This is the story of the two sides of a wild heart

A few years back I met a man.
One of a kind.
A man who makes an imprint.
A man who will make a difference.

His story is maculated with despair, blood and raw pain.
Along with the dark there are big dreams to improve the world, profound insights and the indeniable truth that change is possible.

[The childhood]
This kid grew up in a township with a mother and an abusive father.
At the age of 13 his father was arrested.
Selling drugs.
Mom lost her job.
Desperation. Empty stomaches. Everyone must help out.
This child was cunning and couragous, wreckless even.
His career as a thief took off.

[The gangster]
He grew older.
He grew bolder.
He grew cruder.
Heartbeat.
He grew emptier and more careless.
He became a gangster.
Drugs. Threats at gunpoint. Fear. Kills. Crimes. Blood.
He became a leader of his klan.
Infamous in violent circles.
They grew more ruthless.
They grew more powerful.
"Bad men" as he himself puts it.
They ran from the law.
He grew exhausted.

[The surrender]
One evening he gave up, for the will to fight had run out.
The cops were on to him.
For years he had not slept in the same place two nights in a row.
He went home and as he sat by the door he knew what was coming.
The police would take him. Put him away.
Rock bottom.
Enough.
Enough now.
In silence he just waited...

[The prisoner]
Unevitable bars surrounding him.
The stay in prison did not frighten him, he took his chance of resting his mind.
As he felt a calm in his broken inside he begun studying.
A breaking point.
He knew that he would never again run down this road.
No more blackness, no more violence, no more intimidation.
No more.
Heartbeat.
His new self was not taken well within the bricked walls.
He took the isolation, the insults from the guards, the beatings.
He did not faulter, for he saw the bigger picture.
Bullying. Torture. Insight. Studying. Finding peace. Loneliness. Blood.
Over 10 years later freedom was his again.
He left captivity a new man.
A man with the vision, the calling really, to change the prospects of youth.
Prevent them from choosing the road to perdition. 
Heartbeat.

[The new job]
Two Swedish women with an idea of starting a recreational center in Langa met this recently freed man.
Their vision was about creating self-esteem in children.
They say something in him.
His experience of the dark side, his will to fight til his last breath, his dream of a better society where every child has a chance, his sincere belief that change is possible, his knowing what the hole inside can make you do, his natural leadership.
His heart.
He blew them off their feet.
They say IT in him.
This man ended up manager at Project Playground.
Heartbeat.
He never stops trying.
He never gets enough learning.
He never neglects his responsibilities.
He never turns off reflecting about the bigger picture.
He never gives up fighting for the future of the children.
He never quits dreaming, hoping and believing.

[The core & the two extremes]
Fearlessness.
A constant hunger for a broader horizon.
Intelligence.
A natural in making people listen.
The burning longing to fill the hole inside.
Heartbeat. 
Ravishing passion.
Profound scars.
Savage-like blood that keeps rushing through the veins.
An inner drive combined with complete relentlessness.
A dreamy mind packed with images of a better life.

One man with a tsunami-like force inside.
At the crossroads there are two possible roads.
One will eventually lead into total darkness.
The other into dazzling light.
Only two extremes can spring from such a core.

...For this is a story of a wild heart.

A remarkable will to hang

Langa stadium.
Banners.
Prizes.
Soccer balls.
Empty chips bags & sweaty socks.
Cheers.
Warn autumn winds.
A perfect ceremony performed by trolls before the finals.

The annual PPG soccer tournament.
20 teams in various age categories fighting for a trophy.

What struck me far most was one specific thing.
It was not the outstanding work of the staff with their super professional FBI-looking walkies.
Neither was it the fighting spirit of the teams, as they sang when they entered the field with a completely syncronized rhythm.
It was not the sincere joy of the proud parents cheering for their kids.
Not even an altogether seemingly spotless tournament under a deepblue sky could top the list of strike-me-mosts.

#1: The will to hang

There were people everywhere.
Overjoyed cheerful crowds.
All ages. Men and women.
All different persons with the same immense longing to have a reason to come together.
To feel that we have something in common, some bond that keeps us connected to one other.
A bond. Any bond.
The dammed up will to hang was overwhelming.

Glimpses of a soccer tournament in a township somewhere in South Africa
Pictures of a feeling of fellowship

The will to hang.
For really, any reason is a good reason to be united.

Together we are less lonely.

That certain place

They say the human mind strives to comprehend its corporal emotions.
That once we grasp what we feel we find peace.

I say that there is something even greater than that.
The complete opposite.
When we are left with an emotion too big to embrace.
A bit more than human, it would seem.
It just remains there.
Unmovable with a touch of magic sprinkled on top of it.
No logic applicable.
All reasons in the world do not suffice to explain it.

I say that such emotions define us, transform us, deepen us and make us believe.
I say that a certain place in a township just ouside of Cape Town has that impact.

Hello again Project Playground.
Yes, you have been missed.

This is the story of the silent happiness

The office in Langa.
Crowded in the afternoons.
Staff & trolls running in and out to fetch stuff.

I overheard a conversation.
About a boy. 
The destiny of a child I never met, but could not help being captured by.
Someone whose story should be told to the world.
Here it is:

16 years ago a child was born.
A boy.
He grew up on a farm somewhere in the countryside outside of Cape Town.
Goats. Crops. Chores.
A lot to take care of to keep the farm going.
His guardians did not see it. They did not know it. They loved him.
His indigence to interact with other people.
The seasons changed.
The years passed.
The farm needed him. His family needed him. He needed more.

