At nine o'clock, Thursday morning, July 26, 2012, a group of Ohio University students, including myself, all boarded a bus heading towards Red Location backpackers lodge in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. This particular lodge was located in the center of a "black" township in which thousands of shacks are surrounding it. Even though visited the Red Location lodge during the first week of arriving in P.E., it was only temporarily.

With little information as to what the experience would be like; seeming that Ohio University is the first college to stay overnight at the lodge, I was beginning to feel my stomach sink as the driver, Henry, started the bus and began pulling away from the Beacon Lodge where we are currently being housed.

Along the way, I sat silently in a double seated section on the bus: my luggage in one seat and myself in the other.  Quietly observing the landscape shift from what I would deem as luxurious in Summerstrand, South Africa, to abominable in the local townships. Seeming that we arrived in the community within ten minutes, it made me feel even more upset that this kind of gruesome living was down the road from where more privileged individuals lived. I felt as if this kind of living was unfair and unjust.

One of the first things I noticed driving through the township to get to the lodge was a group of children running around without any shoes on their feet. Each and every child was wearing clothing that looked as if it they had been wearing the exact item of clothing for more than three days; hence the brown stains from the dirt and the dingy colored white shirts. Their arms and legs were full of dried up dirt marks from playing and their hair not properly groomed almost brought tears to my eyes. However, I couldn’t help to think about the joy in their eyes as they had not a clue of the harsh reality and circumstances society has placed upon them. As I heard them playing and laughing while chasing after one another on a cemented ground not too far from their homes, I grew numb to the sound. I began to focus on the shacks sitting in the background bordered with huge piles of trash, broken glass and barbed wire fences. My heart ached for those children because they are going to be raised in poverty stricken community simply because they were born into it.

To be continued…

Samorra~

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