When trying to decide which placement would suit my intentions best, I was primarily looking at organizations that would give me the opportunity to work with children who were at risk of dropping out of school, getting into drug use, having behavioral and disciplinary issues, things of that nature. I hope to one day go into the field of wilderness therapy and make a career out of helping young people struggling with these kinds of problems, and so having the opportunity to gain valuable experience in this area while making a positive impact in another country seemed like a win-win situation. To be honest, it took me a long time to choose a placement during my last semester. There were so many different programs where I would essentially be running an after-school program for struggling students or even assisting in helping street kids who had no home, but when the details of the program here in South Africa were layed out for me, it seemed like the perfect fit. The idea was that I would be working with two brothers, a teenager named Peter-John and his 8 year old brother, Warren. Peter-John had been missing quite a bit of school and had started experimenting with drugs, while his younger brother was beginning to show disinterest in school and as per usual looked up to the poor example being set by his older brother. The thing that appealed to me most about this placement was that it would give me the unique opportunity of spending 3 months working solely with two boys who were in need of some guidance and a positive role model. It would give me experience working with kids struggling with the exact problems I intended to help with, and developing a really tight, trusting relationship with them. Not to mention give me the opportunity to travel in a country that had admittedly never even crossed my mind as a place I would go. I liked this prospect and so I set out for South Africa in the beginning of May
Cape Town, where I did my orientation, was beautiful and vibrant. I couldn’t help but draw quite a few comparisons between “the Mother City” as Cape Town is known to the locals, and San Francisco. They are both known in their respective countries for being home to many strange behaviors and odd people, each has unique architecture that is admitadly quite similar to one another, and each city sits right on a bay with an old prison/island that has been turned into a tourist attraction. I feel as though I didn’t get a chance to fully appreciate CT and everything it has to offer, because I was so exhausted and quite jet lagged, and when your body is that worn out everything tends to feel a bit more distant. It’s almost as if you are in a dream and aren’t really experiencing anything. I have another trip to the Cape planned in two weeks time to give me the opportunity to see and do more cool stuff there. I managed, however, to enjoy the time I had when I landed and learn about the country of South Africa. I went to a museum about the Apartheid and took a tour of a township development from that era, which was quite fascinating. Next I went to a home stay and did what the Dreamcatcher Foundation calls a “cook-up with Kamama” where I got to learn how to cook traditional South African dishes with a bonafied South African woman, while talking to her about  their culture and her personal story having lived through the Apartheid, as well as where her life and the lives of virtually every South African has come from to where they are now. The stories of oppression and discrimination are eerily familiar to those of our days of segregation. It saddens me to think that every country I have ever visited has some sort of major injustice tainting their history, weather its racial prejudice, political corruption, or a foreign power (or most commonly some combination of the three). Nevertheless I had a good experience and it was a nice way to start my adventure here in SA, although I wished that I could have had more than the short 2 days in Cape Town before heading off to the place I would be staying for my 3 months here, Melkhoutfontain.
My South African family here is great. Not too long ago the town of Melkhoutfontain was living in extreme poverty, and it is actually in large part due to the Dreamcatcher Foundation that they were able to bring themselves out of those conditions. through a government program started by Nelson Mandela at the end of the Apartheid, many of the people who were living in shack’s received houses for free, like the one that I am living in. My host dad, Ivan, extended the house with his brother to add an extra bedroom/bathroom, and extended the front end of it to make a living room area. The two of them did 100% of the work and it took them less than 3 weeks, its really quite impressive. Ivan is a really funny guy and always has a big smile on his face. His wife, Gerdie, is a very kind woman who does all the cooking and cleaning with the help of Ivan’s sister, who happens to live right next door. They have a son who lives in a backhouse that Ivan also built, and he plays on the local Rugby team. They also have two daughters, the youngest of which goes to a boarding school in Albertinia which is about 15 minutes away, so she is often home on the weekends. Even when she is away at school Gerdie does all of her laundry and even cooks some meals to bring to her. Â Their oldest daughter is severely handicapped and is essentially incapable of doing anything for herself. Never before have I seen a family and a community be able to fully accept a person with severe disabilities in quite the same way that the people do here. Lucricia is not at all defined by her inabilities, and is treated exactly like any other member of the family, with the exception of the many ways Gerdie assists her in day-to-day life. I love the way that she is not treated like a person with a disability, but rather just as a person. In addition to taking care of the whole family, Gerdie also works a full time job 5 days a week in Stillbaai. I have huge respect for everything that woman does, and her strength in carrying the weight of her whole family.
