On the 19th of July we bid DC farewell. We said our last speeches, goodbyes and thank you's to a wonderful group of people who had come to listen to us for one last time. Having been fortunate enough to deliver a speech that night and feeling overcome with gratitude this is some of what I shared.

" I wanted to spend these few minutes saying thank you, thank you, over and over again to each person who has essentially made this kind of experience possible since the inception of SAWIP in 2007. But time is jealous, so I hope this thank you to our management team, our host parents, our board members, our supervisors and the friends of SAWIP really expresses our absolute gratitude to you

I believe that South Africans, just like anyone else, each have many different stories. At any given time I believe that we identify strongly with any one set of our experiences and influences. Over the last six weeks my SAWIP experience had repeatedly lead me back to the influence of one 'story' in particular.

A few years ago someone very special to me left this world. When she did, she left behind a book with one 'story' written inside. According to this story, I was born in Cape Town and at the time my parents lived in a small town just outside of the city called Darling where my mother founded and ran the local SPCA (an animal shelter) which had originally been an abattoir.

I celebrated my second birthday on a small fruit farm even deeper into the countryside where I lived very happily in an old cottage with my mother who had founded another organization in that area. This time she gave her energy to raped and abused women and children from as far out in the countryside as she could reach. She once explained to me what motivated her work by saying the following :

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

This is a poem by Emily Dickenson, but it was retold and lived by mother so consistently that it provided me at a very young age with an understanding of the only kind of leadership that I would like to aspire to. Yet I dont think she would have ever called herself 'a leader'; her deeds are not recorded in any history books, nor is she revered in any museums and she she certainly never told any speeches on a platform like this. But, she experienced true empathy for the suffering of every being. She felt a responsibility towards humanity and she made this the focus of her life.

She left that book behind for me with many empty pages so that I could fill them myself. I have tried ever since to live a story that I would like to her to know. A very big part of that story, has been my SAWIP experience thus far and what I have learnt about my commitment to people.

So if I could, today I would have told her that the lessons that she started teaching me have been continued by the team of young people here with me tonight who have inspired me to demand more from myself and others for our country; who have taught me that you do not have to be the loudest person in the room for your voice to touch an entire congregation of people; who have reminded me of the value of asking questions, but also of listening (to everyone); who have taught me that you do not ever have to be confined to who other people understand you to be and who have inspired me to reach for a greater sense of selflessness, courage, humility, responsibility and kindness.

So what I hold true to at the closing of this SAWIP chapter, and what defines the work that I am so ready to do in South Africa, is my responsibility unto PEOPLE, individuals, before systems or institutions

Today South Africa matters to me because it is a collection of people, many of whom suffer for different reasons: conflict, inequality, resource scarcity, poverty, violence, discrimination, poor healthcare, poor education, poor leadership and of whom more will suffer if we do not do something about it, if I do not do something about it.

This team of young people matter, because we exist as a small representation of South Africans that are different, that are critical, that argue, but that essentially now have a united value system to which we hold each other accountable and to which we hold the rest of the world accountable. I grateful to SAWIP for all of this. I am exceptionally proud of my team-mates for everything that we are and so, it is to them who I owe my greatest thanks. "

For the past few weeks, I have been doing my work exposure through the Higher Achievement Program at the Kerry Miller Middle School in Ward 7 which is a neighborhood in the District of Columbia.

According to a set of data by NeighboorhoudInfo DC, (which is an organization in DC that provides local data and analysis in an attempt to "democratize information" so that it can be used as a tool in civic engagement) in 2010 the total population of Ward 7 was 71 748 people, a number that only started growing in 2000. Before 2000, population size was decreasing at an average of 1.1% per year.

In 2010, 97% of this population was comprised of "black non-Hispanic" residents - the highest percentage amongst wards in the District. Following this, Hispanic residents comprised 2.7% of the population, "white non-Hispanic" residents comprised 1.5% and Asian residents comprised 0.3%.

