What do you do?

This is the question I keep asking myself.

I asked it 4 or so days ago when I and some others were on foot, deep in the bush, and just a few dozen feet from a herd of rhinoceros. The answer: run up the first tree you see. Fortunately we didn't have to do this, but as the wind shifted and their heads turned our way, my heart thudded in my chest. We hightailed it out of there.

I asked it when I got stuck in the mud again outside of Harrismith. The answer: jump up and down in the back of the bucky (pickup truck). Hope the wind doesn't shift so the rhinos don't come your way.

I also asked it today when we toured the squatter camps and township that is part of Bethlehem, Free State. We must have passed at least 4 or 5 tents that were being raised for funerals that will occur this weekend. We were told that in any given weekend in this township there are between 40-80 different funerals. What did I do? I felt like a jerk taking pictures of barefoot hungry children. When I toured a shack built in the squatter camp I surreptitiously left money on a table for the single umemployed woman with 3 children who opened her home to us. I cried at the daycare for AIDS orphans, even when they were singing and dancing for us. A social worker told me that only 50% or so were infected with HIV.

I ran into a miner the other day in Lesotho who asked me what the good news was from America. He asked me what answers America had for the problems in Africa. I told him that I wasn't sure what the answers were and that I didn't trust anybody who claimed to have the answers. He then tried to get my cell phone number. Everybody wants to come to America.

So what do you do? I will be working on this one for a while.