From a Crate to a Cruise Ship

Many of you are aware of our involvement with an informal settlement (squatter camp community) in Hermanus. Today, as I help one of my ‘Sparklekids’ organize a Schengen visa, flights, travel insurance, etc., while in the middle of our own busy travel schedule, I am tempted to get frustrated. Then I remember what it has taken this young lady to get to where she is now. The hard work and pure determination to take herself and her family out of poverty. (Sparklekids is an organization we partner with to help young people move from a place of disadvantage to self-support.)

Thandiwe did not have an easy start in life, growing up in a rural village where she, her mom, and her siblings were kicked out by her father, forcing them to move in with their grandma. The poverty was so severe she remembers how on cold winter mornings, they would cover their feet in warm cow dung for warmth. They had little money for food, let alone shoes.

Thandi had to drop out of high school to look for a better future and ended up in Hermanus. This is where we discovered her, sitting on a crate selling curios to tourists, earning next to nothing for a long day’s work. Something about this bright, feisty girl couldn’t be ignored.

We have built a network of relationships with members of the community and local businesses over many years, for it really takes a community to foster change. Consequently, the next day we were able to find her work at a local beauty salon. It wasn’t long before Thandi discovered her gift as a massage therapist, many of her clients commenting that she “has healing hands.” A Dutch couple who heard her story and had experienced her gift, took her under their wings and partnered with us to send her to the top Beauty School in Cape Town. Cutting a long story short, her journey was filled with struggle, being laughed at by fellow students, and many tears. But with determination and a few miracles along the way, Thandi became a beauty therapist, qualifying top of her class. This got her noticed by an International firm that recruited beauty therapists for cruise ships.

What?! Against the odds, this tiny young girl, who was living in a shack made of scrap metal, might have the opportunity to work on an international cruise ship!

After I had spent hours with her on paperwork, applications, interviews, and travel arrangements, the day had arrived to say farewell to Thandi. This girl, who, due to fear, had never stepped on an escalator up to that day, was now boarding a flight to JFK airport in New York and making her way to meet the ship that would be her home for the next 9 months.

Since her virgin cruise, Thandi has had two more 9-month contracts, and I am busy helping her arrange her fourth. With some financial advice, she was able to invest her earnings and fulfilled her dream of building her family a home.

The husband of the couple who helped her with her studies has sadly passed away. This filmmaker had an extraordinary life and lived all over the world. In his final days, he said to his wife that the difference he made in Thandi’s life was one of the few things that really mattered in the end.

This is just one of the amazing souls we are privileged to help in their journey toward a more meaningful life. Whatever action enriches the lives of others is a way in which love expresses itself. Whether that is giving of your time or supporting those who do. And ultimately, love is all that remains.