Ward 7 is known for having the highest rates of teen pregnancy unemployment, persons living below the poverty level, and households headed by single women in the District of Columbia. According to the NeighborhoodInfo, DC data, in 2010 24% of the population were children, although it is not stated what age bracket makes up this group. From 2000 to 2010, the number of children in the ward is said to have decreased by -7.1%. Yet the percentage of births to teen mothers has remained almost unchanged over the last 30 years. In 2007, the percentage (19%) was the highest amongst the DC wards. In 2009 households (with children) headed by women comprised 76% of the population. Again, the highest amongst the DC wards. School dropouts and insufficient educational achievement, single parenthood, unemployment at three times the regional rate due largely to low skills levels, and crime including violent crime such incarceration and murder is said to impact one third of all residents.

Of the new HIV infections among adults and adolescents in DC, 12.2% occurred among individuals living in Ward 7 and of the new AIDS infections, 15.4% of them occurred in Ward 7. The greatest proportion of newly reported HIV/AIDS cases in the ward were attributed to heterosexual contact at 35%, injection drug use (IDU) at 22% and men who have sex with men (MSM) at 20%.

Yet, when you are inside Kelly Miller it is easy to almost forget all of this. The school exists as a kind of oasis fully clad with a new gym, auditorium, swimming pool, elevators, Mac desktops and Smartboards in every classroom. The only suggestions of the harsh world outside are strict security routines, the metal detectors and the squad of security personnel posted at every entrance to the building. And last, but not least - the learners. Whilst they each sport a different set of shiny sneakers, break dance and shoot hoops like its in their blood (which it probably is), what they say in class reveals a deeper truth of what it means to be African American for many in DC that belies our Hollywood-fed understanding.

These are some of the things I've overheard in the Social Studies summer school class over the last two days:

" Who pays child support for you" - said by 5th grader while making a poster in group work.

"If I was a man, I would have a better chance of becoming the president." - said by an 8th grader. Afterwards the teacher asked what was stopping her from becoming the president one day. She answered with the following "Because I am black - thats one thing and because I'm female - thats another thing".

" I dont' think it will take that long to have a woman president. She might even be a black woman. How about that?" - said by another 8th grader girl in response to her peer.

" When my mom applies for a job she always gets the job, but my dad never gets them and he has a PhD. " - said by an 8th grader boy in explaining why it is better to be an African American woman than man in DC.

"If I was European American I would be said because I couldn't tell any of the kids in this neighborhood, the ghetto. But I would be happy because I would get better jobs." - said by an 8th grader boy.

Conflict and Healing in South Africa

I believe that I have come to learn the most, not from the experts around me, but from the person sitting next to me on the plane, the train, the bus, the taxi or the trolley; the person arguing with me on a sidewalk; the person debating with me in a coffee shop; the person challenging me from a across the table; the person who I argue with while we march around DC in high heels just about losing breath and balance; the person in a conversation huddle with me at a dinner party - the numerous young people who challenge, frustrate, inspire and blow me away on a daily basis and who I call my team. It is these small conversations and moments of banter that we have in passing, that really make me think and question. Sometimes they just make me confused altogether.

When I listen to the stories of my peers from Ireland, Palestine and Israel it forces me to reflect on South Africa and where we are in relation to conflict. How are we defined? What did we get right? What do we need to be fighting for or against back home?

Formally our era of segregation, oppression and conflict has ended. But like Jess, who prefers to refer to a post-1994 South Africa, I am weary of saying that we are post-conflict. In fact I think South Africa is a society still in conflict (or at least one that is conflicted) - be that an underlying conflict of identity and social ownership, or the very much above-ground and globally visible violent conflict of perpetrators of violence.

Yesterday, Jess and Matt spoke about the need for the 'healing' that a country like South Africa needs to go through to be an ongoing process. I think in South Africa there was a difficult balance to strike between the urgency to right the socio-economic wrongs suffered by a majority which required immediate policy action and the emotional and social reconciliation that needed to happen for each and every single person. Today, almost 20 years down the line, it may look like as though the mechanisms such as the Truth and Reconciliation rushed the latter in the interest of addressing the former as fast as possible. This begs the question - when in 2013 we are not miraculously an undoubtedly post-conflict society, do we just hope that South Africans will forgive and forget? Do we just hope that the answer lies in a new generation that does not remember? Or does that young generation, or rather this young person take responsibility for this incredibly difficult task of healing upon herself? And if so, how?

