Today, I fell in love.

It started innocently enough. Our driver pulled off a street lined with corrugated metal and plywood shacks and into a dusty parking lot. As I listened to the gravel crunch beneath our tires, I tried to digest the two distinct worlds I had seen since my arrival less than 48 hours ago.

Yesterday I stood on Signal Hill under the grandeur of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head and watched the sunlight dance across the endless sea. Then, it was onto Camps Bay Beach where families frolicked in the surf and the cool white sand wedged between my toes. Well dressed locals sauntered down the promenade and young men with flowing blond hair tossed surfboards into open air jeeps and peeled out to the latest Jay-Z song.

Today I question how this other side of Cape Town can possibly co-exist only a few kilometres away from the paradise I saw yesterday. A cardboard sign announcing a barber shop in jagged jiffy marker sat propped against the graffitied exterior of a shipping container. Children wandered barefoot and unwatched through streets littered with garbage, a cacophony of horns, and rusted out cars missing their mufflers.

As we pulled through the narrow alley and around the back of a tiny building with peeling green paint, I sat in my stupor of disbelief and cursed the unfairness of life.

When, the driver cut the engine, I followed him out of the van and into the late fall sunshine. I wondered why we had stopped but within seconds, I saw them. Faces backlit with excitement as they ran to the door shouting a Xhosa greeting that I later learned to mean, “my white people”.

I had not even taken two steps onto the bare cement floor when ten tiny sets of arms wrapped around me from all sides and I stood gridlocked in their tight embrace. Tears immediately welled in my eyes and I could do nothing to stop them from making their slow descent down my dusty cheeks.

Then, just after the teacher called them back to their places and they began to sing, I saw him and my heart whistled softly to my knees. Tight curls. Two feet tall. Brilliant white smile. His chocolate eyes would not leave mine as he clapped, sang, and danced with the other forty students who shared this tiny pre-school room.

When the song finished, he bounded over to hug me and my mind flashed through scenarios where I could avoid having to leave him. Far too soon, the driver signalled that our time had ended and when I finally turned to go, his tiny little hand continued to ferociously grip mine. In that moment, we didn’t need words because all I felt was love.

Even though I will not see this beautiful little boy again, my throat thickens just thinking about him. If these children who come from so little can so freely share their love, we have no excuses.

I have a feeling that each day will find me crashing further and further into love… with this country, its people, and most of all its children. Now I am off to hunt down more Kleenex as I’m sure the tidal wave of emotion has only just begun.