Schoolgirl. One morning we rode along with a team of South African volunteers who work in the Soshanguve township. Their primary focus is caring for kids who have been orphaned by AIDS.

 

They manage, on a tiny budget, to keep track of several hundred kids in the neighborhood who are without parents, some of them living with relatives and others on their own. They provide beds in a local community center for some of them, and health care when possible, but for most of the kids the only thing the volunteers have to offer is honest compassion and the understanding someone is looking out for them.

 

This girl was one of the kids under their care. I asked her and a couple others to let me take their pictures (to which they dutifully complied). This of course became the major recess time attraction. You may be able to see what I was seeing through the lens, but I wish you could see the 150 other kids who were raucously gathered in a close semicircle behind and beside me.