Bernie's lessons learned

This past weekend at Ocean View has been one that I never expected. I was nervous when coming into the weekend. I was nervous because I did not know what to expect. I was assuming that Ocean View was going to be along the lines of the Cape Flats so having that thought it my head made a little nervous. When we drove up to the farm and started our walk into Ocean View and around the community I was less nervous because it felt like just another neighborhood. When we got to the first house and we left our bags there, seeing the inside of the house made me relax totally because the inside of the house is as normal as a house from my town back home. When we continued to walk around it was nice seeing everyone out and about and playing; it felt like a real neighborhood and it is.

When I finally got to my host home I was eager to meet the family and become apart of their family for the weekend. Right away Auntie Silvy welcomed us with open arms. Walking into the house I wasn’t worried about feeling uncomfortable because the second I walked in I felt at home, it was such a warm, accepting house. I felt like I was back home at my house when I sat down on the couch and watched TV, it was nice to feel that and know that some people in Ocean View do live a normal life, not one of drugs or gangs. The house was such a nice house and they are still adding more to it. The only thing about the house that threw me off was they only had a bath, no shower. I haven’t had a bath since I was about 4 or 5 so that was a bit of a shock but it was very easy to adjust to it and do.

           

The night that we got there we went to a ballroom class that a lot of the kids in the community go to. Those kids can dance! I felt so inadequate to be able to dance with them because I have no practice. Its great to see that these kids have something to look forward to at night and to take up their time when instead their time could be spent doing criminal activities and things of that matter. Its also sad to me because these kids have such talent and can go far with their dancing if they wanted to but they are in situations and in a community where it may be hard for them to get out and go far with their dancing and that upsets me. I had the same feeling during the morning in which we just hung out with the kids at Auntie Alices. They are so full of life and potential and it makes me nervous for them to be living in the environment they do because anything could happen to them. They could get hurt or they could become apart of the bad crowd or they could be great individuals that go to University and succeed. I guess that’s like that with every kid in the world if you think about it, but a kid growing up in my town has different pressures on them than a kid who grows up in Ocean View; from my point of view the possibility of the kid in Ocean View turning out bad is more likely.

           

Spending the rest of the weekend just with our host family was so nice. They had such kind words to say to us and we had some really good conversations. What surprised me the most with conversations we had was that Uncle Russell was very adamant about the fact that he was glad we were doing this program and we were visiting Ocean View. This surprised me because I feel weird just coming into their home and staying with them and assume that they would feel weird about it too, but they were completely okay with it. They treated us as their own kids and they taught us some valuable lessons and some things that we could take home to the states. The thing that I will carry with me from the homestay is something Uncle Russell said; he said that he is rich in love. He said that just as long as there is love in his heart and in his life, he is the richest person in the world. I’m going to carry that with me because I feel like that ideal gets lost day to day and we worry about little insignificant things that really don’t affect us.

           

I was really happy to spend the weekend at the homestay because I learned a lot. I didn’t learn huge lessons but I learned that these people who live in these types of communities live a normal life. They live a life that I live at home and it was good to see that they live that way because I feel as if society makes it hard for us to see people in poverty as normal people. They pretty much tell us to see them as homeless people begging on the street but in reality, they are normal people who watch TV, go to the mall, and have dinner with their families at night. It was great to learn, see, and be apart of that for the weekend.