All Alone

Clara here.

I am going to talk about after meeting Zwakele, which was an amazing experience! We got to go to a child-headed household—which means that there are children “heading” the household and there are no parents or guardians due to the parents or grandparents dying and not being able to leave them with anyone. So the two teenagers we met were named Mosa (who was 19) and Theresa (who was 15). Mosa played soccer on a team and said he went to practice every day after school before his three hours of homework. And Theresa cooked the meals for the two of them along with homework and taking care of the house world vision built for the two of them. She loves to draw. They became orphans when Mosa was 8 and Theresa was five. So young! It astonished me how put together and efficient they were. They both were good students with dreams of becoming a doctor and teacher. They attend church every Sunday and Mosa used to play the keyboard during worship. You may be thinking….how do they get money for food, or even school? Well, they don’t always have enough money for food and their neighbor brings them corn mush when they can’t buy any food, which apparently happens to them a lot. So imagine corn mush for every meal a couple days a week. And to afford school… world vision supports them as well as the government and Theresa Is sponsored. Their house had two rooms and the one I went into had two beds and a nightstand in between, that’s it! We were able to provide them with four months of food and supplies for everyday life in Africa! When we took pictures of them, Mosa said “let me take a picture with my food.” I can only imagine it will feel great to support themselves for a while. Overall, I was surprised at how kind and well put together they were, as I said before. I hope we will be able to keep in touch with them and see how they are doing. I can’t imagine life without my parents starting at such a young age. They will go far in life! I was so lucky to have met them on this trip.