Meg awaking to a call to action

The more time I spend here, the more I notice the similarity between issues of race, class, gender, wealth, violence, government…but the difference in the attitudes and approaches towards a solution. The US and South Africa are so much more similar than I ever would have thought. Before I came here I was warned about the issues they struggle with here and always thought about them in such an abstract way. Those are THEIR issues, THEIR battles; sure the US isn’t perfect but we cannot possibly be facing those same things here, in my back yard. Thinking back on it now I can’t imagine ever being that naïve to think that we are any different.

The more time I spend here the more I realize that I never really knew what a hero was. Growing up in the US we are taught that a heroes are firefighters and police officers, our parents, our teachers. Do not get me wrong all of those people are wonderful and deserve loads of respect, but my examples of a hero now lay much deeper than those a teacher told me about in school. A hero is the reverend who stands between two gangsters and asks for a cease-fire. A hero is the pregnant woman living in a shack house who risks her life to use the community bathroom at night. A hero is the child who chooses an education over a gun every day. A hero is so much more than any one I have ever known.

The more time I spend here the more I reflect on the privileges and luxuries I have in my own life. I think about all the things I took for granted and never even realized it like all the opportunities I have been given that just felt like the next natural step in life without realizing how lucky I am to even have them. My “problems” seem so small in a world that now feels so big. I realize that problems are all relative to your situation, but I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed in myself when I look back on all the small issues I made into big ones when people all over the world struggle with so much more on a daily basis.

The more time I spend here the more grateful I become for the life I have been given. But at the same time, I question why me? Why was I born into a reality so much better than many of these people will ever know? I was in the bathroom one day when a cleaning woman asked me how old I was. When I told her 19 her next questions were, “Are you married? Do you have children?”. I cannot imagine living in a place where 19 is a completely reasonable age to be able to answer yes to both of those questions. I cannot imagine a life like this woman’s where she must face the daily issue of not knowing where her next meal would come from. I cannot imagine a life that far off from my own, which is both a blessing and, in my mind, a call to action. I cannot imagine not giving all I have to give to help others who were not as lucky as me.