Fate saw to him ending up on Project Playground one day in October 2012.
In the middle of the troll-army.
The mess. The constant interaction. The laughter. The friends. The challenges. The neverending chattering.
He joined Photography-class.
The joy of this creative boy; no language houses words big enough to embrace it.
 A ray of light.
A second chance.
My turn now.
Waving to everyone around as he cannot contain his beatification.
Surrounded by troll-friends.
Creative stimuli.
People speak of him as the child with the light inside.
Crazy contagious.

16 years.
No school.
Analphabet.
He keeps silent for he can hardly speak.
He does not know English.
He can merely master his mother tongue; Xhosa.

His guardians did not see it. They did not know it. They loved him.

I call you "The silent happiness".

Frozen in time

Tick-tack.
Time flies.

Seconds turn into minutes. Minutes turn into hours. Hours eventually turn into years.
The future becomes the present. The present becomes the past.
What was once now is but a memory of it.
Time is fair and simultaneously it shows no mercy.
Time does not care nor does it retaliate.
The strident voice of time calling the same words throughout history:
"Try evading me and I will capture you. Try capturing me and I will flee you. Leave me be".
Time just is.

Two years earlier
An NGO opened their doors to the people of a black South African township called Langa.
Their idea was to empower children, increasing their self-esteem through play and by doing so improving the prospects of the up-growing generation and of society as a whole.
Change is possible.
One big family.
Respect & justice.
The right to a childhood.
The two Swedish women who founded the organization named it Project Playground.

The day before
Everything must be ready for tomorrow.
Tick-tack. 
Sunshine.
Clean the toilets.
Put up the photo gallery.
Buy the missing supplies.
Sunset. 
Clear the square.
Decorate the various fore- and backgrounds.
Dim twilight.
Set the tables.
Look through the program & rehearse again. And again.
Complete darkness. Stars.
Hang the welcome sign at the gate.
Fettle the whole area.
Close up the Big Hall.
Sleep. Dream now.

The afternoon
All the staff came early to attend the meeting.
Circle of chairs.
Words of gratitude, nostalgia and seriousness.
Words of where we've been, where we are and where we're going.
Everyone in suits and dresses.
High-heels and ties.
Thrills.
The guests will start arriving at 18:00 sharp.
Only a few hours away.
Tick-tack.

The evening
The air throughout the night was so over-brimmed with feeling, one could slice it up.
Even without one of those special "feeling-slicers" (which are so hard to come by), the attendants were served the emotion-desert of their lives.

Images tell more than a thousand words, hence:

The thoughts after
Some fractions time cannot touch.
As if there were some guardian out there who could perceive their true significance, and therefore protects them by never letting them fade out.
Moments frozen in history.
A stray night like this.

Project Playground's second anniversary.

Tick-tack.
Time flies.

This is the story of crystal clarity

Something's up at PPG.
Something that has never happened before.
A lifechanger is taking place at the center.

[Life, part I]
It may occur, every once in a while, far too rarely, that people astonish.
Surprise.
The size of their hearts blast every expectation and lets no tunnel vision unbroadened. 
They literally blow your mind.
For what they have on the inside.

[Eyes]
A team of opticians booked a flight to Cape Town not long ago.
Equipped to their teeth with lenses, optic machines and frames.
They had an objective. One star to follow. One common goal. Crystal clear.
Eyes.
Make people see.
Make trolls see.
Trolls who can never and will never afford to pay to see.
The eye-team aims to give a herd of trolls one of the five senses.
No chance of giving up until every single child has been examined.
Open your eyes.

[Misunderstanding]
One guy could hardly read and write.
Mentally disabled, was the conclusion of the board of education.
They shipped him off to a "special school".
He stayed there.
The eye-team found that this boy was nearly blind.
He could merely count his own fingers.
As they put the correct lenses in front of his eyes something happened.
Something that had never happened before.
He could see.
Full vision. Crystal clear.
As he red the letter-board tears filled up his eyes.
Pure, sincere and uncontrolled happiness.
I CAN SEE!
This is what it feels like to see!

[Life, part II]
More than half of all trolls need glasses.
Without the eye-team, their vision would never have been considered or even thought of.

Your effort has blown minds.
You are a group of those people. 

The boy, who now is able to see, is 20 years old.

The weight of the world

A day of pain.
Weight on one's shoulders.
Wobbly to stand.
Tough not to fall when the wind starts challenging how much storm you can put up with.
The air feels a bit sticky and heavy to breathe.
Surrounded by poverty, drugs and injustice.
The echo of the loneliness leaves the eardrums bloody.
The smell of the tears of the people corroding both heart and mind.
The vision of a neverending struggle like a thick grey fog, closing in from every direction.
Make it stop hurting!
The dark temptation of just letting go. Give in. Give up.
Void.

Friday in Langa.
Around lunch time at the center.
The rain was pouring down as if this were its last chance to wet the earth.

A long staff meeting had just taken place.
A really good one.
At Fridays lunch always follows. One of those together-lunches. Bonding through food.
A circle of lunch-eating PPG employees.
A team of friends.
Smiles, more grins and chattering.
Hopes and ideas for the improvement of the future of the little ones.
A better life.
Beliefs. Dreams. Fight. Action.

In that moment the load was lifted.
Gone.
Just like that.
That instant could not fit heaviness and despair.

The weight of the world.
Its ponderousness was overcome by a lunch in a township somewhere in Africa.