A Self-Focussed Look at Responsibility

This morning I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend the New Story Leadership (NSL) Conference at the Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies, as well as a session at the World Bank, part of which was attended by some of the NSL members.

I think the world has come a long way such that it allows for opportunities for young people from South Africa, Palestine, Israel (as well as the US, China and Canada as was the case last night) to come together to speak about what it means and requires to be a competitive young person today internationally; to talk about what risk-taking means for young people, but also for international financial organizations; to talk about what networking means for trust-building or what peace treaties mean for trust-building; to talk about what it means to live in conflict-affected society; what it means to be a young man or woman in combat or in armed resistance; to talk about what collateral damage means and what losing loved ones means and to talk about what it means to be optimistic, hopeful, determined, responsible.

I learnt that taking responsibility is not limited to being guilty. To me, taking responsibility is about me and what I commit myself to doing. It means that I do not look for someone to blame for the suffering, corruption, failure, that has happened and that continues to happen anywhere and anywhere; that I do not wait for someone else to do their job better, or to do their job, to be accountable, 'take responsibility', to fix the problems that I see around me inside my own country, my home , but also in the country, the home of the other nineteen year old girl sitting in front of me with tears in her eyes, the other countless human beings that populate one Earth with me, who I need, just as they need me.

Ubuntu - "I am because you are", does not just mean: "you are important to me". It does not mean "I need you to be, (and to be X Y Z) for me to be". It means "that for you and I to both be X Y Z, I need to be everything that I can be.

I believe that speaking about what countries, nations, governments, NGO's, NPO's, IGO's, INGO's, MP's, MNC's, and 'CEO's - whatever 'powers that be' need to do, takes the responsibility away from the individual. It takes the responsibility away from me and the billions of other first person's in the world. I believe that speaking about what 'young people' need to do is also dangerous in the sense that the responsibility falls to far away from me. Not only will I not fit into that constituency of duty forever, but it does not do enough to force me to commit to myself, forever.

I am aware that this kind of thinking potentially opens itself up to quite a bit of questioning and/or criticism. I also realize that questions like those surrounding responsibility are ones that I will spend the rest of my trying to answer. But for now, in a time where I am establishing for myself what seems true and important to me (to an extent) rather than having a family, church or school system do it for me, these realizations matter. They feel true to me, and at the very least, they are probably useful and not entirely selfish. This is because I think this allows me to spend a lifetime committed to what is at the root of what I take responsibility for, which is every child, mother, human being that suffers.

There is so much more to think and write about. There many more questions to be asked about what this means for our expectations of others or the general "People ought to...." assumptions. But those, are for another time.

Why My DC Experience is Like Barnes & Noble

Mandela - Why We Care

I have managed to convince myself of two rather convenient sentiments. The first is that no new blogging chapter is complete without some good old ‘country-mouse-in-the-big-city’ scene-setting, hence this rather unsurprising blog. The second is that do I believe that dropping the ‘U’ is a necessary requirement for fewer red lines in text, (written) cultural integration and self-reflection.

When I first started writing this piece it was Thursday morning, 6 am DC time, 12 am SA time. I remember being wide awake and sitting at my host-mum Catherine’s chunky Dell in the kitchen trying to make myself stop for a second and recapture everything that had happened in the previous 24 hours.

We had arrived in DC almost exactly one day before. After confusing my left and right hand at the customs official’s counter; eating at least seven little Hershey’s chocolate bars and being so confused by the American coin system at Starbucks, that I gave the lady who served me, all of my silver coins in the hope that I would meet the 15% tip and not be judged too badly for foreign ignorance and poor form, I finally met my host-mum Catherine with a definite sigh of relief.

The experience reminded being little and running races at primary school. The finish line always seemed very far away. Perhaps this is because I was so small, or perhaps it was just because it seemed to take so long for me to get there. But, nevertheless, at the end of each nervous barefoot scramble, our parents would wait to catch us and scoop us up into their arms. On the day of my arrival, I had that similar feeling of childish finish-line-relief when I saw someone waiting for Sibahle and myself at the end of the long journey to DC.

