowing at the Haven, but something about it feels more like work, which I am not mentally ready to return to as of now. I am definitely in a vacation mindset and am curious to see if that will change before we shadow the South African social workers

A time to Share

The world is beautiful. I pity the man who fills his life only with what is right in front of him. How long I have lived this life of pity. So insecure and infatuated with what I could put in my hands, that I could not bear to look up and see. Precious is the gift of seeing the world and I am more fortunate to not only get to see, but behold. Time, then, is the factor that multiplies what I see into something increasingly beautiful. These dying moments are everywhere for the man who can find the strength to pick up his weary head and just look, for a time. To find beauty in this dying world causes my heart to stir because part of my heart desires the uniqueness of a moment in time. To know that this moment can never happen again increases the value of the experience. But, then, another part of my heart desires for the experience to be unending. There is a tragedy in these dying moments, because I cannot shake the feeling, deep in my heart, that they are always cut short by death. They appear to be immortal because as I experience them, time does not matter. But, as always, these moments that we as humans can get so easily lost in; these timeless moments, are always subjected to time. And my heart breaks because I know that something has been lost. The flower always wilts. The statue crumbles. The body fails. And yet, my heart is stirred to be more intentional in finding the value of these dying moments, no matter in what stage I find them. Young, fresh, and new or old, rotting, and angry.

This part of the world, when one simply sees it, resembles America. What I have realized, is that I have only been able to see what is familiar. At the same time, when looking past the surface, this land is nothing like America. Behind the fronts of stores and inside the automobiles that speed past me as I walk past these stores, are people who have lived completely different lives then the one I have lived or will live. And, I have no problem with this because I have found a certain dying beauty in these people. They carry an identity, as a nation, that I do not detect in my fellow Americans. Could this be because my nation is so young? Or, maybe because our culture is so disconnected from our elders. This commentary, although useful for other things, is not my point. To see that this country is so beautiful, and not at the core, or anywhere near the core, a cooperate sellout to Americanization is incredibly refreshing. To find these dying moments that are so abundant has given me an appreciation for the place in life I am right now. The Father is blessing me everyday with these little moments. I am falling in love with how the Father uses these little dying moments to scatter truth about him. The great irony is that what seems so small and beautiful in my eyes, is in reality incredibly meaningful and glorious to the Father because they have eternal implications.

Awake oh sleeper and see what the Father is doing, both in the obviously big ways and in the small, beautiful, dying moments.