ANNIQUE

As we get ready to take another group of teenagers (5 from Dorchester and 5 from the suburbs) to South Africa this summer, I would like to take a moment to share an experience from last year's trip.

I met Annique in Naledi, South Africa in July 2007. We had returned to Naledi, a rural township outside Pretoria, with supplies and gifts for some of the orphan-led households there; households where children and teenagers were raising younger siblings and caring for sick relatives after parents and other proximate caregivers had died of AIDS. Since November 2006, when her mother died at age 38, Louisa, now 18, has been raising her 14-year-old sister Annique, her 10-year-old brother Tshepo, and caring full-time for her blind grandmother. On our first visit, a week earlier, her younger sister Annique had taken a liking to my sunglasses. I gave them to her and she wore them the entire day, posing and asking passersby, “So beautiful, right?” When we left that first day, after determining what kinds of goods and supplies might help these young families get through the winter, we challenged the teenagers we had brought on the trip to think of a gift that they might bring back to a young person they had connected with in town. For Annique, I went and found a fabulous pair of sunglasses with rhinestones and big frames -- the kind you see movie stars wearing on TV. I knew this might not have been the most effective use of my $20 dollars in Africa, but I also knew that she would just love them.

When we returned, I asked her while sitting and talking, “What would you think if I had a gift for you?” She put her hands on her knee and fought back a smile with great effort, “I would be so so so happy.” I gave her the small package. Its size, against her burgeoning uncertainty at whether I was serious, shrank before my eyes. Ebullient, she ripped it open, gasping with her mouth open. She then quickly went and hid them away -- it appears possession between peers there is a bit more fluid than I as an American had anticipated -- and rejoined the group. As we made the rounds together and met with the families in their homes, Annique could not stop smiling. She just couldn’t do it. It was one of the most beautiful things that I, an American coming from a possession-obsessed culture where the meaning of material things has been watered down to the point of adulteration, had ever seen.

As we entered Louisa and Annique’s house, and I only call it a “house” because I wish to be respectful, I had to do everything in my power not to break down. It was a small dwelling with tin walls and a tin roof. This was not a house. In all honesty, it was what Americans would refer to as a tin shack. Whatever you want to call it, it was not the commodious residence that these aureate souls deserved. It hit home hard. In the sense of material wealth, these of God’s children had nothing. Absolutely nothing. And there we were staying in the suburbs with heat, hot water and everything else we could possibly want when the inhospitable cold of night came on.

I looked around at the spaces between the door and tin walls. Never mind heat, there wasn’t even any insulation. As slanted shafts of sunlight streamed in and smattered the corrugated grey metal, the space presaged a cold at nightfall that made me shudder. The lone technological accoutrement was a TV that even the poorest American would think twice about displaying in the shabbiest living room. As we stood there, I remember thinking, furiously blinking back tears behind my sunglasses, “This just can’t be. People this good just can’t live in places like this. How can such courageous, resplendent souls have so little? How can an 18-year-old that is essentially missing out on her childhood for the sake of others -- and without complaint, for that matter -- live like this? It just can’t be. How does the world not know about this? How can people in wealthy nations allow this to happen? How can I, as one of them, allow this to happen?” And these emotions were even further exacerbated when I realized, shamefully, that I was transposing my standard of living onto people that had more happiness than I; people who kept their humble lodgings far tidier and more organized than I had ever kept mine. The rugs were neatly laid out with shoes in a row. The pots and pans were perfectly arranged. There was great dignity there; more than I had ever shown the places I had lived. It was immaculate. And they were happy -- at least happy compared to most people I know in America. And there I was imposing my concept of sufficiency on them.

As we began to file out, Annique pulled me quietly aside. “I want you to have this,” she said, as she took a necklace she had been wearing from around her neck and gave it to me. I didn’t know what to do. As a “rich” American who had everything he could want in the world, I couldn’t possibly accept it; it was quite literally one of the few -- if not the only -- pieces of jewelry she owned. But I knew that she would be deeply offended if I refused her gift to me. I was floored. As an occasion where the most profound “Thank you” just did not do, I looked at her and gave her a hug with what remaining emotions I had. “Annique, this is just so kind of you,” I implored, as earnestly as I have ever tried to tell anyone anything.

On the walk home, the group ambled into smaller groups and talked and laughed. A lazy soccer ball, shoes and red dust, kicked back and forth. I held the necklace tightly in my hand. Ruefully, we said our goodbyes and headed back to our heated house in the suburbs. As we walked to the house from the garage, we could already see our breath in the cold. At a somber debrief with the students later that night, I talked about the widow giving her last coins in the book of Luke. As I drew the parallel to Annique’s necklace and told the students that she had given it to me, one of the teenage girls in the group gasped for air. In a bit of a panic, I paused, as she interjected, desperate with emotion, “Oh my gosh! She gave you that necklace?!?! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!!!!!!” she repeated over and over again, with her hands over her mouth. I started to get nervous, as if I had stolen it or something. “Yeah, why? What’s wrong?” I asked, with a pit forming in my stomach. After a long pause, she whispered, “That was the necklace her mother gave her before she died of AIDS.”

Thank you, Annique. Thank you.

TRUTH OR JAIL

Since this article ran in the Bay State Banner, things have taken a turn for the worse for Thomas. After testifying under the threat of jail, he relocated out of state amid concerns for his safety.

Shortly after he moved, the defendant in the case, on trial for shooting someone in the head and nearly killing him, was found not guilty, meaning that in the end 18-year-old Thomas gave up living near his friends, family, girlfriend, school, sports teams and summer job for nothing.

And not surprisingly, it's a good thing he did move away because the defendant was seen in the neighborhood shortly after the verdict.

In the end, Thomas found a job and it appears that this move will work out for him in the long run. But the big picture here raises serious concerns.

Everyone that knows Thomas in the neighborhood, from peers to relatives and friends -- and we are talking over 100 people here -- has heard about what happened to him after he testified. They now know that if they testify in a case they will have to give up everything important to them here and move away.

As a result of this case, there are now at least one hundred people that will never ever step forward if they see a shooting or have information that could help the police. And given that there are hundreds of shooting cases just like this one year after year, the number of people that feel this way is growing.

When law-abiding residents that witness crimes must choose between coming forward and giving up life as they know it, it is an indication that we are failing as a society.