Although our host-mum had already warned us about her mission to keep us awake in her fight against jet-lag, what she hadn’t warned us about, was that the first step to her contingency plan involved letting Siba and myself loose in the rather aptly named Giant grocery store, or just ‘the grocery’ as my local lingo know-how now tells me. I remember thinking that there had to be a rather accurately introspective American somewhere.

I grew up on a fruit farm (during my more athletic ‘racing’ days) and often wondered where all the good-looking fruit disappeared to. Now I know. It turns out that it goes to the Giants – a somewhat less accurate judgment now that I have seen so many joggers and trim individuals around here. But, back to the actual shopping experience - I now have reason to believe that Siba and I attempting to do grocery shopping for ourselves may be one of the more amusing things that ‘grocery’ has witnessed.

In fact, the whole exercise proved to be fantastic practice in conflict resolution, particularly after our argument about green and red apples, as well as decision-making under the pressure of choice and variety. Eventually we settled for some basic necessities: fresh cherries, berries, pecan nut ice cream, goats cheese, more cheese, and more, organic granola, not so organic 90 calorie Special K bars, Graham Crackers (that remind me fondly of my Grade 9 setwork novel, the Secret Life of Bees), some strange organic crisps that Siba chose, Oikos, Smuckers strawberry jam (to be eat with the eight tubs of organic peanut butter Catherine keeps handy), Cadbury chocolate, chocolate milk, Balsamic Vinegar (naturally) and some other fun things like flavored quinoa. Somehow, we didn’t find pop tarts, but fortunately Catherine had already stocked up.

The second part of Catherine’s strategy involved a tour of our new neighborhood. Driving through the Bethesda where (not so) little red brick houses and their wooden benches, flower beds and pastel colored doors and shutters interrupt the forest, had both Siba and myself feeling like we had stumbled into Hansel and Gretel central. And, if we weren’t already filled with the magic of this picturesque setting, I think seeing a rabbit hop across the front lawn when we arrived, certainly did the trick.

Finally, the day ended with us going out for pizza with Catherine and her daughter, to a wonderful Italian restaurant where in the kitchen old, closer to ‘giant’ Italian-looking men sat around a table tasting pizza, drinking red wine and playing poker behind a big glass window. Later that night we returned to homemade Red Velvet cake and Ella Fitzgerald, for our host mum’s twist on American birthday celebrations for South African girls.

Today, I am almost ten days into the program. Naturally, I have discovered profound differences in my experience of living in South Africa and living in the United States. My later pieces will reflect specifically on these. Yet, in titling this piece “Dropping the ‘U’ ”, not only did I aim to make reference to my chameleon-like approach to writing and using Spell Check in the states. But, on a deeper level, I hoped to reflect on my slow movement away from the motions of compulsive cultural ‘me vs. you’, ‘SA vs. USA’ comparisons or ‘othering’, to a point of feeling like for a short time, I am part of the city, and fooling the other city-goers who ask me for directions, of precisely that.

Homemade Red Velvet Birthday Cake made especially for Sibahle's 22nd Birthday

An illustration of the pastel prettiness of suburbia

It is something that we hear about everywhere: in school, in government, in the press, in scholarship application forms, in old war stories. It is both a position (or end-goal) that we aspire to as we seek to “be a leader in...”, and a standard for everything we do. It is an equally vague, multifaceted and distinct outcome which we seem to be trying to realize everywhere. We have good examples and we have poor examples of it. We want more of the former and less of the latter so we (or at least, I) look for links, trends and most of the time I end up with more questions, and sometimes with a few reflections on sticky notes as I may have mentioned before.

Leadership is convenient for the collective humankind, just as manners and morals are. But what makes us buy in to it? What makes us strive for it, when it requires so much more from us than punctuality and honesty do? What makes so many of us feel like it is our responsibility or mandate to support an idea of leadership in whatever capacity (because, essentially we do)?

