Braii at Mario's in Heideveld

Following an intense boat ride back from Robben Island, we traveled to Mario's house for tea. His house was readily decorated for a BBQ. 

There we met Mario, Michelle, their son Isaiah, and Robbie. Michelle is Mario's wife,and Robbie and Mario run the GCU together. Soon after our arrival the banging beats started dropping and delicious home made food began being served. A vast variety of chicken, pasta dishes and snoek were presented to us along with a selection of drinks. 
After having our fair share of the meal we began conversing with Mario, Robbie and the family. 

We were shown around different parts of their house which included: a community kitchen where Michelle cooked for the local kids and church; their newly converted living space which was the same size as the average British living room; and a home made extension which consisted of corrugated metal and wooding cladding. This really brought home the difference between their lives and ours, and made us appreciate the generosity which we were shown.
These amazing people contribute so much to their local community and sacrifice a lot of their personal time, money and living space to help others, despite not being wealthy themselves. During the time with Mario we also discussed how the western media portrays township life in South Africa and how this differs from reality. 

Michelle then brought out an abundance of finger licking dessert. Mario gave us an emotional speech about how our contributions help make their society a better place to live. This impacted some of the members of our group enough to make us cry - but not a single tear touched the cheeks of Leon or Alex that night or ever.

   We left Mario a team blue hoodie as a way of thanking him for his generosity,and then said our farewells to him, his family and Robbie.

By Leon and Alex