When I first got here, I lived in poverty and my needs were simply water, food and heat. When those needs were not being met, I couldn’t think about community or companionship. Only mere survival. I think this is how poverty spreads and continues. When we are struggling to survive, we forget to love. Love reminds us to take care of each other. This is how we grow. Growth means we are well in body, mind and spirit, thereby helping to end material and emotional poverty. There is an abundance of material poverty here. In America, there is an abundance of emotional poverty. We turn to things instead of each other or nature. We get addicted to these things. Addiction is a privilege . It means there is an excess of something to consume. I couldn’t afford to drink, eat, shop or consume anything in excess. It’s not like in the States when you don’t have the extra money. It’s literally food or bottle of wine; food or money for transport to get into town for your necessities . This is why drinking is a huge problem here. No one drinks occasionally or casually. If you choose to buy alcohol, then you choose to neglect the means for basic provisions. Consequently, families spiral down because everyone relies so heavily on one another. For me personally now, alcohol is a privilege to have only if I feel well-provided for in body, mind and spirit. It is really nice to enjoy a glass of South African wine. This is one of privileges I have accepted for myself while here. It’s difficult, because first I reasoned, if they are unable to have this, then why should I? Though in accepting how I was formed as an individual in a privileged culture, and in doing what makes me healthy and happy, then I am able to help others be and do the same. Sometimes when I see, especially in the children, how they are so happy with so little, I get jealous that this is all they’ve ever known. What is my work here? I get so concerned with the effectiveness of my presence. I want to help, then the work gets so challenging and difficult that I just want to be a home alone writing or drawing. August is the month of winds! Next month when the air is more peaceful and warm with summer coming, I will hang up my hammock from the rafters behind my house. I wonder what the Zulus will say. I don’ think they’ve seen a hammock before.