Interviewing Alumni

I'm in South Africa and we've been interviewing alumni all week to understand how this program helped them and how it can be improved. So everyday we go to different towns and meet 18-24 year olds at school or at their homes. Seriously,I've seen poverty before but it hurts so bad to see these sweet, sweet kids, that we get to know so well, living in these conditions.

All the neighbors, really. We can wave to any of them and they smile big and wave back.

Meanwhile, a little girl is pulling down her pants to go potty in front of an outhouse that she can't get into...a dog has been scratching his leg for so long that the fur is gone in that spot and his dog buddy has weird diseased splotches all over him...a typical family of 6 lives in a shack the size of our dining room.

And all of this while reading books about their history. I can't even read the stories of what these people have gone through anymore without crying. I'm not just talking about poverty (these books talk apartheid, not poverty)...I'm talking about being treated worse than animals (I'll write some examples later).

For now I'll end by saying that it's just not right.