On Christmas Eve I went to visit Jason. As I sat in the office waiting, I could hear him asking the clinician, "Where is she, where is she?" I stood up to hug him and I could see where a fist graced his face.

He said that he was thinking about calling me. "I was!" he said, enthusiastically, assuring me that he was thinking about me. "Tell me about Africa," he asked.

The value of ten dollars is almost valueless. President Hamilton’s bill is as cent-less as President Washington’s dollar. My daughter invited three young girls from the church in South Africa to our hotel. The resort where we stayed had plenty of fun activities for them. They swam, they bowled, they played miniature golf.

We visited the place of rest, a place where I would in no way lay my head.

The place of rest is one of many informal settlements in South Africa. The settlements look like hundreds of makeshift clubhouses. They look like my seven-year-old gathered cardboard boxes and tin and made a place to play. But there are thousands of Africans who live in the settlements.

I noticed three boys sitting idly on the grass under a Nando’s chicken sign in a small South African plaza. You can easily tell that they’re homeless, living on the streets, beggars. Two of them were possibly 10 years old and the other about 15. They wore dirt; you could see the dust on their clothes, their heads, and their faces.