Uncharted Territory: Love from Loyiso

Some of the kiddos on the playground

For the second half of the semester I have spent my Monday and Tuesdays at Loyiso pre-primary school chasing these little ones around. I work with 3-6 year olds teaching the alphabet, numbers, writing, English vocabulary, and songs. Sometimes that stuff actually works, but most of the time I am just telling kids to sit down, stop hurting each other, and listen to my directions. I have talked about Loyiso a little in some of my other blog posts, but I did not have any pictures to accompany it until now. This past Monday I brought my camera to Loyiso for the first time. It was an interesting experience, and I have so many beautiful pictures of the beautiful kids. They really are something special. I do not have space to put all of them up here, but these are some of my favorites.

Asiphe gives me this look a lot and then runs away to create havoc out of my reach.

The boy on the left reminds me so strongly of someone, but I just cannot figure out who.

The little boy in the middle has burns up and down the back of his legs from a car accident. He doesn't talk much (the principal thought he couldn't speak at all), but he walks around holding onto my hand even when I'm playing with the other kids. Eviwe on the right is a treat. She does her own thing and doesn't mind the other children.

I have faced a lot of challenges at Loyiso, but the hugs, smiles, and laughs from the little ones make up for all the hard parts. They look so innocent and cute in these pictures…who knew they could be such terrors on the playground.

This is Schmonga on the left and Indipile on the right. I worry about these two, and the lack of positive male role-models they seem to have in their lives. However, even amid all their trouble-making they have beautiful moments like this one.

At first I was reserved about bringing my camera to Loyiso to take pictures of the kids. I thought a lot about my intentions and what I would do with the pictures once I took them. There has been a lot in social media lately revolving on voluntourism- the notion that privileged Americans (like myself) visit less well off places (like South Africa) and engage in activities they are not qualified to do. They do this to make themselves feel better, splatter a Facebook page with pictures of foreign children, and have a good story to tell later on. I am trying to avoid that as much as possible. I am so incredibly glad I brought my camera to service on Monday because these pictures make me smile every time I look at them. However, I struggled a lot with figuring out how not to exploit the kids in the pictures- it seemed unfair that I would walk away with pictures of them and they would not benefit in any way from them. Maybe it's silly, maybe I'm over thinking it, but I do love these kids and I want to protect them from becoming just another cute African child. Just another picture of underprivileged kids in the developing world. So, I share these pictures with you in the hopes that what is conveyed through the pictures is their joy, their humanity, their similarity to children you might see everyday. Because they are just kids- they run, they cry, they fight, they giggle, they hold your hand just because.

It was so fun photographing all the kids. I wanted to capture them being their normal crazy selves as much as possible, but I had to be quick. Once they realized I was taking pictures, their attitudes changed and they stopped being themselves. I had to put away and then pull out my camera when they weren't paying attention. I think the results are more pure and authentic pictures.

These three are good friends. They walk around doing silly and crazy things together.

I only have a couple more weeks at Loyiso, and I will be sad to say goodbye. I am so incredibly thankful for my time spent there. I don't remember when I came across this passage by Teresa of Avila, but it has stuck with me ever since I read it:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

-Teresa of Avila 1515-1582

This is the prayer I prayed before coming here. I asked that I might be the hands, feet, and eyes of Compassion. I did not know in what capacity I would be asked to do that, but I have been motivated to be this for the children at Loyiso. I hold dirty hands, kick deflated soccer balls, dust off sandy backs, look into crying eyes, and giggle at silly kids. At Loyiso I have learned about unconditional love. They have tested and then increased my patience. I have learned words are not always needed to make everything better. The kids at Loyiso have been wild, but fun.

In addition to service wrapping up, I head into finals next week! I'll be hitting the books this weekend, but yesterday was such a beautiful day that I had to take an adventure with some of my housemates. We took a cab to an area of Cape Town called Bo Kaap. Bo Kaap is known for its brightly colored houses set into Signal Hill. It was a lot of fun walking around the streets looking at all the different houses. Before heading home for the day we stopped at a recommended coffee shop and gallery I had found online (I am always looking for new and different coffee shops to visit). We sat at a table in a back patio area that we had all to ourselves. It was such a good way to celebrate the nice weather.