In Africa, nothing is ever what I expect it to be. We have taken day trips that I expected to be boring and tedious but instead were glimpses into the true and undying love of God in the form of the South African scenery or people. But I have also gone into volunteering expecting a similar experience to the week before when instead my hopes are dashed and I leave with a depressed spirit.
This week’s lesson for Masizikhulise participants was how to write a CV or Curriculum Vitae (otherwise known in American terms as a resume). Simple enough lesson right? Well my eyes were opened to the lack of opportunity that has been available to some of these young men. I went around the group asking what career they were hoping to get into. Two of the four men wanted to be call center workers, one a typist and one same as last week hoped to counsel kids on life skills and HIV/AIDS. The first three then told me about how each could not achieve that job because they didn’t have the right certifications. For example one guy needed the call center certification class to get a job, another had that class but needed training in insurance sales to get a job, the typists had been trained but had to have passed Matric (graduated from high school basically). None of the men I worked with had graduated from high school and none had any college experience.
If I decided today that I wanted to become a doctor, I could change the course of my life and begin taking science classes. I could find help in applying for medical school, I could get a loan, I could move to a different city if I only got accepted in Philadelphia…I have some mobility, some power in choosing where my life is going. But if you noticed most of what I just listed has to do with education. Until coming here I have not really seen the true value of education. At home I take it for granted. But even at home, education is the ticket to a middle class life. Instead I was working with these four men trying to make handyman and Spur server look good on their CVs.
I left Khyalitsha worrying that no matter how fancy or initiative-driven their CV looked, many of the people in the Masizikhulise program will forever have a disconnect from where they would like to be and where they can actually reach. I would just like to ask for your prayers that God will give me discernment on how to reach into these people’s lives and show them God’s grace and hope. Also that he will bless their endeavors. The scariest thing about working with these people is that in the end if they don’t have jobs it will be a disappointing end to a great program. Well, God’s merciful will be done!
