Mia Walterson
Manager of Administrative Programs and Operations,
HFH of East King County, Redmond, Wash.

The stars are different here. The sky I have used to mark my place on this earth tilts the opposite direction. Yet, instead of feeling lost, it is as if I have arrived at the beginning of a dream. Two dreams really.

Durban, South Africa, was my first Jimmy Carter Work Project. It was also my first visit to South Africa. I had wished for, prayed for and worked for both events at several points in my life. Even decades ago, as I first imagined the possibilities, I knew my participation in either event would change my life. I believed that a visit to the homeland of Mandela and the birthplace of apartheid could do nothing but strengthen my perspective on human rights. Couple that event with the grace and love that surround a Habitat for Humanity build, let alone a Carter Project, and there was no doubt I had landed in the middle of a miracle. I never forgot that feeling.

Perhaps that's because there were so many reminders, which started on the bus from the airport as we drove past the townships on the edge of Durban. Our loud bantering and laughter stopped. Silence moved through the bus as we remembered the reason we had come. As children ran down the narrow path between the homes made from pieces of metal, old traffic signs, wooden pallets and blue tarps, they waved and smiled. We waved back as they continued to run alongside the bus. It was a perfect welcoming by those that matter most: the children.

Yet, it is the passion and enthusiasm of the work site that I remember most. It was contagious. Women from Durban and those from the Zulu townships gathered in circles to sing and dance. As the week continued, the circles grew, and the dancing moved from the streets into the houses and included men and women from all parts of the world. I met people of different ancestry, ethnicity and faith. I asked questions of the South African people. I listened to the stories of the Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims. I discussed the political struggle with Afrikaners and members of the Durban City Council. I discovered the man that I had been working next to for several days grew up 15 minutes from the Midwest town where I spent my childhood.

Don't get me wrong. In between all the dancing and talking, we did get some building done. I learned how to lay blocks and install a tile roof from a group of Habitat 'lifers' who guided those of us new to the build. They shared their knowledge with patience and encouragement. They told stories about previous builds and about encounters with Jimmy Carter and Millard Fuller. They talked of the families they had built homes for as if they were relatives.

It was there, in the middle of 4,000 volunteers, on the other side of the world that I felt as if I belonged. After the closing celebration, on the last night of my stay, I watched from my hotel room as the moon rose over the Indian Ocean. I noticed that it too was different, filling up from bottom to top, not side-to-side as I had grown used to seeing. It was at that moment I marked my new place in the world and promised to join the Jimmy Carter Work Project of 2003. I think it was then that I, too, became a "lifer."


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