Where is your heart?

I have been asking myself the same question lately as we drive through the townships on my way to and from UWC or my service site. Where is your heart in this? It seems like a simple question. Where is my heart? Well, it is a lot of places these days. My heart is with the field worker at Ilitha who buys her six year old son R400 ($58US) jeans, an astronomical price to pay for a pair of pants for someone from the townships, because that is what society says must be done in order to look cool and put of the facade of wealth, or at least monetary comfort. My heart is with the grade 4 students at Lwazi Public Primary School who are fascinated by the fact that I am a tall white girl and are not afraid to sit and stroke my hair during their life orientation class. My heart is with the guy who runs the take-away fish and chips place at the corner of Ny 24 and Ny 5 in Guguletu. 

I feel like I should be angry at the system for the position it has put millions of people in, guilty for being a privileged white person from the United States, or saddened by the living conditions of some of the people I have come to know and love. There are obviously times when those feelings creep up, but the most intense emotion that envelopes me on a daily basis is joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. When I first identified this I pegged myself as a bad person. Why was I not coming home at the end of the day heartbroken by what I had seen? Why didn't I cry for the people in the townships who I am working with? And that is when I realized it. I am here to work, not cry. I am here to love with everything I have and everything I am, not be angry and in turn alienate those who are seen as the oppressor, "the other." In my joy I am able to do more to understand the needs of the community and work towards their goals then I would be able to if I were constantly focusing on the negative aspects of township life. 

I delight in the small things in life, especially the perceived brokenness that people are able to turn into a triumph. My favorite part of the day is going for walks through Guguletu with some of the field workers from Ilitha. I have eaten the best fried fish and chips I have ever had that I bought from a window of someone's home. I have had in depth conversations about my life and my experiences in Cape Town with women waiting to get their hair done in a salon housed in a shipping crate. I have watched small children, clothed only in a diaper, run barefoot down the middle of the street with no adult in sight. There is obviously brokenness in all of these situations, but there is also so much hope and love and joy. I am unable to work against the injustices without basking in the grace within this community. It is too easy to go into the townships and only see dirt, poverty, violence, and drugs without seeing the love of neighbor and appreciation of the things that some would find small or insignificant. 

So, where does this leave me and my heart? In love. Through the joy and peace I find while walking through Guguletu, I have come to understand that I am answering a call. I am supposed to be here, in this place, seeing the beauty in the brokenness so that I am able to use this sense of overwhelming comfort with and respect for the people to give what I can to their community.