Fresh paint, old story

Ellie and the kids

This past weekend, I volunteered with some friends to help paint a youth center in a small town outside Lusaka. My friends Gaz and Ellie started the center a few years ago, and continue to maintain it through the generosity of donations (visit the Gazelle Trust website). This weekend, Gaz brought down some of his 6th grade class from the American International School to help paint. The day passed in a blur of paint splattered faces and turpentine fumes (we did make a good faith effort not to kill too many brain cells!), but several things made a lasting impression. I was struck most of all by the contrast between the group of kids who arrived with us, and the local children who filled the youth center.  

Though most of the AIS kids were African by birth, they were of a far, far more privileged socioeconomic group. They had grown up in a world of nannies and drivers, where high walls and electric fences separated them from the majority of the population. They had ipods and cell phones, packed lunches in personal coolers, and clean white converse sneakers. In sharp contrast, their counterparts at the center came with bare feet and balls made of plastic bags bundled together, dirty shorts and shirts missing buttons. As we ate our lunch in the shelter of the school bus, curious faces pressed against the glass. We organized games of basketball and futbol to distract both groups of kids while we finished painting inside. The locals played with a ferocity that surprised the AIS kids – elbows thrown, balls kicked with a vengeance. It had nothing to do with the team composition, for I had been watching an equally fierce game between the locals only minutes before. 

 What happens to your concept of the world when you are raised in such an environment ? As they told us in medical school on our first day – this is the most empathetic you will ever be to your patients. The same seems true of the new arrival in Africa. We slowly learn to curb our emotions, to swaddle our feelings in thick blankets of jaded experience.  So, what kind of person do you become if you are brought up with these images? I think you must begin to accept life as status quo – to believe the dynamic between you and the face on the other side of the glass as how things should be. How can there be an urge to fix what you do not see as broken? As I watched the kids from one country, but two very different worlds meet, I hoped that I would be proved wrong.