Signs

I see signs now all the time…

During the week we visited the Umlazi Place of Safety. This is a facility that takes in children and teenagers when they don’t have families that can care for them. They might be abandoned, have parents who cannot care for them, or stay temporarily because of behavioural problems. We toured the centre and saw the different areas where babies and toddlers are cared for while the older children were at the on-site school. The baby facility has capacity for 11 babies, cared for by two staff members. While we were there a tiny newborn was being tended to at the changing table while the others lay on rugs on the floor. One was crying, but settled when Grace stroked her softly on the arm. I wondered how they cope when all the babies decide to cry at once. The centre is under-staffed, and struggles because they both cannot afford more staff and cannot find suitably qualified staff. It seems South Africa is at this strange junction where unemployment is huge but there are also no people qualified to do the jobs that centres like Place of Safety are crying out for. On the way home I noticed that all the signs that line the M13 are in the process of being replaced. The signs are identical, save for a new (ugly) font and being made of reflective material. Reflection is what’s needed, certainly, but the signs point to a greater need elsewhere.

Akwande

Those of you playing along at home may remember the Akwande Garden Project that was started by Peer Educators and their facilitator, Phummy, at Qhilika. Recently I was at Qhilika and got to see the gardens (there are heaps!) first hand. I was so pleased to see the massive crops of spinach that have grown from the tiny seedlings I first saw in the office a few months ago. The gardens are also used in agriculture lessons by other students, and when I visited they were being busily attended to by students with donated tools also arranged by Phummy. The gardens were a happy, vibrant place, swarming with activity, and seemed to really bring the students together. It’s great to see a project pioneered by Peer Educators and their facilitator that will have such a broad impact on the school community.

Before

After

A hive of activity

Phummy and some students hard at work

Light

Photo by Wes

Today I ran a study skills session at one of my schools, and as I was driving there my brain felt heavy with stress and lack of motivation. In the session I talked to the Peer Educators about good places to study; the importance of finding a nice quiet space and not studying in front of the TV so they can focus. We then discussed light, and how it is important to have as much light as possible when they study. We talked about ways of ensuring they would have enough light, like studying during daylight hours whenever possible and studying near an open window. I asked how much light the Peer Educators usually have when they study, and one response stood out. ‘One candle’. We moved on to talking about when they study. I asked when they would study something they had just learned at school, meaning: would they study it before or after older material? One boy answered that he would not study it straight away, but would study it at about 8pm, because before that he has to care for his brother, clean the house and cook dinner. The others all nodded, indicating they too had significant household responsibilities that had to be taken care of before study. I asked when they prefer to study. I knew it was a somewhat pointless question; they don’t have a lot of choice. ‘1.30am’, ‘10pm’, ‘5.30am’ came the responses. Studying late into the night, by candlelight – I am continually humbled by the Peer Educators’ dedication to study, despite all the barriers in their way. I like to see the way they brighten when talking about their futures, and am encouraged by their dedication to giving themselves their best chance after graduation. I was encouraged, too, when I gave a Peer Educator a lift to an appointment after school. Here he was, the boy who studies by candlelight, laughingly singing along in my car to ‘Barbie Girl’, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I drove home feeling a little lighter.