I once had a wonderful history teacher - a particularly eccentric man with a booming voice, an ever impressive array of printed shirts and an undying love for the Beetles, John Lennon, Gandhi (naturally), Nelson Mandela, Halls Sweets and History. Mr van Dyk was one of the few teachers who were particularly techno-sassy with the Smart Board and often he would show us documentaries that he had recorded from the History Channel. Sometimes, these had us secretly sleeping on our arms, waking up just in time for his always overly energetic and enthusiastic greetings, but other times it had us, an entire classroom full of high school girls, trying to not let anyone see that we had cried. I believe many of us can think back on different times or events when something happened that affected the course we took in life. The impact that watching footage from apartheid and the holocaust had on me is not something I am adequately able to put into words. But perhaps it is enough to say that part of the responsibility I feel, stems from this exposure.

Later in life, I had another great teacher. A tiny old woman in a red (or was it cerise pink) jersey, black pants and little shoes, a mother and grandmother, with a great love for humanity and roses and an astounding sense of tenderness and bravery. The lesson or, reminder she gave me happened just last week. I distinctly remember sitting on my chair in the half circle with the rest of my team around me. In the middle was another chair, directly opposite from mine. No one sat there, but behind it Miriam stood- both hands on the back of the chair as she retold her story or at least a very big part of her story. Miriam survived the holocaust, and the experience she recounted is the most horrific I had ever heard said to me. Above her head was a spot where the light shone very brightly on the white wall. I had to keep looking there, focussing on the brightness of the light above her head, to not cry. I remember realizing that in this experience of leadership what may be one of the greatest challenges is not how you manage under pressure, how you gain support or how you achieve your goals, but rather how, when you hear or witness something like Miriam and thousands of other people’s stories of suffering, you do not break down and cry or absolutely fall apart, but instead stay still and resist the temptation to run away and scream at the world. Of course this is not the affect that Miriam wanted to have on us. Rather I believe she would have liked us to walk away with the same love and hope for the true humanity of people that she has. It is this approach which allows her to revisit the horror of her memories time and again, and then afterwards to exclaim how much she loves roses, comment on how their colour matches her jersey and walk up to me, say Cara Mia and tell me how wonderful she thinks Italians are – that reminded me of what I had begun realizing back in my history classes. Firstly, that all that really matters is that my life is spent preventing and alleviating human suffering and secondly, that if Miriam can be the woman she has come to be despite everything that she has experienced, no excuse exists for me to not be all the woman that I can be, when I will never experience anything of the like.

Perhaps this is what Emily Dickinson had in mind when she wrote the poem below, and what my mother had in mind when she retold it to me.

“ If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain. ”

Examples of commitment to social responsibilities exist in the form of NGO’s, PBO’s, laws, regulations, events, drives, marches, protests, business models, grants, programme’s, various institutions or simply just behaviour on behalf of brave individuals. Some of these initiatives work, others do not. The question is: how do we replicate this commitment?

Four Saturdays ago our team attended the Graham and Rhona Beck Skills Centre in Robertson as a background to the community project which we will be involved in in the area. Several individuals took time out of their Saturdays to explain the work done by the Skills Centre and the Rhona and Graham Beck Trust in the farming community. As I listened to the various presenters I questioned how such a large-scale community-orientated initiative had come to be. It was possible to recognise the value for stakeholders and investors from a marketing perspective. However, what was more difficult to understand was, before a kind of community project is pitched to investors or local farmers, what occurs at the individual level? In other words, what makes individuals such as Graham and Rhona Beck perhaps, recognize a need for development in the area and commit to it (quite significantly as they have) in order to allow something like the Skills Centre to materialize? All concerns about sustainability aside, I was interested in trying to understand what happens on an individual level to make farmers (such as the Becks) take the responsibility upon themselves to provide almost entirely for their labour force according to the best model available, instead of just fulfilling Corporate Social Responsibility needs by funding small projects here and there. At least, these were the questions that I was asking myself in my notebook next to a circled ‘B’ for Blog.

A Saturday thereafter, we attended a session with Mr Nigel Bailey. His discussion looked at a leadership model which appears to be common in its application amongst leaders who we recognize as respected or revered. The idea is that one is able to solicit respect when a balance is struck between caring and confidence exhibited by an individual, the result being composure in decision-making and interaction with others. It is safe to say that it is no easy task trying to convince our ever-questioning and ever-critical group of just about anything. Give us a diagram to explain your model and the first thing we will tell you is that you have picked the wrong shape. Again, all concerns about infographics aside, the question which I was really interested in was (as you might have already predicted), regardless of whether the model is fool proof when an individual commits to it, what makes the individual commit to it in the first place?

