The absurdity of the paradox!

I am working at the Retreat Library this week, training a group of people from an NGO in Lavender Hill.  Now for people who do not know the area or the CAPE, that name may conjure up images of hilly plains of purple flowers… but for those of us who know, that name is nowhere near the reality of what you see when you drive through the area.  Drive through the area?  Would you?  Gang run, loose bullets, violence… an area of only 7% convictions of rape crimes?

 

The people in my training space this week are showing me what it looks like to love in the war zone.  They are tired, they are open to learn, they are hurting.  I listen to the tales and see the affects of living in continuous trauma.  I listened to their leader Lucinda Evans on Monday morning of how she got to the place bold enough to do her shock campaign at Parliament just the week before.  It had landed her up on national television.  

On the way there in morning I was expecting to meet an angry, raging women as the news had portrayed her and I had decided I would offer my two cents worth of what she could do to care for herself in the midst of the onslaught of hate mail she was getting because she decided to OK swearing about the lack of protection of the children of our nation and the violence against them…highlighting again that a lot of people are more offended by swear words than children’s deaths!?

   

I did not find what I expected!

I found a woman who was centered, deliberate, intent, clear of her mandate and clearly a leader for such a time as this.  I found myself wanting to follow her on her mission, work alongside her and made sure that she lets me know when she marches again!

Listening as the day went on to the musings of people on training and the story of where these people work and how there are four overcrowded primary schools in the area and only one High School. How there was despite the gang shootings that got so bad last year that shut down the schools for weeks achieved a 100% matric pass rate…but, what was needed to be done to support them was hard to hear.  Then the news that it was a 100% pass rate of just 127 matrics that wrote in 2017. Do the calculations quickly as you look back on what I just said about the schools in the area.  100% pass rate of 127 who wrote, where were all the children that started school with them in the four primary schools twelve years before that?

On Tuesday night I went home to be with Daniel when the leadership team announcement came out to tell the matrics of 2019 who was on the HEAD team.  10 head leaders of big profiles.  I wanted to be with him to talk through his feelings when the news came out.  I also wanted to be at the assembly the next morning when all the captains were going to be announced, knowing that in a school like El Shaddai that no child is left behind and each will get something to lead in their matric year even if they are not on the Head Leadership Team, they will be on a portfolio team and get a team of people to lead too.  It was with mixed emotion but mostly relief that he was not a head of a portfolio, especially after Moriah-Jane was one in 2016 and as a family we know how much work that is.

Yesterday morning we went to school and found out that he was not only a drama captain but the captain of JHS Outreach.  He was ecstatic, this is what he really wanted!  This is what he was afraid he would not get.  After our special moment of celebrating him after the announcement, I looked around the hall after all the badges were handed out at all the congratulations that were happening and realised that there was so much celebration and joy in the room.  There is nothing more beautiful than a safe space where children are seen, called out, acknowledged and celebrated.  For those of you who know Daniel’s story, would know why this in and of itself was such a beautiful moment for us.

I left the safe space to return to the training with people who work in an unsafe space…

Yesterday, I could not hold it together when Barbara and the group were unpacking in conversation what all children need to be protected to grow thriving.  What parents in Lavender Hill must teach their children to keep them safe.  I reflected on the paradox of the spaces I was in the last two days.  The gap, the injustice, the stark reality of the difference of what it means to be a 14-year-old girl in my children’s school and what it means to be a 14-year-old girl in Lavender Hill.

Undone!

This gap, this injustice, this pain… yet giving room to acknowledge my joy, my beautiful moment!

The absurdity of the paradox!