Generosity

In South Africa it has become a common practice for us to give lifts to friends because many people in developing communities don’t own a car and therefore rely on mini-bus taxis as their form of public transport. I recall earlier in the year being warned by others not to get into the habit of it because otherwise favours will be asked of you from every angle and we neither have the time or capacity to meet many of these needs. Nevertheless, I’ve grown to love giving these lifts lately because I have learned so much about my friends’ lives during these small acts of service. One such friend is a facilitator from one of the high schools that the Schools 4 Schools program works with. As I was giving him a lift from his school in KwaNgcolosi to the shops in Hillcrest, he spoke to me of the hardships he faced growing up. He was the second of four boys in a family where his father abandoned them and his mother was forced to work in Durban to earn enough money to provide for her children. This meant that the boys were home alone and his older brother was left in charge despite still being in high school. No one would ever assume such responsibility would be easy for anyone, let alone a boy still in high school. Unable to handle the pressure or responsibility, the eldest brother found himself a girlfriend and soon abandoned his younger brothers to live with his girlfriend, start taking drugs and drop out of school. This resulted in many arguments in their home climaxing in the eldest brother burning my friend’s scarce clothes and being arrested by the police. In a poor community not unlike KwaNgcolosi, many families struggle to pay the annual R200 school fees (approx $AUD30). School uniforms are also a major struggle. My friend was no different. It was at this point, when my friend inevitably had to look after himself and his younger brothers that he was referred to Sethani Resource Centre who donated his school uniform and provided the moral support he needed to complete high school whilst caring for his siblings. He learned the value of education and saw the incredible work Sethani were doing in his community and soon found himself volunteering his time there too. Since this point, his mother has been able to return home with enough funds to see her youngest son through high school, her third son training to become a policeman in Cape Town and her second son and my dear friend become a GOLD facilitator of the high school that he himself attended less than 4 years ago. His family is still by no means rich or well off. Yet my friend uses his stipend from GOLD to pay for the education and materials for orphaned and vulnerable children in his community. He hopes one day to establish his own not-for-profit organisation to help young people in developing communities in the same way Sethani has helped him. His generosity and true kindness is nothing short of inspirational to me. But what got me the most was that since his eldest brother split with his girlfriend, unemployed and uneducated, after abandoning his entire family and burning their clothes, my friend still took him back. Generosity breaks down all barriers of separation.

Stolen

Being Wes’ last weekend in Durban, on Saturday we decided to go the beach. Grace and I headed off for a swim while Stef browsed the beachfront markets. I took along a bag, and as I put it on the sand I commented to Grace that ‘if ever we were going to get anything stolen, it would be today’. The place was packed because a section of the beach had been closed due to construction, squishing everyone into the same strip of water. When we got back from our dip, my bag was gone. I had deliberately left my wallet, phone, and everything else important in the car, so all I lost was my almost empty sunscreen, deodorant and the drawstring promotional-style bag my Dad got from a tennis tournament and gave to me. And, I realised later, my underwear. Shame. If I see a street thug in my bra I’ll take him down. Unfortunately the car keys were also gone, meaning we had to mess around for 2 hours getting the spares and driving the car home. At the time I went to the police station at the beach, and asked if it was worth reporting the theft. The policeman gave me a look that said ‘you’re kidding girl, you’ll never see that bag again’, so I didn’t bother. On reflection I decided it was actually a good idea to report it for insurance purposes, so today I trooped off to the police station. I waited for a while, but eventually decided it was going to take far too long to get through the queue, so I left it for another day. I saw at least two other people do the same. It made me wonder about crime in South Africa, something I’ve found myself doing a lot lately. I wonder how many crimes go unreported, not just in the suburbs but in every township that’s too far to travel to a police station, and in rural areas?

Videos from South Africa

A while ago Wes made this video with Muzi from Connections Zulu Choir:

The team also made this video diary after a long meeting. Our brains were a little fried…

Enjoy!

Mirrors

It is a reality of living in South Africa that often poverty stares you in the face, confronts you, and challenges you. Sadly I have become somewhat used to seeing people of all ages begging at traffic lights. Blind people, old people, women with babies, young boys. I think I am desensitised because of the sheer volume of people I have seen, each with their own tragic tale of how they came to be there. Each causes a pang in your heart, but ultimately that pang fades away and they blend into a larger mural of poverty and despair. But while on holidays I saw a man who broke me, whose face will remain etched in my mind forever. He stood at a set of lights just outside a massive complex of wealthy gated communities in Johannesburg. He looked about 50, well-dressed in jeans, a button up shirt and hat. He carried a sign with neat handwriting: ‘Two children. No work. Please help.’ He stared straight ahead, his eyes a mixture of hopelessness, fear and a certain determined dignity. He was white. It took me a while to figure out exactly why he had struck me so hard, why I struggled not to cry on the bus. Perhaps I saw familiarity in him – he could have been my own father. Perhaps because I’d just met a guy in Soweto – my age, but never knew his father, lost his mother and despite his obvious intelligence and interest in learning has never been to university. I was looking at people who were similar to me in ways, but whose lives had turned out completely differently largely due to where they happened to live. It was a reminder of our shared humanity, and the fact these people could have been my brother, my father, my friend. Or me.

