On Friday March 1st, after much anticipation, we left the Village just after 12pm to head out for our community stays. After a leisurely 2.5 hour car ride, at roughly 2:30, we arrived in Welverdiend at the care center/feeding point. When we initially arrived, the children were still finishing up a lesson so we waited outside. After that we went into a room to meet the care workers and, most importantly, the children we would be staying with for the weekend. I was paired with Melissa (AUS) for the weekend, and we were told we would be staying with a 14 year old girl named Bethany. Busji went around the room pointing out the pairs from our intake, and then the children they'd be staying with. Melissa and I were told Bethany was not there because she was at home cleaning in anticipation of our arrival. It was decided that the boys would walk to their houses, because they were relatively close, and the girls would follow behind in the vehicles. We stopped at each house the boys would be staying at to drop off their groceries before being dropped off at the houses we would be staying at. Initially, they were going to walk carrying everything, but there was concern over them looking too touristy.
The first house we went to was were Dave and Russell would be staying. Honestly, the main thing I remember is how excited the gogo (grandmother) was. Then we dropped off Leyton and Joe, and then Mariah and Alicia. Then it was just Mel and I in the car with Busji and Stephen. (Simon was in the Venture with the care workers.) We drove to Bethany's house, and she was not home. After some discussion, it was decided that Mel and I would wait it out at Thelma's house. Initially, all our stuff was left in the car; I just took my notebook, pen, and water bottle. We met Thelma's sister and her one month old baby. I had actually been taken to the house before, with Alicia and Dave, by one of the care workers, after getting caught in a rainstorm on our first visit to Welverdiend. Mel and I got settled in the kitchen/dining room, since we weren't sure how long we were going to be there. Thelma offered us guava from the tree in their backyard, so we could have a snack while we watched 'The Young And The Restless' This was a surprise because I hadn't considered television in general, let alone that I would fly 8,000 miles to watch American soap operas. There was some African programming, but there was a lot of American programming. There were teasers for 'The Real Housewives', specifically, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, though that distinction wasn't actually made. They are several seasons behind, but for a moment it struck me that, of all the American programming they could get, they get 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey' which just presents an awful picture of our society.
While we were watching television, we asked Thelma lots of questions. Thelma is 29; I'm 27 and Mel is 32, so we were all of similar age. One of the first things we talked about, of course, was how one goes about finding a good man in Africa! Of course we were thrilled when we found out Thelma has a man in her life she believes will be her future husband. Right now he is off working so he can save his money, in order to be able to marry her. We didn't get much detail beyond that; discussing relationships is interesting because they are handled so differently. Africans don't really date the way we do in westernized society. To say you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend is to announce publically that you are having sex with that person, which obviously no one would do. There are not many men in the communities, as most of left to find work elsewhere. It is unusual to find couples that are actually married. Often the extent of discussion consists of saying a woman will have a male visitor, but that she doesn't have a boyfriend, etc. It is an ironic and unbeneficial lifestyle given what we know about HIV/AIDS. It is difficult to grasp coming from western culture. At home we are empowered to make decisions to better ourselves. Women are encouraged to get out of abusive relationships, and outside people are encouraged to intervene if a relationship looks suspect. Here there are not that many men present within the community, and most of the ones that are are the ones you wouldn't want to meet. It isn't ingrained in their culture to change the patterns that our present; it is very much an uphill battle. Many women know the men they are sleeping with is not faithful to them, but to ask your boyfriend to use a condom implies that you don't trust him. It's something they would never do, because more often than not, it would probably end badly, and so the cycle persists. But that is another topic...
