Blog Action Day: An ode to richness

During my two years in South Africa I lived with a host family in a rural village. My host family was the best part of my Peace Corps experience. Despite our disparate backgrounds, we connected on a soul level, on that human level that exists beyond the innocent interference of culture or even language. This intimacy revealed itself at any variety of moments, but a shared look of amusement or perplexity or grief is all it took. Connecting in this way was incredibly exhilarating; it proved the existence of a realm where our usual tools to describe reality no longer have relevance. All those adjectives that could distinguish my host family and me became utterly meaningless: black, white, South African, American, poor, rich...and simply fell away in place of a more accurate adjective: human.

In South Africa I learned how to speak frankly about race and racial tension. I learned how to provide practical insights on American culture to counter the glamour and violence of popular American TV shows, movies, and music. But poverty was tricky. I never considered my host family to be living in poverty, but I know that some of my possessions and actions probably labeled me as “rich”. I had a digital camera and I traveled to Cape Town on vacation. An animal lover, I spent money on cat food not only for my pet but also for the other stray felines who had found their way to me.

While my passions for photography, travel, and animal welfare accompanied me to South Africa, other aspects of my life changed as I adapted to life with a host family in a rural community.

We took “bucket” bathes by boiling water and adding it to about an inch of cold water in a basin. We used a pit latrine with no roof and no door. We had intermittent access to water at the tap in the front yard. We had bare beams and a roof - but no ceiling - above our heads in most of the house. But we also had a television and a stove and beds. We had doors that we could lock and chairs and tables. And more importantly, we had water and a pit latrine and a roof.

Poverty is such a relative circumstance. To some people, these living conditions would be enviable, to others they would be dreadful. To my host family, they are normal and average for the community in which they live. While the conditions were more rudimentary than I was accustomed to, I was able to adjust because this life was in no way a life of poverty. I had everything I needed to survive, and beyond that, I had the love and support of an amazing family - a family that viewed me as human above all else.

As it turns out, this is not really a post about poverty; it is a post about richness of spirit. It is an ode to my host family, who had the generosity in their hearts to welcome me into their perfect home without asking for anything in return.