Bitten by the bug...
I have always known that giving back was something I loved to do. I have always known that food security and working with the environment are things that I want to educate the world about. Working at Umthathi has been awesome because they combine everything that I have always wanted to do within their organization. Spending the last few weeks with them has helped me grow enormously as a person. It has made me very happy as well, that inner happiness you get when someone says thank you and you know its coming from deep down in their heart, which is very different from the happiness I get when I buy a new pair of shoes which makes me very happy, so I enjoyed that feeling I got cause I don’t feel it very often.
I was a science major in high school, I knew I always wanted to work in the environment field, I was in love with geography. Every year in high school my career changed, ranging from wanting to be a volcanologist to studying El Ninas and La Ninas to helping save our planet from this climate change horror we living in now due to global warming. I lost sight of that when I got to varsity and decided to pursue my other love of media instead of my love of the planet. I sat in on a climate change workshop hosted by Umthathi for the Linomtha grandmas and grandpas and I have never been as happy as I was that day. Sitting there being taught about the core again and the earths structure and how global warming came about took me back years ago when I sat in the front row in Mr Hamlin’s class learning about how I could change the world, I felt like a kid again and it was amazing. To make it better I saw how that one workshop affected the people who were learning from it. They were concerned with what was happening to our world and all sorts of questions on how we can change things or make things better were just flying around the room. This woke up things in me I had long forgotten, it made me wanna carry on with that part of my life, figure out those dreams and not just leave them behind again like I had done before. Plans of planting trees and having my own green house were made, conducting more research on our environment and using my journalistic skills to educate more people were the things that were going around in my head. I never knew that I could combine my love for conserving the earth with my love for the media, now I have the opportunity to do everything that makes me happy, I get to have the best of both worlds.
My experience with Umthathi showed me that there is so much that one can do to make the world they live in a better place and even the smallest things do make a difference. The boss lady at Umthathi Monica, told me about the bug, the giving back bug and how once you’re stung, there is no way you can run away from it. I don’t think I fully understood people who worked for NGOs and did not get paid much but they were happy about it but after spending time with the people who work at Umthathi I could see that giving back and helping people was more reward than anything else for them. I like the good life, the luxurious, very comfortable good life and to get that I need lots money and I would need a job that will make me that money but working with Umthathi has challenged me a bit. I think I was bitten by the bug because the more time I spent there and I saw the difference Umthathi was making, the less the material things mattered to me and the more I wanted to change the world. The more time I spent with Umthathi, the less time I thought about myself and what I wanted, I stopped being selfish and I started seeing the bigger picture, it’s not just about me. So right now I’m conflicted, I don’t know if I’m ready to give up my life of luxury to a life of simplicity but full of that inner happiness just yet but what I do know is that I need to start helping out my fellow humans, maybe I might just work super hard to make lots of money then have an NGO myself, that way I get the best of both worlds. My time with Umthathi is one that will be treasured, it made me look at myself as a person and the world that we live in, it gave me hope that things can get better and I met amazing people during my time there. I can honestly say this was one of my best experiences while living in Grahamstown and it’s something I will forever be grateful for.