Busie dropped off the girl she was staying with to sit with us while she and Thelma went to take care of something at one of the other houses. It was around 5pm at this point. We watched more television, I think this was about the time that 'Rhythm city' came on. Around 6pm Busji and Thelma came back to tell us that we'd just stay at Thelma's house. Bethany was not comfortable with the idea of us staying for the weekend. This was completely understandable considering she is 14, she lives alone, and is very shy. Then just try
to consider the mindset of living alone at 14, with your parents burial mounds in the backyard, doing all of the cooking and cleaning while going to school and having no income. It was of course a bit of a disappointment that we couldn't stay with her, but completely understandable at the same time. Bethany must have been so stressed over the whole situation; she had even arranged to have us stay with a neighbor the next day because she intended to go to her sister's house in a different community. This is the part of the weekend where we all said 'TIA' and go with it. TIA stands for 'this is Africa' and it is what everyone says when plans change, which it seems like they do 95% of the time here.
After we found out we'd be staying at Thelma's, we went outside to fetch water from the tap for tea. Obviously I have known about the community stay since the first week of orientation, but it didn't really sink in until we were in Thelma's backyard. I just had this moment that I thought about my life at the time, and if I ever could have predicted it would play out this way. Of course I wanted to come to South Africa and serve with Hands at Work. At this time last year, I certainly hoped it would happen. The idea of staying in a local community never really sunk in. Of course I thought it was an amazing opportunity, but it was not something that I ever thought I would be doing! Standing outside, I was struck again by how different Africa is and yet how it is still the same as home. Here we are just constantly pushed outside of our comfort zones, and constantly encouraged to be the beautiful feet:
"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!'" - Isaiah 52:7 [NIV]
Thelma's house is really her families home. She lives there with her mother, seven of her eight siblings, her son, and her sister's two children. Her father works in a different town, and usually comes home just once a month. The house is fairly large by African standards. African houses can look a different number of ways, from being an individual one room structure, to a collection of multiple one room structures, or one structure with multiple rooms. In Thelma's case, the main house consisted of a hallway, main room, and four bedrooms. The main room is the sitting area, indoor kitchen/dining room. Thelma's family had a television, refrigerator, toaster oven, electric stove top, so it looked like a fairly typical kitchen minus the sink. There was a tap in the backyard to get water for cooking and washing, along with an outdoor kitchen where we cooked over the fire. This house also had two outdoor toilets, one of which has a chicken nesting in the corner! It was definitely a more modern experience than we would have had at Bethany's house, as she does not have toilets or water on site. That evening we stewed tomatoes and chicken necks to eat with our pup for dinner, and watched television until it was time to take our bucket baths before bed. Bucket baths are self-explanatory as they are exactly what they sound like. Water is boiled, and combined with some cooler water if needed, and poured into a bucket. In this case, we had a large basin - we barely even made a mess (luckily!) It's not what most of us would consider ideal: it's an adjustment, but it is definitely doable.
Thelma, Mel, and I all slept in the same bed. I know I'm in Africa, but that first night I took the outside of the bed, and I froze! I was up by 5:30 at the latest, and only got about three hours of quality sleep because I was so cold! African women do not get tired though, they are amazing! We were all up, dressed, and doing chores by 7am! We started by sweeping the yard. Welverdiend is very arid, so there is very little grass. The neighbors got a kick of watching the white people sweeping the yard; I just don't have the African technique down quite yet... Sweeping the yard collects leaves and other debris, so the remaining sand just looks nicer. We swept the debris into multiple piles and then collected them all in our wheelbarrow, to take to the road. People dump their debris in the road in an attempt to fill in ditches. Then it was breakfast time: oatmeal, it was so good! Then it was time to feed the chickens their breakfast. After that we really got going: we swept the whole house, mopped the floors, made polish and then polished the floors. Then we got water and proceeded to wash three bins full of laundry. And we finished everything by 11am!
Life is much more social in Africa. Alicia and Mariah came over to pay us a visit and see what our house was like. Other people from the community came over just because we were white. A few came inside the yard to meet us, but others just peeked at us through the hedges. Anywhere you walk, almost everyone will say "Hi. how are you?" and "I'm fine" because that is the first English phrases they learn. We had a quick break for tea, peanut butter sandwiches and moonballs (white grapes.) When we went back outside, we started playing some games and we ended up attracting over 20 kids. We played catch with tennis balls and then kicked around a soccer ball. Then we got into 'Stella Ella Ola" (a hand clapping game), 'Vasolina', 'Bananas of the World', the limbo, and we taught them 'the Hokey Pokey."
