It had been nearly twenty years since my dad had been home to South Africa.

The summer before my junior year of high school, he decided it was time to go back. I had never understood his aversion to his country or his family, some of which he hadn t seen since before he left. For both my parents, this trip was to be a homecoming of sorts. As for me, I wasn t sure what kind of trip this was going to be. Still, I imagined how this trip could change my perspective. I wanted to be one of those people who come back from Africa knowing all the answers, the kind of people who return with a resolution to cure AIDS or solve world hunger. I wanted one of those eye-opening, life-changing experiences - the kind of experiences that you write about on your college applications. This trip seemed like the perfect opportunity. My dad found this idea particularly ludicrous. At the time, I thought he was jaded from his personal experiences in South Africa. I didn t know too much about how he grew up, or why it was so hard for him to go back home after all these years. I don t know why I thought I knew better than he did. For the first few weeks of our trip, it was hard for me to see why my dad had been unhappy here. Cape Town could have almost passed for any big American city. It was one of the most beautiful places I ve ever been. We did all the typical touristy things including visiting Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for twenty-seven years. This was college entrance essay gold. The third week of our trip, we visited Soweto, a township just outside of Johannesburg. Soweto is not the African village you see on those Save the Children commercials. Parts of Soweto could pass for any American suburb. Walk two blocks from that suburb, however, and you will find a very different world. People live in poorly constructed houses made of sheets of aluminum with dirt floors. We visited one of these houses where a woman named Bettie lived. Bettie was poor, but that did not stop her from opening her home to orphans, including those who were HIV positive. The one-roomed house she lived in could not have been much larger than your typical Notre Dame dorm room, but somehow Bettie found room to take care of eight orphans. Bettie s house, and others like it, was built as temporary housing for black migrant workers. These houses were constructed in the era of apartheid. The era, I realized, that my dad was raised in. What I had taken as a jaded bitterness was not that at all. It was hopelessness. Nave as I was, I thought that I would see that no one else had. I thought that I would bring awareness to a nearly invisible problem. But I was wrong. The wealthy are not unaware of the poverty that exists only hundreds of yards from their gated mansions. They are indifferent. My dad was born into this indifferent era. Only, my dad could not be indifferent. He did not stay behind the security walls and electric fences built by his family and others like them. He left, rather than stay and witness the inhumanity. Coming back nearly twenty years later, and still everything was the same. I left Soweto a little more wide-eyed than when I had found it. I was not shocked by the poverty, though it was greater than I expected. It was the apathy that I found so troublesome. Though apartheid had ended just after my dad s departure, little had changed in the poorest areas of South Africa. And realistically, nothing I

could do would change that. I never had that aha moment that I had imagined. There was no revelation, no moment of perfect clarity. I didn t end up writing about this experience for my college applications. I didn t come home ready to cure disease and save the children. I came home a little more like my dad. I came home disillusioned. My dad always told me that we all become our parents. In this aspect, however, I was not content to become like my father. While I shared his horror at the apathy in South Africa, I also could not allow his hopelessness to affect me or to change the way I felt about an entire country. So when I got back, I did things the best way I knew how. I started collections. I begged classmates for money. I bummed money off my parents coworkers. I was blunt. They need money, I would say. What these people need is money. Classless, maybe. But I was determined to make some sort of difference. I was curious to see my dad s reaction to my plans. He didn t laugh this time. He just started making calls. And ultimately, it paid off. Less than six months after leaving South Africa, I sent nearly three thousand dollars to Bettie. Since I started the first collection, my dad has continued to collect money every year. I know that when I go back to Soweto nothing will have changed. Bettie can now afford to better feed and take care of more children. But realistically, those children won t have any of the chances they deserve. The money I send will not be enough to make a significant difference. Still, I will not be a part of the apathetic generation. I will find the will to do something, even if that something will never be enough.