Last Monday we attended a session with Mr Harry Culver where we looked at the Corporate Social Responsibility of business, as part of the discussion. There was quite a bit of debate around whether companies can or do (or should) ever act from a space of altruism rather than pure profit or legal incentives. One of our team members Phillip, was quick to point out that what we should be asking is, when companies do act from a space of social commitment, devoid of legal or profit incentives, why is this the case and how do we cultivate that?

Finally, last Saturday we attended a session at Solms Delta in Franshhoek. After completing a Social Tour of the site, Craig MacGillivary, the CEO spoke to us in the rather picturesque setting under the oak trees over-looking the vineyards. He told us the story of the farm running according to a remarkably socially-focussed model and having not yielded profits in 10 years in doing so. Earlier I mentioned that it is rather tricky to convince our team of pretty much anything. Well, you know you have ‘buy-in’ from us when you say something and almost the entire team reaches for notepads, Ipads, cell phones to tweet away or save your verbal gem somewhere for a blog post later. I think part of Craig’s winning recipe – in addition to free wine – was the pure humility and transparency with which he spoke about the operations of the farm. He openly admitted to the marketing appeal of creating a ‘niche’ such as Solms Delta had, but clearly it had taken more than that to get all the stakeholders to once again buy in to the owner’s vision.

Perhaps it was the wine or the fresh air, or the mere repetition of the same thought process, but suddenly I reached for my own sticky notes to capture a fleeting idea, circle it ‘B’ and put it away for later. Perhaps everyone else has realized this already, but what each of these sessions helped me to realize, and what I think a program such as SAWIP cultivates, is that individuals who identify with a set of core values that are so important to them that they become integral to their perceptions of themselves and what they believe is universally crucial for humankind form what become a core of non-negotiable standards. It then follows that these values inspire conscious behaviour which focus on needs broader than themselves, such that they hope, directly and indirectly, to inspire in others similar behaviour. Essentially these individuals become what I understand to be leaders; they lead in such a way that they need to be unable to separate all their actions from this set of non-negotiable value-standards. I believe that it is this kind of leadership that allows for effectiveness, sustainability, compassion and confidence and all things nice, but that more importantly, I think it survives the greed, corruption and unethical behaviour that tests most people in the course of their lives.

There are many incredible experiences that we are fortunate enough to have through SAWIP. We are surrounded by a network of people who care deeply about South Africa and have recognized in us a kind of potential which we might not even have seen yet, but that forms part of a much ‘bigger picture’ for our country (said at the risk of sounding very bold indeed) . These individuals invest in us their money, their time, their energy, and their true concern. This is what allows SAWIP to ‘happen’. Yet aside from all of the workshops, debates, learning, meetings, exercises and least of all the experience of working and living in Washington, DC for six weeks, one of the most valuable experiences that I have had is removed from these itinerary items. SAWIP, in the space of mere weeks, has facilitated a process of rapid self-reflection for me, which I imagine without the program, would only have happened slowly (and more gently) over many years.

One such reflection occurred today (now probably yesterday) on Mother’s Day. Through the program, I have come to work with a children’s home in Athlone in Cape Town as part of my community project. As a result, every Sunday I don a definite ‘dress code four’, tie up my hair, roll up my sleeves and go to wake up the 16 four- to six-year-olds, whose naps end just as I arrive. For them, it is time to open their eyes, step outside and play. For me, it is time to open my eyes, step outside and learn.

In the interest of creating routine and consistency for children who can probably not rely on much else, the structure of my time spent there is always the same. They wake up; this generally requires a fair amount of coaxing and enthusiastic mention of sunshine, fresh air and the nice day. Then it is time to go outside. This is generally accompanied by equal amounts of sand in mouths, playground politics, giggles and tears, having to play human pony (or dinosaur) and my best attempts at developing hand-eye coordination and a culture of sharing and taking turns. The day ends with supper time and then bath time which comes complete with teeth-brushing patrol, coordinating matching pyjama sets and trying to clean, dry and dress 16 very energetic little people arguing over Spiderman underpants.