\It was really fun, but Pinky came over to meet Thelma to go visit the boys, and by this time it was already 1:30 in the afternoon. We went inside for another bucket bath, and got ready.
First we went to visit the boys and their families, which involved watching Dave lose at some sort of card game. (Not that I would have had anymore luck, mind you!) We also stopped over to see Alicia and Mariah. Finally, we went to go meet Bethany. For the first ten minutes, Bethany didn't even come outside. We met two of her sisters and two friends, but Bethany is quite shy. Bethany's sister shared with the care workers that she was supposed to receive a grant from the government to help her take care of her sister. She went on to share that when she had traveled to retrieve it the day before, she was told they had nothing for her. Bethany's sister works in a different community as well, so she predominantly lives alone. It was heartbreaking to meet Bethany because you can see how damaged she is, while at the same time knowing we are only seeing a glimpse of how much pain she has experienced. She was desperately shy and struggled to even make eye contact. She has had to bear far more than the average 14 year old; it is truly heartbreaking.
We returned to the house and had to prepare dinner. That evening, our dinner was shredded cabbage and carrots, served with tomatoes and pilchards, and of course pup! While we were preparing food in the outdoor kitchen, we saw a woman from the community dressed in a traditional grass skirt and was going dancing. We ate dinner while watching 'MacGyver', of all things. Then it was time for our third bucket bath of the day, before climbing into bed. This time I took the middle, and it was much more comfortable!
The next morning I woke up at 5:30 again, but feeling more well-rested. Again, we got ready, washed and swept the house. We went to Thelma's Church: The Welverdiend Creche which was started by Swiss Mission for Refugees. It is a Presbyterian Church, but make no mistake: they are not part of the frozen chosen! There were about 50 people in attendance, and, including the pastor, only three of them were men. Everyone else was women and children. The scripture passages for the day were in Acts 16: 25-(?) and Luke 1: 26-38. We sang a lot of songs! There are only a handful of songs that I know well enough to sing the majority of the words to. One of my favorites is a song with hand motions; I have to get a copy of the lyrics from someone before I come back home. Being the only white people in attendance, it was obvious that we were visitors. We had to dance our way to the front of the room to introduce ourselves to everyone; later we were used to illustrate the sermon! (The theme being that God sends us to do His work and nothing is impossible with God.) All together, the Church service lasted three hours - but it was very cool, and very high energy! They even sang 'Come Though Almighty King' and 'What A Friend We Have In Jesus' in Tsongan! After that, there is an upcoming youth conference, so we stayed for a meeting (that lasted about 30 minutes) after the service concluded because Thelma was involved.
Then it was time to walk back to Thelma's house and eat lunch. We had prepared the rice before going to Church, and we ate that with the most amazing chicken! After that, we were so full that we insisted on taking a nap! Of course, once we were resting, Stephen and Busji came over to check on us... After they woke us up, we were fine. We cooked more chicken and pup for dinner. I like pup, and I like most African dishes; but I do not like cooking over an open wood fire. The smoke is so thick that it burns your eyes and you can barely see.
The next morning was our last chunk of time with Thelma. We got up, swept the yard and the house, went to the store, ate our breakfast and drank tea. Then it was time to walk to the care center. We were late, ironically we were the only ones who stayed with a care worker and we were the only ones who were late; according to Busji, this means we are officially on African time. The care workers were not prepared to do home visits, so we spent some time helping them break soil and do some landscaping details. We also swept, mopped, and polished the rooms in the care center themselves. After that, we had a quick debrief and said our goodbyes and climbed back into the vehicles for the care ride home.
