I spent this past week working construction at the building site. We are currently building two structures at the same time. The first is a training center which I mentioned before and the second foster homes 7 and 8. Over the past seven years I have done a lot of construction through mission trips and summer jobs. I have gained a lot of experience and have worked on almost ever stage of construction. I have done everything from gutting a house to putting on a new roof. The one thing I have never done is start from the very beginning. In every case up to now, some sort of foundation was already there. Therefore being able to see this project proceed from the very beginning and helping to lay the foundations has been a really neat experience. I also un-expectantly have learned a lot about South African society through working on these jobs.
I am the only Caucasian laborer working at these job site. The only other Caucasian person there is the contractor who oversee the work. Because of this, many people have assumed that I am in charge. One example is; there is a house being built in the lot next to ours and many of the men working on building this house has asked me to borrow “my” tools. This might now sound that significant but it was the way they asked that I could tell they had the impression that I was the one in charge and who owned the tools we were working with. Another example was on Wednesday; The Contractor had left for a short while and a man came up to me asking me for a job. Luckily one of the other workers helped me explain to this man that I was not in charge and that he would have to ask The Contractor who had left but he could wait for him. The man decided to wait and proceeded to sit silently on a pile of bricks for over an hour waiting not for a job but the chance to ask for a job. This really made me think a lot because most people I know would have either left and come back later or just try their luck elsewhere. But this man waited, silently, just to ask for job. There were no promises or guarantees but yet he waited and I think this really shows how much he must have wanted the job and also probably how much he needed it.
The apartheid ended in 1994 but even today in 2011 I can see that there is still a lot of inequality and major differences between the different races of people here. I have heard from a friend who has been living here for almost 4 years, that in the time she has lived here, she has seen a lot of changes in the society and the gap between the groups getting smaller. But even so, I believe there is a lot of change still yet to come. I have been fortunate enough to have studied the civil rights movements of the United States in college. I think there are many similarities between how things use to be in the United States and how things were here during the apartheid. I praise God for allowing me to experience this and I’m sure it is only a fracture of what it used to be but even still it shows me how fortunate we really are in the United States that we have come so far since the 60’s and 70’s. I know that we aren’t perfect and still have problems with differences in race in the United States but in comparison we have come a long was. Looking at how far we have come in the United States give me hope for South Africa. They are going down a very similar path that we went down and because they are trying to overcome these same differences that we struggled with; I have hope for a future for both the United States and South Africa that one day we all will see each other not by the color of our skin but as one people in Gods beautiful world.
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