In addition to a free cardio workout, training in future parenting skills, learning the value of patience and having a good sense of humour alike, and gaining a renewed respect for parents and people who work with children, I learnt a lot from observing a sense of nurturing and responsibility at the home from some of the most unexpected sources, fitting for the day perhaps.

I observed this as I watched the work of the caretakers. These are women whose job it is to see that these children are fed, clothed and cleaned. These are women whose connection to these children is first and foremost professional in their capacity of holding responsibility for 50 children all demanding individual love, care and patience. These are women who have to deal with challenges ranging from runny noses and wet beds, to a lack of resources and essentially raising children scarred by the extremely adverse backgrounds from whence they come. Yet these are also the women who find the love and patience to gently hold these little hands as they walk (very slowly) down the stairs, to comfort them when they cry, teach them manners and instil morals and values in them despite everything else, and do all of this with smile lines creased into their faces.

I observed this as I watched a young mother sit, tears running down the creases in her face as she fed her child in a state home, when she was not able to look after her, in her own home. I looked at the image of a person who some of us so easily dehumanise and blame for whatever action, poor decision, or circumstance that has brought her child there. Yet yesterday what I saw was just another young girl, who life had worn down and nearly broken and who I had probably not expected to be there, yet she was.

Finally, I observed this in a moment when I was sitting on a chair outside, one child on each leg, heads on my chest and another behind me, playing with my disappointing and frustratingly short hair, and I caught a reflection in the window. Just for a second, I could have as easily been a young mother in similar circumstances as described above. I am not her, but for a moment I was there just to share in the responsibility of children. I was also there to look past my reflection and see a young man I recognised from one of my courses swooning over a crying toddler next door, something I found quite touching.

These are seemingly small and trivial happenings, but they did lead me to consider that for all that is happening in South Africa, for all that I dream of changing – poor and corrupt leadership, the lack of accountability, poor service delivery, to be part of a network of humanity just looking after our children is what is important to me. I am acutely aware of the controversy and questions raised surrounding work of this nature: “Who does it really benefit?”, “Is it sustainable?" Again, I have not found the answers yet. But these seemingly small and self-focused reflections have led me to at least one important reminder. I discovered a poem in an old poetry textbook, which in its last stanza captures this reminder to myself particularly well.

Today

A woman with a gash

So deep and wide in

Her black soul

Came and spilled her

Self over me.

Asking to be held

Like no-one held her

Asking to be fed

Like no-one fed her

She crawled beneath

My skirt trembling and

Afraid and clasped

My lifeboat legs

But I had meetings

To go to

And a world to save.

- Gabriela Pearse

It often seems that just as we come up with one term that allows us to talk about or describe a group of people with ease, they go and challenge that label. The youth in particular is all about rejecting labels. It seems that the latest to be rejected after hipsters and ‘change-makers’, is ‘The Youth’. This term, a favourite amongst the ‘youth of today’, politicians, our parents and avid tweeters is one we hear spoken about all of the time. The youth are the future of South Africa; The youth are apathetic; The youth “are not offended enough”; The youth “should avail itself”; The youth should be talking about …; The youth must …; The youth should….

This post is by no means a ‘watch your jargon’ lesson. Words and terms come and go; most often we merely replace terms that we no longer like with ones that look and sound different, but essentially mean the same thing and will be used the same in the same, sometimes mindless and unintentional fashion. The fact that in this blog entry I am likely to now just swap ‘the youth’ for ‘young people’ proves this. The point of this piece is just to share something interesting that I have observed, so bear with me, especially if things get sticky and controversial.

As I mentioned the term, ‘the youth’ is as ancient as, well, as 'young people' are not. However, more and more, when it is used I find myself catching a few shared glances, eye-brow raises, and the same question being asked “Who is the youth?” amongst the young listeners. Why is this? Or rather and more importantly, why is this interesting?