Here are pictures of me with the whole family, and with Mel and Thelma:
So that is at least the highlights from my community stay. Again, I'm not sure how well communicated it was but I'm still a little in shock after the amazing day we had today! I woke up at 4am ready to go: I worked on this blog, and I watched the sun rise, before taking care of a few things. David Bentley took some of us into Nelspruit. I originally wanted to get my tragus pierced, but they couldn't do it at Mopani so we just got our cartilage pierced instead, but Bentley was able to take me somewhere to get my tragus pierced, which I've wanted to get for years. Then back at the Village, we had a Hands at Work Amazing Race put on by Kristi and it was amazing! We were put into four person teams (8 teams total and I believe 10 challenges) and were running all over campus! It was so, so much fun but I am exhausted!
Everyone showing our team spirit! You can see me with the blue team on the right. This is before we started, you can tell mostly because we are all dry and still covered in face paint. [We would later be covered in soap suds from the slip and slide challenge.] We all ate dinner together: we had pizza, which was another challenge, and we watched photos and videos from the event. After dinner was when we all found out about our placements. I honestly had no expectations about my placement after orientation. I am here for the shortest duration in our intake, so I saw it going 50/50 either way in terms of whether to send me out or keep me in South Africa. Jen discussed what they were thinking, and that I could look into flights, but also that I could leave as soon as Tuesday. That would mean: a. I am leaving before orientation is even finished, b. I am the first to leave out of our intake group and c. I only have two days to get my stuff together. Jen wasn't exactly sure how I would take the news, but honestly I'm not be overly stressed out by the idea of leaving on Tuesday. I don't even have a full load of laundry to do. I have six items I would have to buy, here or in Zambia, but otherwise I'm set. Once I buy a plane ticket of course... I've just been here in South Africa a month, as of yesterday, so the idea of leaving to spend a month in another country still boggles my mind! It's crazy, and I'm not sure I've entirely wrapped my head around it yet, but I'm so excited! I'll be going to Kitwe, to work with Byron and Diane. That's exciting because, aside from Marj and George, Byron was the first person I met at the Village! I'm discussing details tomorrow with Lynn to see if I would be able to get on the same flight to Zambia. We'll see what happens. I will probably be staying in Kitwe by myself, but I'm told it's very safe. Everyone has also told me how beautiful it is there; I'm very excited to see it! I'm also told that it is a much different image of the poor. That the poor there have even less than the poor here, which is a hard idea to wrap my head around having not experienced it yet.
I don't want to ruin the excitement for anyone else so I won't tell you who is being sent where just yet. I will tell you that I'll be one of the four in our intake who are being sent to Zambia; the other three are staying at the farm which is about an hour from Kitwe. There are also two people being sent to Malawi, one person is being sent to Zimbabwe, and one person is staying in South Africa. It's amazing how much one conversation can change everything! For the most part, we didn't really discuss where we would want to go but it all worked out. I think everyone is thrilled with their placements. The person placed in South Africa was actually hoping to stay here, rather than going somewhere new and starting all over. I know I'm ecstatic to be going to Zambia! Now I just have to sort out details, and I will blog again when I know more concrete details!
Thanks for praying! If you could, keep all eight of us in your prayers as we all sort out what the next phase looks like. Especially for the seven of us who will be purchasing flights, packing up our rooms and settling into our new homes within the next few weeks!
I don't want to ruin the excitement for anyone else so I won't tell you who is being sent where just yet. I will tell you that I'll be one of the four in our intake who are being sent to Zambia; the other three are staying at the farm which is about an hour from Kitwe. There are also two people being sent to Malawi, one person is being sent to Zimbabwe, and one person is staying in South Africa. It's amazing how much one conversation can change everything! For the most part, we didn't really discuss where we would want to go but it all worked out. I think everyone is thrilled with their placements. The person placed in South Africa was actually hoping to stay here, rather than going somewhere new and starting all over. I know I'm ecstatic to be going to Zambia! Now I just have to sort out details, and I will blog again when I know more concrete details!
Thanks for praying! If you could, keep all eight of us in your prayers as we all sort out what the next phase looks like. Especially for the seven of us who will be purchasing flights, packing up our rooms and settling into our new homes within the next few weeks!
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