Back down to earth...

This week saw my dad and myself being contracted out to a mining company to do the photos and video for a project. The government forces mining companies to enrich the communities they mine in by employing a certain number of people from that community, and also to comply to certain needs of the community. They have some fancy name for it, but bugger if I can remember what it is.

This project took us into the heart of some really poor communities and also made me see a side of life that you rarely hear about in papers or the news. Nothing much I could really say to try and make you understand, but as always I was an avid cellphone snapper. One of the places I can however mention, was a feeding scheme in Hlobane. It used to be a deep shaft coal mine in our municipal district some 20 years ago and supported a massive community of about 20 000 people. This mine eventually became economically stagnant and got abandoned like many others around our country....

Long story shortened, this feeding scheme provides for the kids of the community by giving them cooked meals. These kids vary in age from 5 to 16 and we were there when one of these meals was being served. The government provides R4-50 per kid(basically 2 slices of bread with jam and a glass of water per kid) for a meal...and the mine substitutes an additional R6-00 to make sure these kids actually do get a full belly.


My apologies if some of you have seen the pictures before, or even if they offend you, but this broke my heart to be around people that live every day without complaints. And it made me realise to be very thankful for what I have.

Not everything is sad and dreary though, we got to experience some rare sights too :)

Enjoy and remeber....be thankful for what you have, there are many less fortunate than you!