Today, I am off to visit my first non-profit — Fikelela’s Children’s Centre, a rural township short-term shelter which places young orphans (of mothers who have died from AIDS) in foster homes. I was lucky to secure a ride from the project leader, as Khayelitsha, where it’s based, is far from the city.

I’m realizing that many of the non-profits I’m visiting are in some very remote areas and it’s going to take more $$ than I imagined to get to them. For instance, it will cost me $75-100 to get to the MOSAIC Training, Service, and Healing Centre for Women (an NGO with a specific focus on preventing and reducing abuse and domestic violence, particularly for women and youth living in disadvantaged communities) from the city centre by Taxi; I’ve been advised not to take the bus (only a taxi that will wait).

It’s funny, no matter how much you plan and budget, you can never anticipate the true cost of living (or traveling) anywhere until you arrive. Now that I’ve been here for a few days, and have gotten on the phone with folks I’ve been emailing back and forth for the past month, it’s clear that they’re either farther away (or getting to them will be less straight forward) than I’d imagined. Mind you, this isn’t the case for everyone. But it is for enough that I am now being forced to be extra conservative with the funds I do have.

My fundraising campaign has done so well — raised over $9K — but before the campaign is over (by July 30, 6 days from now), I am going to need to reach $10K to be on the safe side. Remember, this trip is costing me well over $15K to plan. I’ll be gone for 6 months; that’s 6 months worth of living expenses outside of your home. I’ll need all the help I can get.

You all are the reason I made it here in the first place. I have my savings, so I’m sure I can manage quite nicely till the funds raised from my campaign are disbursed in mid-August. But given that transportation to rural areas (in which many of the non-profits I’m visiting are based) is more expensive than I imagined, I’ll definitely need more relief funds than I’d originally anticipated.

Most importantly, I do NOT want to have to tell anyone that I can’t make it to visit them based on lack of funds. They are already used to hearing the white people that are based in Cape Town constantly talk about how “dangerous and unsafe” their communities are; I won’t be another voice that echoes that. I’m going where I’ve been invited, even if it costs a little extra to get there.

Would you be able to donate $10-50 more to make sure I can reach all the non-profits I promised I’d visit? With 140 Love Warriors who have contributed already, reaching the $10K mark is definitely a possibility; if everyone donated $20 more dollars, we’d surpass that goal. So let’s make it happen. We’re only $855 away!

Contribute one more time to help finish what we started: http://www.indiegogo.com/africansforafrica

Let’s do this :)