One thing that I have Learned is that, on trips like these, virtually any expectation that you board the plane with will prove to be inaccurate. Experiencing new cultures, new ways of thinking, and new ways of living is not exactly the kind of thing that you can prepare for. You can read books and you can research online, but none of that will give you the insight that comes with first hand experience. It is for this reason that I try my best to come into these types experiences free of any expectations at all, which doesn’t always work out. My first day in Melkhoutfonain I met Katrina, who would be my project mentor and go-to person for any questions or concerns that I might have. She took me on a walking tour of the community, which is a small township located just outside of Stillbaai, which is the beach town down the road, home to a more wealthy and mostly white community of South Africans. The first thing I noticed when walking through the township was the strong sense of community. Walking down the street everyone smiles and waves to you, there are kids playing soccer and rugby in the streets, and a real feeling of being welcome that I haven’t felt anywhere I have been in America. After showing me the community Katrina took me to the Dreamcatcher office to show me some videos about how the program was started and the roots of the organization. Calling on the people of Melkhoutfontain to rise up and bring themselves out of poverty, as opposed to waiting for government programs to bail them out. Its quite an inspirational story. After the videos Katrina handed me a notebook and a pen and told me to write a program of what I will do with the boys every day. I thought this was a little odd since I hadn’t even met the boys yet, and having only been in South Africa for 3 days at that point didn’t even know what I could do with the boys, let alone what I wanted to do with them. Frankly, I had no idea what to write down. When I explained these concerns to Katrina she suggested that I might “play games with them, help them with their homework, and mentor them”, so I literally just wrote those three things down on a piece of paper. I got the sense from Katrina that she was hoping I would have a more concrete program worked out before hand, but I just didn’t see how that would even be possible having next to no information on what would be available to me in terms of resources, never mind the fact that I didn’t know anything about the two boys who I thought the program would be for. I felt as though I was lacking some key information. After that Katrina took me up to the school to meet the principle. She brought me to the principles office and then left, and I sat down to what I thought was supposed to be a meet and greet type of situation, I was wrong. I was brought to a class that was for students who were having disciplinary issues, as I am saying hi and introducing myself, the teacher says to me “do you mind if I go and take care of something? You can teach the class something while I’m gone” and then disappears. The class falls silent and all eyes are on me, with nothing prepared and not even sure if the kids can speak English well enough to understand me. So I just started to talk. The more I said, the easier it got, and the more I said, the more I could see that the kids were listening. After the bell rang and I left that first lesson, I had such a big smile on my face because I had created that moment out of nothing. I could have really flopped or took a cop out, but instead I rose to the occasion and that felt really good. Before going home I scheduled another day to come in and speak with the class.
The first two weeks went by and I met about 15 young boys at the Dreamcatcher office, none of whom were the boys that I had been told about prior to coming to Africa. When I asked Katrina where they were she would tell me that they are going to come tomorrow, or that she would talk to them and bring them the following week. Eventually I had just accepted the fact that I probably wouldn’t meet them, and elected to just make the best out of the situation that I was in. It wasn’t what I had expected, but that isn’t always bad. Although the one thing that was clear to me was was that this South African experience was only going to be what I was willing to make out of it. There was nothing set in stone for my time here, and if I was going to make any kind of a positive impact on the lives of these kids or on this community, then I would have to pave the way for that to happen. No one would do it it for me. So I started to work with the kids, to help them as best as I could with the problems that they faced. Eventually I met the boys that I was initially told about, but they were certainly not a focus. It was about all of them. And that work is something that I am continuing every day while I’m here.
Since then I have gotten a chance to see more of South Africa’s landscapes, wildlife, and culture. I went on a cave tour, a safari game drive, went cage diving with great white sharks, and did some really beautiful hikes with more fun things coming in this final month. But the thing that I think I will remember the most from this whole experience isn’t the new sights I saw or things I did. It isn’t even the things that I was able to teach to the boys or the way it feels to really teach something of value to someone who needs it. The thing that I will remember the most is what I have been able to accomplish, and what I have been able to learn about myself. At the start of my journey I felt as though I had too much responsibility. I thought I needed some direction, or else I would go through the whole three months without anything of merit to show on the other side. However once I was able to find my bearings, so to speak, and dedicate myself to making something happen, I was able to take charge of my own experience and create something beautiful. I know that I made the right choice in placement and, go figure, it wasn’t for the reasons that had expected. Carpe Diem challenges all of its students to identify things that they want to work on, and pushes us to leave our comfort zones so that we might experience the possibilities of what lie beyond. Something that I really struggle with back in real life is allowing my life, and my motivation, to be dictated by others. The way that the Dreamcatcher Foundation operates, I have been forced for these months to take control of the work that I do, to think about what kind of experience I want to want to have, and to make it happen. As it turns out, I am getting exactly what I needed out of this experience in order to learn and to grow into the kind of man that I want to be in a way that was wholly unexpected and completely perfect. You can call it coincidence or you can call it a divine plan, personally I choose to believe that life has a kind of poetic nature. Nothing exciting ever happens the way you plan it to, and right where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
-Ian Sulcer