So this entire trip the word "community" continued to show its face. In our text that we read, the blogs that we wrote and the conversations that we held. But it wasn't until yesterday, that I felt we were an authentic community. If it's one thing I've learned during this experience is that community is messy, its ugly and sometimes its distant, but that doesn't make it any less of a community. Before our "community problem" I felt we were simply getting by or tolerating each other because we had to, but last night showed our strengths as well as our weaknesses, our fears as well as our triumphs. We were a community because we balanced each other out, where one was weak the other was able to hold that weight and vice versa. Though we had ugly moments, the calm after the storm proved what this team is really about, and I am forever grateful to be a part of that.
Thanks!
Nobody knows what it's like to be you, and that's the beauty.
I can't know you unless you teach me.
Show me that ways of your heart and the darkness of your soul.
Show me how to love you even when love is not what shows.
Reach out your hand, ushering me into your past and I will follow.
Oh how I love to get to know you.
For the more I learn about you the more I get to know me.
We are one with two different avenues, two different paths two different trials to lose.
And it wasn't until I got to know you that my flaws made since.
Because you are the part of me that I once missed.
Together we make a whole being, wrapped up in intelligence, and sealed with the perfect kiss.
Without you I don't know all of me.
Nobody knows what it's like to be you, and that's the beauty.
I can't know you unless you teach me.
But I hold a piece of you, it's how I live, it's how I came to be.
Recently in Kiarra McCain Category
Things I will miss about South Africa...
I will miss the hospitality; the people here smile as if smiling was equivalent to breathing, effortless.
I will miss MaAfrica, oh how I love those kids, and their hearts. Though I have learned a lot from them, leaving or saying good bye has never been something that I've been good at. This is hard, my feelings are wrapped up in the future, but my mind is still trying to conceptualize today. They will forever be in my hearts, and I pray that their spirits hold hands with mines and walk with me for as long as I walk this earth.
I will miss community. Not a particular community, but just seeing community in the most pure form everywhere I go. From the townships, to the pizza place, it was obvious that community was in the hearts of those people, by the way they interacted with each other as well as with 25 American students.
I will miss the ability to be vulnerable. In a place where people are happy with God, family and self, being vulnerable was a given. You wouldn't be judged, and your past didn't walk in the door with you, therefore people were really just getting to know the real you. That felt good. Though there were bumps and bruises along the way within our group, the ability to be vulnerable presented itself in those moments. That's something that wouldn't happen at home. Most are too afraid of being judged, or afraid of their past speaking for them, and it never comes out as genuine as it could. South Africa has shown that being vulnerable, being genuine, being true even when it hurts, is the best way to grow. Therefore it's the best way to live.
I will also miss the hardships that I personally had to go through. Being here as taught me a lot about myself, and how I could be perceived, and going through those hardships has shown me how I can get past some of those imperfections. Though I am ready to share my knowledge with those at home, I feel as though I have so much more to learn. If I learned this much about myself and the world in 3 weeks, I can't help but think about where I would be in 3 months or 3 years.
Leaving is bitter sweet, I will miss a lot of things about South Africa, from the people to the plants, but I will also take a lot with me. I will go home with a piece of South Africa in my heart, and I look forward to spreading that across my many communities.
I am crying...
Scars on the inside...
Internally bleeding, dying, suffering from the inside out.
I am crying quietly....
In the corner of the classroom.
Every time the teacher glances in my direction fixing her lips to say my name even when my hand isn't raised is the least of my fears.
No I didn't do the assignment, my options were to cradle my little sister to sleep, protecting her ears from her mother's screams, forced out by the blows her new boyfriend was feeding her, or do my homework...
The decision was made for me, so I sit in the corner of the classroom, trying to blend in with the shadows, hoping if I held my breath long enough, the noise from my inhales would disappear and they would forget I was even there.
I am crying loudly...
On the corner of your main street.
You see me daily, trying to cover your eyes with the latest newspaper, missing the latest story staring you in the face.
I am 12, not 21 but 12.
My father doesn't know me from his girlfriend, so I tend to suffer the consequences of his confusion on a Saturday night after his drinks makes him numb to my screams.
But I take it, cause if I don't he would move on to my 9 year old sister and I cant handle that.
And every time I wake up I look up to the sky as if to say "wasn't last night enough" and I walk to this same corner.
Holding my sign up, asking every car that drives by for money, looking into the eyes of the humans operating the car, hoping I could gain some fulfillment from their souls.
We are crying so loudly that the walls in which we go to for protection have ran away in fear...
I am your classmate, neighbor, daughter, son, mother, father, your friend, I am an extension of you and if you wanted to help, if you really wanted to know the story beyond my tears, all you had to do was ask.
To be alone in a room full of people is terrifying.
To be alone in a room separated from yourself is soul freeing.
I found myself in both states of minds simultaneously.
My name is Kiarra R. McCain.
Not because that was my birth giving title, but because I own it.
