Volunteer blog: Why am I unique by Caroline Winberg

“Day 3

I started my day in the Play on Wheels group, we all met up at Project Playground and got in the car together to head to Constansia. While a lot of the other kids at Project Playground easily get bored or distracted the Play on Wheels group sit quietly in the car for 45 min. I put some music on on my phone and they all started moving and the 2 oldest ones even knew how to snap their fingers to the rhythm of the music.

They take the play on wheels group to horse therapy once a week. Some of them that are in wheelchairs unfortunately can’t make it but there’s a group of 7 of them that go to Constansia every wednesday. Once we get there the kids get very excited and get out of the car to brush the horses and some of them just stroke their manes. You have to keep in mind that a lot of these children rarely gets a chance to leave their houses since their parents are ashamed and embarrassed that they are not like regular children. Some have been sexually abused and for them to come out to the wine countries and ride beautiful horses is just like magic.

The kids take turn riding the horse around the farm. Colin goes first and this young man, he’s in his thirties can’t talk and rarely even smiles with his mouth that has no teeth but he rides like he hasn’t done anything else his whole life. The kids that wait around for their turn are very patient and sit still and drink water or look in horse magazines. Everybody gets to go and after they are done riding we all drive back to Langa, the children are a bit tired and doze of on the way back but get greeted with food and clean diapers once they are back at PPG.

After a little snack I joined Malunga for a tour around Langa. He showed me his house, where his family lives, the stores where the locals sell fruits and meats and taught me the history of the townships. I’m so excited a got to go since it’s very rare that tourists get to go into the locals shacks to see how they live. What surprised me the most is that a lot of them live in one tiny room built of wood with barely any furniture and no food but they still have a TV and radio. For delicatessen, (fat cakes) fried white bread, all the locals head to their favorite store located in St Francis. One little piece of bread apparently contains 1000 calories and fill the children and grown ups up so much that’s that the only meal some of them have a day. Malunga also told me how it’s tradition circumcising boys in Langa when they turn 18, which was shocking to me. All the staff at project Playground remember their circumcision and are proud that they went through it.

Back at PPG i joined girls pride. A group that the teachers started for the teenage girls. It teaches them to be Women, proud of themselves and to be able to stand up against men and each other. Todays topic was “Why am I unique”. The girls started off with reading the papers they wrote on last weeks topic which was who is your role model load to the rest of the group. Then we discussed what the word unique meant to them and if they understood it. Most of the girls didn’t know what it meant so the teacher explained that all of us are unique in different ways, not just by the way we look but more importantly by the way we act. All the girls and one boy (who felt like he fits better into the girls pride than the boys pride) got up and either rapped, sang or talked about the way they are unique. The boy did a amazing Beyonce drunk in love cover song and dance that brought me to tears.

This is the first day I got home from PPG and totally broke down in tears from hearing the most dreadful stories about the children in Langa. I’m also starting to feel guilty about how lucky we are to be born in a country like Sweden were children get treated like children and not the way they they get treated in Langa.”