Holiday Snaps

Gina's first elephants at Kruger Park

Blyde River Canyon

One of the many cute kids in Soweto

Cape Point

Stef makes friends with some felines

Wes worships the surf at Tsitsikamma

Stef and Wes on Table Mountain

Hidden Costs

One of the things we’ve done here in South Africa is run some skills sessions with Senior Peer Educators. The sessions are on things like public speaking, teamwork and careers. The sessions are generally well received and enjoyable. I’ve particularly enjoyed facilitating the careers workshop, because I have seen in each school that the information we present is new and useful. Simple skills like writing application letters and CVs, as well as how to answer questions in an interview are simply not skills the Peer Educators have been exposed to. I headed off to Qhilika today looking forward to running the careers workshop, feeling happy that I could help the Peer Educators understand some useful skills. I arrived at the school gate to find the gate shut, the carpark empty and no with no learners to be seen. This is never a good sign in Umlazi, and being stranded in a school driveway is not a good idea. So I drove down the street and doubled back, hoping in the meantime someone had opened the gate. I was greeted by the security guard and two male teachers. They told me that there had been a hijacking today (luckily nobody was hurt), and so everyone left immediately after school. They told me I should leave too, that it wasn’t safe, that ‘thugs are still around’ and that they don’t want anything to happen to me because I am ‘a guest helping the school’ (which I found rather sweet). The Peer Educators had all gone home, so there was nothing left to do but speed out of there, with one of the teachers on my tail most of the way out of Umlazi. On the way home I was thinking about crime, and how far reaching its impact actually is. A crime was committed that effectively prevented me from teaching the Peer Educators at Qhilika about finding jobs. Maybe that means they’ll suffer for it later, maybe not. But how many other opportunities do our schools miss out on because people are afraid of visiting them, how many other opportunities are missed because of crime?

Hospital

On my last work day before holidays, I was lucky enough to line up an interview with Dr Akhtar Hussain, the head of the antiretroviral program at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital, Umlazi. If ever there was going to be an experience where the extent of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis would smack me in the face, this was it. I have never seen anything like what I saw that day. The first thing I noticed was all the people; the corridors were a constant stream of people walking, limping and being wheeled past. I was shown around the crisis centre, where 5-10 rape victims a day as young as 2 months old are taken to be treated, report the crime and be tested for HIV. I was taken to the HIV clinic, where, presumably because it was raining, it was a quiet day. The line outside only extended down the length of the veranda, and not across the car park as normal. Inside, every seat in the waiting room was occupied with men and women of all ages, although I noticed the vast majority were women who looked to be in their 30s. I saw the training room, where patients are taught how to take their complicated medicines with the help of tablets taped to a piece of cardboard. I heard about the clinic’s problems with understaffing and the fact they can only treat people when they get extremely sick. And saddest of all, the paediatric clinic, where I literally had to step over mothers and their babies tightly packed into the hallways, patiently waiting their turn for treatment. On the way back to reception, a trolley was wheeled past with only a pair of anonymous, lifeless feet poking out from under a sheet. I went back to my car speechless. Later, I thought about the numbers I’d heard that day. 60-70% of people admitted to the hospital are being treated for HIV-related illnesses. In 2005, the HIV clinic treated 50-60 people. Now, they treat about 8,500. Given that the national HIV incidence is officially about 18%, and Umlazi has a population of 1.6million, I figure the clinic treats a maximum of just 3% of Umlazi’s HIV-infected population. I thought about the packed waiting room. The girl of about 13 with the sticker on her hand to indicate her place in line. The people who are too well to be treated and are turned away. About the other 97%. None of it seems fair.