Because I realize that I don't know me,
I want know me
And the purpose is not to come to a conclusive me, but a
More controlled me
Better communicated me
Loudly charismatic me
A reflective calming me
A more Christ like me
More careful me
A piece for connecting me
A community of me
Embodied in one, I am better because we are better.
I am better because I heard your cries, because I worked on cures and my tears show I care.
We care, all of me.
To be alone in a room full of people is terrifying,
To wake up and realize it was just a dream, a state of mind, a lost moment...
To wake up and realize you needed that moment to awaken, is the moment you become...you.
The moment I became me, the moment you and I... all of our insecurities, are misfortunes, our weakness, our painful pass, and fate futures a moment when our mistakes combined, our hearts became in sync and our blood flowed at the same rate.
At that moment, that very moment you, you, you, you and you became we.
Kiarra McCain & Amanda Wittkopp
January 4, 2011
"Lights camera actuality..."
Lights camera actuality...
Flashing lights contrasting the beam of sun.
No body noticed.
No body seen the souls behind the lens smiling with scars
No body seen the sores in front of their hearts bandaged with hellos.
No body seen
Lights camera actuality....
Focusing on the forgotten, forgetting to forget.
No body went deeper then brown eyes, no body seen pass the hospitality.
Confronting this community with cameras was chaotic.
Snapping shots for frames,
Capturing human frames, leaving their souls behind, leaving their stories behind
Seems inhumane
But we walk away the same
that's a shame.
Lights camera actuality
Flashing lights contrasting the beam of sun
No body noticed with notices on their doors.
Today we did something that wasn't already planned for the day. It was a sort of impromptu experience we otherwise would not have had. We met a good friend of Nate's who he previously worked with and who has lived in the Mandela Park township. When we arrived we saw thousands of shacks made from various materials. Paved streets ran past the houses with street lights marking the way. Large, ugly electrical boxes that stood above the homes, connecting them to a main power source. Garbage was strewn everywhere. Random dogs ran around the streets licking up waste water. Many residents sat outside their homes in the hot morning heat. Nate ran into a woman he used to know named "Mama" and was able to briefly catch up. She waved and greeted our group. This was a most uncommon reaction, as most of the townspeople stared and spoke amongst themselves. A woman and her family, who Nate's friend knows, spoke with us and invited us into her home. It was a small, 3-room home. We noted that most of their belongings were basic, but they also had a television and stereo system. There are convenience-type stores, countless barber shops and cell phone repair shops throughout. Most all of them are shacks, like the homes, with handmade signs designating their purpose. It was a community unlike any most of us had not only ever seen but actually walked through.
Later we stopped off in a marina with souvenir vendors and places to eat. Some ate lunch, some shopped. It was a bit of mindless activity, considering where we had just come from.
Our last major plan for the day was to visit the MaAfrika Tikkun site in the township of Delft, where we will be doing our service-learning. Delft has mostly government housing, so the homes are constructed from cement and have actual shingles on the roofs. The drive to Delft was interesting for part of the group, as our van stalled on the road en route to the site. Thankfully, one of the other vans came back for us and we proceeded on our way. The entire way we passed other major townships and squatter camps. Horses grazed freely near the side of the road. Children swam in a pond lined with garbage. Graffiti creations decorated walls -- one of note said: Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand. (A Patti Smith quote)
At MaAfrika, we were orientated by Anthea Jansen, the head of the program. She told us about the wide variety of activities and services they offer to the people of Delft. We still do not know what we will individually or collectively be assigned to do when we start tomorrow. It could be anything from playing games, to working a soup kitchen, to gardening. No matter what, we are willing, available, able and ready.
Poetry by Kiarra
Narrative by Amanda
I am cold
fearful
alone
fearful
cold, alone
alone
cold
fearful
confused...
words bouncing around my head, leaping at the chance to change.
changing at the thought of indifference.
place your feet in my print.
trace my steps.
use your hands to close the wounds.
cradle my feelings.
If silence is sanity and noise isn't noble...
why are you speaking
we are one voice, with two mouths.
I am one body, with many bruises.
You are 100 doctors, with limited cures.
limitless cures.
Cures of lemons
I am numb
smiling at your expense
buying souvenir 's at your expense
walking on your soul with expense shoes.
This world is my world!
This is my world!
And i co-exist by myself
I co-exist with lies, stereotypes.
Stereotypes, lies
baby lies on a stereo with type two-diabetes.
your diet consist of consuming and throwing out the rest.
My diet consist of consuming and throwing out the rest.
ARE diet consist of consuming and throwing out the rest.
when our neighbor doesn't have a bed to sleep in or 4 walls to call home.
Pointing out the imperfections of our bodies, and injecting more ugliness inside.
Inside this frame holds a picture with no bodies.
No body cares.
So we buy some..
we buy someone...
we buy someones soul, someones mother, someones heart, someones last dime, someones hope, dreams, fascinations, personalities, ambitiousness, joys, sorrows, pains, history...
And we leave the story on an empty shelf.
