South Africa: A Lesson of Gratefulness
Over the recent years, I have had the opportunity to travel to South Africa to volunteer and experience the unique culture and environment that the country is known for. Along the way, I learned a lot about happiness, especially gratitude.
To set the scene, I first began taking an interest in volunteering in Africa when I learned that many soccer teams in Africa were unable to afford basic soccer gear, even being unable to get soccer boots for every player. South Africa, like many other African nations, suffers from the aftereffects of colonialism and thus has a high poverty rate. Adding onto that, South Africa is also recovering from the inequality of apartheid, which still haunts the country. So before the summer began, I started working on the Heart Impact Project to help out the teams in South Africa.
The Heart Impact Project was originally started to help supply girls in Africa with sanitary pads, working with various groups, such as the Rivers Foundation, which was created by the Rivers Church in South Africa. In this case, we were reforming the Heart Impact Project to provide the soccer gear to a team that reached out to us in South Africa, through the Rivers Foundation. So by working with other teenagers in Austin, we collected donations of soccer gear from people who had old, unused gear lying around, and money from people who wanted to contribute but didn’t have already used gear. With the boots we had collected, we washed them so they were nice and presentable and grouped them by how good their condition was.
When we arrived in South Africa, we were able to meet the teams, and it was a surprise to see how they accepted us easily, allowing us to join in with their practices and even speak English to accommodate our language barrier. Many players would come over and ask me about the shoes and if they could find the right pair for their shoe size, and it just showed how much they needed the shoes. With the first team, we left them all the shoes and gear we brought, and they were extremely thankful, talking about how they were so excited to put them on and try them. With many kids in America, they wouldn’t be very happy to receive banged-up and used shoes, but the teenagers and kids in South Africa never complained and received everything with open arms. With the money we had from donations, we were able to buy shoes at a market in bulk for the second team that we were there for. These shoes were obviously lower quality than your average Nike or Addidas shoes, but to the kids there it was like Christmas, being able to receive those shoes. As a soccer player myself, who has always been picky about the type of shoes I use, it taught me a lot about how I should be thankful for what I have. Like the famous soccer player, Zinedine Zidane said about having perspective,
“I once cried because I had no shoes to play football with my friends, but one day I saw a man who had no feet, and I realized how rich I am.”