'We were greeted by spectacular tribal dances'

Catherine Healy, TY student from Portmarnock Community School, explains how her recent 16-day journey to South Africa with Amawele changed her life.

AS ONE OF 33 students from Portmarnock Community School who embarked on a trip to South Africa, I want to tell you how our lives have been changed by a 16-day journey.

Here's what happened after I read the words: "We would like to inform you that your daughter has been accepted onto Portmarnock Community School's 2008 Humanitarian Trip to South Africa . . ."

It was only last year that my school began working with the Amawele School Twinning project and Marian Finucane's charity - Friends in Ireland. TY students from our school went to Africa in 2007 and our aim, in 2008, was to build a house for young orphans with a feeding centre to complement the construction completed by last year's team.

We also wanted our work to involve setting up a cultural exchange network. So we brought over laptops for use by the local students and planned to teach some Irish music and dance. Armed with bodhráns, tin whistles, fiddles and hurleys, we Dubs were gearing up to leave a lasting impression on our African counterparts.

From movie premieres, Christmas trees and cake sales to church collections, golf outings and dinner nights, we clawed at every market to raise funds for our work. We filled container upon container with equipment, medicines, clothes and staple foods to be shipped away to the area of KwaZulu Natal that we were going to.

The weeks coming up to our departure date involved intense preparation and planning. The question became more frequent: "Ya must be lookin' forward to it, yeah?" and the answer became more uniform and blase: "Yeah! Can't wait." But to be honest, we really didn't know what to expect.

Finally the day came when we headed off. Excitement rose as our aircraft, which had been in flight for 13 hours, lowered itself upon the twinkling city of Cape Town where we stayed for one night.

The next morning, we visited Robben Island where Nelson Mandela, the man who fought apartheid, languished in a tiny cell for so many years. We quickly saw how the past was strongly felt today in the country and, wherever we went, people would talk with dark eyes of their troubled lives. We were slowly becoming aware of the bloodshed and inequality that South Africa has been immersed in.

How unaware we were at first that only half an hour from this wealthy city were the dark clusters of shacks known as the townships.

Our base for the next two weeks was to be Ingeli Lodge, a cosy spot outside the city of Kokstad. We could decide what kind of work to do every day - I usually went to schools to teach IT or participate in a cultural programme; others went to a building site, to a local creche which needed decorating or to the mobile clinics that were set up in the district.

Every day we became emotional and were overwhelmed at the energy and kindness with which we were welcomed into these modest, rural communities.

In one of the schools, there was an average of 80 students per damp, dusty classroom, with six using a desk made for two. Their toilet was a pit in the sandy ground, their only water source a tap in the yard, and they had no electricity. Yet we were greeted with a spectacular welcome of tribal dances, the beating of drums and students marching in full tribal costume.

The hairs at the backs of our necks stood at the sheer soul and passion with which they burst into song. A gorgeous meal was prepared for us by the elders over a fire. A room had even been freshly painted in our honour with a banner overhead saying, "Welcome". For fun, we taught a bit of Irish dancing and orchestrated a céilí dance, with the whole of Sacred Heart Senior School out in the yard after a few days! Our little Irishisms started to catch on, and was a sight to behold. They loved "Story Horse" and "Slán a chara" and in turn, we'd say "Molwene" or "Rhonanai".

My mother says, "Charity begins at home". Well, our charity has begun away from home but, now motivated, I can assure you it won't stop there. We've been carved, willing or not, into people that care. We want a fair world. Never again will we ignore the images in newspapers and the footage on TV.

We've seen the conditions of the shanty towns, we've smelled the sewer water and we've felt their skinny, skinny arms brush against ours. We've been there and we've seen what it's like.

I think about South Africa every single day; listening to kids around me talk about what car they're getting next year, or moan about their "kip of a school".

Our project has undertaken what many Dublin kids can only dream of, but we've left a track in the murky forest of cultural exchange - a track we want lit up for all to see and follow.