Let me use the ‘Born Free’ generation (something quite close to home as my team might note) as an example. When I think of this term, it makes me think of a generation of young people who are free, first and foremost. I associate a sort of privilege with this label, and sense a special kind of pending responsibility that comes with it. We know that the 1993-babies did not choose this term for themselves, just as no youth has never chosen to be called 'not offended enough' , apathetic, idealistic or even bright. In fact, many may challenge the notion of being free and privileged. Alluding to the same generation which I spoke about in my last post, I am sure the older generation of leadership in South Africa did not necessarily call themselves ‘heroes’ when they were young, as we label some of them today. Perhaps they did not even call themselves leaders. It is more likely that when they were young, they would have been ‘the youth’ and even in the absence of twitter, people would have said: “the youth are in revolt” or “the youth are violent, unruly”. What is significant is not how this term excludes many young people who were not in revolt, who were not angry, and who may today be called apathetic or ‘ inadequately offended’ themselves. What is interesting is that this generation took ownership of its labels and in doing so, its story, whether consciously or unconsciously.

I look up to catch these moments of shared thinking, or smiles or winks between my team all the time. What I have spoken about here might not be a sentiment that we all share, but I still see us as a small sample of young South Africans ready to challenge generalisations, or alternatively embodying the complete opposite them. It delights me that we are so selective and critical about accepting a purpose or narrative (here's some more jargon) that anyone else may give us, especially as we dabble in our generational identity crises with the rest of South Africa.

In September of last year a friend told me about the South Africa Washington International Programme. During the last few months of 2012, I had heard so much about it, and recognized it as the common factor between so many of my peers who I looked up to as leaders that by the time January came, I had long been awaiting the opening of applications. What followed was a good few weeks of trying to answer the reflection-intensive questions that SAWIP posed to all of us. I wasn’t entirely sure how to put ‘my South African story’ into words. I had never thought about how to describe my family, apart from remarking that the lot of us were entirely nuts and I certainly had no idea how best to raise R7000.

Today I am about a four weeks into the programme. I still haven’t raised my R 7000, but I am a little clearer on some of my favourite South African stories. One of these stories originates out of our Orientation Camp. Before that weekend, I had carried with me a certain kind of angst surrounding what it exactly meant to be Cara in South Africa, in 2013 when I was not sure where I belonged. For example, I listen to the stories of black South Africans, to the rich traditions that persist even in the most contemporary tales, and I think ‘she knows what is special about her heritage’. I listen to the stories of other South Africans whose parents fought against oppression on the basis of racial classification and I think, “They must be proud of this legacy”. I listen to an Afrikaans boy talking about Dalene Matthee or the Voortrekkers, and I acknowledge the struggle of his grandmother and the magic of the Afrikaner culture. I listen to ‘foreigners’ speak, and I see how they take ownership of their so-called ‘exotic’ cultures. And I listen, not Italian enough to really be Cara Mazetti; not Afrikaans enough to be Clara Claassen and without ancestors who bear scars for me to speak about the struggle as my own. Yet being Cara Mazetti Claassen, English and unaffiliated seems to dismiss too much of what has brought me here.

While speaking with my team about a yearning to ‘belong’ that Saturday night outside on the stoep (a word I grab at in my best attempt at multiplicity) I learnt that I did not alone believe that a common South African identity is not accessible to us yet. In the back and forth of debating the usefulness of guilt, anger, shame and that sense of discomfort, I think much shifted for many of us. I listened to the words of my peers in the same way as I listen to the wisest words of those heroes, past and present, who we often find ourselves quoting. Then for a moment, I stopped and wondered if it was possible that for some of these heroes it had perhaps also not all made sense when they were young and part of a ‘South African youth identity’ that is distinctive and revered today.

All that I know is that I am now surrounded by young people who have recognized where the country needs them most, and are doing something about it – this is where I want to belong. One small reflection in a much larger journey of realization - I might not have the answer yet. In fact, from that well-loved and well-known ‘change-maker’, intellectual perspective I might not even have the ‘right or ‘important’ question yet. Nevertheless, I now feel a sense of mental togetherness. This is significant given that although my generational placing has spared me from experiencing physical ‘apartness’, I have been experiencing self-induced mental isolation, which may be symptomatic of precisely this generational placing.

It is this kind of space, that is cultivated within my team where we ask questions of each other and ourselves, and tackle the multitude of ‘sensitive’ and challenging issues with such fervour, which is one of the elements of the programme for which I am the most grateful.