Two years ago, when I left South Africa and moved back to the U.S., I sorted through my 10,000+ digital photos from Itipini and labelled many of them with the names of the people. I’m glad I did. After my time back in Itipini earlier this month, I went back and compared my current crop of photos with the old ones. It was a real treat.

Here’s a child named Ayabulela more than three years ago.

Here he is earlier this month.

You might remember Ayabulela and his family from some earlier posts. Victoria, sadly, has not had as much success as someone like Khayakazi but everyone in the family is still alive. Even the smallest and most basic of steps count for something.