What you have in your heart

“I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

I am trying to figure out how to explain my experience yesterday but I’m having a bit of trouble. It was one of those days where I needed the night to process everything before I attempted to write this post.

We spent the day visiting the townships which are the poorer areas of town. I mentioned this in a previous post but it made me so sad to see how different their living conditions are compared to mine. However, they have so little and are still so so much happier and that made me happy to see. I watched as children played with a single water bottle and laugh like they were having the best time of their lives. I saw the smiles of the people and how everyone initiated a wave as we past by and I couldn’t help but smile back. I am realizing how much I have to be thankful for and how having things isn’t a measure of happiness. I’m a quote junkie and I stumbled across one the other day that holds so much truth. “To be rich is not what you have in your bank account, but what you have in your heart.” So here I am torn between emotions and all I can hope is that I will be able to give back to these beautiful people as much as possible in my activist project and my internship.

We were also blessed with the opportunity to visit the library in Nyanga that was built by students from UConn who studied abroad here last spring (my good friend Patrick being on of them). I have seen pictures but seeing it in person was even more incredible. There are so many books and you can really see how much of an impact these students had and how much of a difference was made. Definitely one the highlights thus far.

At night we went out for pizza and then enjoyed a nice jazz performance to end the day. The people playing were amazing and it was a nice way to unwind.

Today was actually so much more fun than I expected. We mimicked the show “The Amazing Race”, were split into groups, given specific directions, and told to bring back a certain object. It was the first time we used public transportation and I actually loved it. Again, everyone was amazing and helped when we got lost and all in all it was a good day. We had the rest of the day to relax and we’re headed out in a bit to go celebrate Johnny’s (another UConn student/friend) birthday. Time to go get ready!!